Marijuana Business Magazine May-June 2020

Marijuana Business Magazine | May-June 2020 62 6-foot distance from others. They also eliminated the use of waiting rooms and asked customers to wait their turns outside. Still other companies asked employees to check their temperatures before shifts. Curbside Pickup: Marijuana businesses in some states, with the blessing of regulators, took online ordering a step further by offering curbside pickup so customers wouldn’t have to enter stores. Consumers would order online and then pick up purchases in a store parking lot or another designated area. Procedures such as ID checks were strictly followed, as were safety measures including physical distancing and the use of gloves for employees working on curbside pickups. Drive-Thru Services: A small but notable number of stores offered drive- thru options. Edgewater, Maryland-based Mana Supply Co. spent about $100,000 converting a former bank drive-thru into a secure drive-thru for its dispensary. In the case of Mana Supply, custom- ers order ahead of time. When they arrive at the dispensary, consumers press a button on a call box that enables them to show identification cards via video. After they’re cleared, customers drive into the bay, a high-speed garage door closes behind them and they push a button on a second call box to have their IDs checked again. The employ- ee then puts the prefilled order into a drawer and slides it out. Online Ordering: To make delivery orders and curbside pickups easier to transact, many stores began offering—and often requiring— orders to be placed online. For example, Aaron Varney, director of Seattle-area cannabis retailer Dockside Cannabis, said his company encouraged customers to purchase products online by offering users a 10% discount. Preordering online streamlines the process so customers spend less time in the store, Varney said. Communicating with Consumers and the Public: During the pandemic, communicating with customers has been critical for safety and business reasons. Measures include: • Posting signs outside and inside stores reminding people to keep physical distance. These efforts show consumers and regulators that you take safety seriously. • Using social media to let customers know about policy changes, such as closing sales floors and switching to curbside and delivery options. Keeping customers informed saves them wasted trips to your location. Businesses found other creative ways to communicate important information to customers, such as text messages to notify them when pickup orders were ready, which enabled customers to wait in their cars rather than spending time in the store. When texts failed, a few creative companies secured FM transmitters to reach consumers through their car radios. Communicating with Employees: In times of crisis, communicating with employees about important changes in operations and procedures is critical. In fact, executives recommend “overcommunication.” Charlie Bachtel, CEO at Chicago- based Cresco Labs, believes in that approach. In mid-March, Bachtel sent companywide emails with updates every day. The next week, he sent emails Monday and Friday; on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, companywide emails were sent by other senior executives. Lower-level managers also communicated frequently with employees. Technology/Drones: Green Cross CBD in Austin, Texas, started a drone delivery service to adhere to physical-distancing measures that help slow the spread of the coronavirus. John Elmore, the company’s owner, told Austin TV station KTBC that he was sterilizing products and offering curbside pickup before he started drone deliveries. “I was able to come up with a contraption where I could drop it in your front yard and unlatch and just take off,” Elmore said. “The drone can hold up to 2 pounds safely,” he added. “I don’t like to exceed that. …That’s quite a bit of CBD.” New Ways to Roll: As the ultimate sharable consumption medium, pre-rolls seemed destined to take a sales hit during the pandemic. Pre- rolls generally have come in 1-gram sizes. But even before the coronavirus pandemic, pre-roll manufacturers increasingly were producing half-gram and even quarter-gram pre-rolls that could be consumed individually and not shared. During the pandemic, pre-roll makers accelerated the pivot to smaller pre-rolls. Arizona-based Huxton, for example, makes only half-gram pre-rolls, which it sells in tins of seven. “The convenience was initially intended as the ideal grab-and-go product,” Huxton co-founder Chelsea Johnson said. “In today’s climate, it’s been a great substitute for the traditional puff, puff, pass.” Old Pal, a California cannabis brand that sells pouches of pre-ground flower complete with hemp rolling papers and crutches, also had to change its tone. While Old Pal hasn’t jettisoned its “Cannabis is Communal” mantra, its new messaging on Instagram touts “coming together by staying apart” and “Puff, puff, don’t pass.” – Additional reporting by Laura Drotleff, Margaret Jackson and Bart Schaneman Pandemic Pivot