Marijuana Business Magazine March 2020

Marijuana Business Magazine | March 2020 86 What advice would you give other retailers to help opening day go as smoothly as possible? Decide what you’re going to do and message it out as vigorously and as early as possible, because at the end of the day, a certain percentage of people are going to be unhappy, and they’re going to express themselves (online). But the best thing you can do is clearly message out whatever decisions you’ve made. What should retailers be wary of as potential problems on opening day? Knowing ahead of time how many customers you can handle per hour. Determine beforehand at what point you are going to cut off the line, so you don’t have people waiting, hoping to get in, and suddenly it’s 9 p.m. and you’re one hour away from being legally required to close, with hundreds of people still in line. You’re going to have to tell people, “I’m sorry you’ve been here four hours, but we simply cannot legally serve you.” Make a decision that’s realistic, stick to it, and make sure you communicate clearly. Do you have any tips on what types of products to stock—or howmuch—to avoid shortages? You’re talking Illinois here. We stock everything anyone will sell us. Everyone loves more flower than we’re going to be able to buy from cultivators for 18 months at a minimum, because (the market is) so constrained. The reality is that when people come in and we don’t have flower, they’re predominantly going to go with vape cartridges or edibles. Flower is available for recreational customers—but in limited quantities until supply starts to meet demand. The reality is, a good number of recreational customers don’t have a hard time finding flower on the black market but have a hard time finding reliable and quality cartridges, edibles and concentrates. NAME Jeremy Unruh POSITION Director of public and regulatory affairs COMPANY PharmaCann LOCATIONS Arlington Heights, North Aurora, Ottawa and Romeoville What was your biggest win on opening day? Our biggest win was we had no unanticipated problems. What could have gone better? There were certainly people who were not as happy with the rollout as we would have liked, people who had to stand outside for a long time, or people who had preordered something and then, when they got to the front of the line, it wasn’t available. That menu management probably could have been done a little bit better, but by and large, there were a lot of happy people on Jan. 1. Communicating among the various operators could have been done better, because we had and are having wholesale problems, but they were problems that were anticipated. What advice would you give other retailers to help opening day go as smoothly as possible? Be a good neighbor. Spend time with your neighbors, spend time with your host communities—first responders and the city-services people—to make sure that you set expectations and anticipate problems and come up with a plan for addressing those problems as early as you possibly can. And continue to work with your neighbors up to Day One—and, probably more importantly, after Day One. What should retailers be wary of as potential problems on opening day? Staffing. Particularly in Illinois, that was difficult, because our employees have to be fingerprint-checked by the state, and the state requires several weeks to do that. So there’s a really big lag time—not just to hire people but also to get them comfortable with your point-of-sale sys- tem and with the customer-flow issues you’re going to experience. Customer flow is another one. It’s queuing, it’s parking, it’s traffic flow. Menu-manage- ment is important, so you can replace items as they sell out. Cross-functioning support and creating emergency plans are really important. Do you have any tips on what types of products to stock—or howmuch—to avoid shortages? As much as possible. Be prepared to run out, and be prepared to manage the expectation that there will be product shortages. Make sure everybody knows that. It’s all about dry flower here in Illinois. When people purchase their first cannabis product, they want to get the old school, the original. For somebody who hasn’t been that exposed to cannabis for two decades, the notion of a vape pen is crazy. Edibles are very attractive, too, but (most popular are) dried flower and premium eighths. OPENING DAY LESSONS