From sex toys and flavored condoms to board games and ball bearings
As I have been saying lately, while I was previously hesitant to offer business advice to people with much more money and management experience than me, I am no longer so shy. With dispensaries frequently closing from the Berkshires to Boston, there’s basically nothing to lose from hearing me out. I initially figured that people lining up to invest millions of dollars would have clever business plans to distinguish themselves from competitors, but it is now clear that is not the case.
Last month, I posted on social media that a friend of mine who owns a record store is looking to expand into dispensaries with pop-up kiosks. The response was overwhelming, with more than a dozen owners and consultants trying to court him. That’s great, but it’s also insane that selling music at a pot shop is a novel idea. So considering the dearth of creativity in the Mass industry, here are five concepts that struggling stores ought to consider.
The Sexy Sativa (An erotic pot shop)
The concept is simple for this one: imagine one of those Amazing stores that have only somehow grown larger with endless free web porn, but that also sells weed. Plus sex toys, leather goods, condoms galore, anything your dirty mind can think of. Don’t knock it ’til you try it. Just let us know when you file your application, because we want to be there when you present the concept to your local board of aldermen.
Marijuana: The Gathering (Bud and board games)
This one is almost too obvious. We hear all the time from dispensary owners and managers who have difficulty getting people to hang out. Unless they’re giving away free food truck burritos or paying an entertainer, customers are quickly in and out. Meanwhile, there’s a reliable community of table game enthusiasts who flock to hobby shops for D&D at all hours. And guess what: a lot of them smoke weed.
This could be a possible profitable model for a social consumption establishment, probably under the hospitality class. But it doesn’t have to be; a comfortable corner in a wizard-friendly neighborhood weed store with a display of cool card games and dice would be enough to set a place apart from others.
Kicks + Flips (Dispensary skate shop)
Imagine walking into a dispensary with a half pipe. Or where people are skating an obstacle course. Actually you don’t have to imagine, just check out the pictures from the Not Finna S.K.A.T.E. competitions held at New Dia these past few years. Hundreds of onlookers filled the Lansdowne weed mall, showing that skating’s a potential draw for the cannabis demo. Even without a full ramp, a significant selection of boards, gear, and clothing would attract a subculture that’s known to burn a thing or two.
Weed And Read (New weed, used books)
There are some ideas that I came up with for this column that would test the limits of what could probably be done per state cannabis regulations. But this one could exist outside of any regulations and cost literally little to nothing at all, because it involves giving out free books to customers. Think of it like one of those give-a-book take-a-book yard boxes, but instead of just a few crappy novels and magazines, you have a sweet rotating trove of thousands.
Keep it simple: customers can get store credit for select old books, while every purchase gets you a free book. Easily sourced, as a bonus it would make fabulous fodder for social media, with budtenders pairing choice hardcovers with select strains, and so on. Get some comfortable couches with arm rests for reading, a few cultivars names for authors (Walt Weedman, etc.) and you have a dispensary worth writing home about.
Silver Ball Haze (Cannabis and pinball)
Again, it is a frequent refrain of dispensary owners that they want people to stick around more, kind of like the way the characters on Friends don’t work and simply loiter at a coffee shop all day. Some stores even have video game consoles and couches for people to sit on. The problem with this approach though is that people already have those systems at home, where they can smoke weed. So why would they sit around in your dispensary to play Super Mario? Especially after all those years of having to play with their legacy dealers every time they stopped by for an eighth.
However, most people don’t have pinball or arcade games in their houses and apartments. To that point, it’s remarkable what five or ten machines would do for a dispensary, from attracting people who would drive more than an hour out of their way to play certain games, to the meetup opportunities. Even just one or two pinball machines would be a draw, or at least separate your store from all the others. Because if you’re not trying to stand out on the Mass weed map, you might as well just save your quarters and quit playing the game now.
