Today we get to meet Lisa Burke and Paris Caldwell. They are the director of retail and operations for Redi, a Massachusetts dispensary located outside of Boston. We had a fireside chat about all that goes into operating a dispensary, from the challenges of marketing tactics, brands, tech stack, store design, layout, and plans. It was interesting to peek into their day-to-day operations and get an inside look at what it takes to operate a dispensary in Massachusetts. Let’s meet Lisa and Paris.

Please tell us about your roles at Redi.

Lisa: Sure. So, I’m the director of retail. So I oversee a lot here in the store, from retail to relationships to customer interactions, working with staff operations, wholesale, just making sure that it’s a fine-tuned machine at the end of the day. 

Paris: I’m in operations. I like to deal with all of the items on the back end, all the background noise setting up contracts and vendors, the base blocks of getting everything going, managing the wholesale products that come into the store, and making sure everything’s running okay for the day-to-day operations. 

How do you choose brands to sell in the store? Do you white-label? Does Redi have a product line? 

Lisa: Like most things in life, it starts with building relationships, making phone calls, introducing yourself, and finding out if you have common likes, interests, and goals. Here at Redi, it’s easy to be like everybody else, and we want to be different. We never wanted to sell what every other dispensary was selling. So to the extent that we can get any exclusivity, we jump on it, assuming we like the product and the people. So I think that’s where it starts. 

Paris: We want to offer unique products and strains of certain items. We can do that by working with smaller businesses that are locally owned and family-run businesses as well. And it just goes with our mission of what we’re doing as a locally owned and operated dispensary.

And your selection is limited to what is produced within your state. Who are your customers?

Lisa: Anybody that is interested in cannabis. Our customer base runs the gamut. I was surprised at the demographic of people coming into the store- they were 55 to 80 years old, not in their twenties like I thought they would be.

What consumption methods are the most popular at Redi?

Paris: Flower is the top category people are familiar with and already know. People who are returning to cannabis are looking for it. It’s also the building block for every other product you find in the store. Next to smokeable flower, I definitely would say edibles. They have burst in the past couple of years in Massachusetts. We started with the simple gummies and chocolates and the typical things you would find. Now we see a variety of beverages, seltzers, and tonics. The amount of creativity that manufacturers use to infuse products seems never-ending. And I would say for the people dipping their toes into cannabis for healing or medical issues, go for tinctures. 

The demand across the country seems to be for high THC and at a low cost. Is this true in Redi?

It’s not uncommon for someone to ask for our highest-testing flower. And we do have a lot of products that cater to those customers. We try to get people familiar with flowers that might not have a high THC percentage but have other properties such as great terpenes and compounds that create a unique psychoactive effect from that product. 

There’s still so much education needed. Do you find that people come into the dispensary knowing which brands they want? Are they relying on the budtenders to guide them? Are brands starting to build brand recognition?

I think it depends on the cannabis education level of the person coming in. We offer consultations, and we’re one of the few adult-use dispensaries that do. We educate on product selection for the person who might not be familiar with the brands and products on our shelves. We didn’t realize how popular these would be. And it turns out we have about 25 to 30 consultations on average scheduled a month. These are sit-down sessions with customers coming through the door who are nervous about taking edibles, or maybe they’re returning to cannabis, or they already use cannabis, but they’re looking for something different. 

It’s challenging for brands to become household names in preparation for national legalization. I always make a point of visiting a dispensary in other states. So I’m not familiar with the brands in those states. But if you stay within your state and buy regularly, you will become familiar with the brands.

Is Redi planning on introducing a product line?

We will do some white labeling, but we’re currently vetting the cultivation facilities we want to work with. It also has to be the best product out there for us to put our name behind.

redi dispensary website design

You mentioned you were looking for ways to differentiate your store. Maybe customizing a product to fill a hole in the marketplace is the way to stand out. What are the best ways for brands to support sales in the store? 

Pop-ups are so popular in cannabis right now, and they didn’t exist two years ago. But now we have brands that come in and set up a table and give out samples (non-infused) of their items that almost double sales that day. Customers love engaging with the brands, and it keeps that energy level up in the store.

I love the design of your store. It looks like it has a great customer experience. 

Lisa: We are constantly changing the interior and flow of the store.

What mistakes do you see brands making with their packaging?

Lisa: Accessibility to the consumer. When brands are more transparent and educated through marketing, it helps brands, but it hurts when it’s absent. Some brands don’t provide information about their product on their website that customers can refer to. There is a lack of information supplied to budtenders who are supposed to be selling that product, making people a little bit warier.

Another problem is that some brands are over-child-proofing their packaging and making it difficult to open without biting, chewing, or cutting open packaging, which can turn somebody off the product. But, this seems to be improving over time. 

Some companies are good at one or two things and not good at other things, and they pressure us to carry all their products. Stick to what you are good at.

Aside from the brand pop-ups, are there other marketing tactics that you valuable and effective? 

Paris: Google My Business is our best friend. As always, we see a lot of views coming from there. We try to get on social media as much as possible, but that is very limiting. 

We use a marketing software called Alpine HQ that allows people to subscribe for updates, enabling us to tailor messages to individual users. So if you come in here, and you’re only purchasing flower, the only notifications you will get are about that flower, when a new flower comes in, special prices on that flower, etc. 

How do you announce product drops? Social media or emails?

Paris: Alpine HQ tracks conversions to tell us what works and what doesn’t. We’ve noticed something as simple as adding an image of the product increases conversions. If I add our email and phone number and ask customers to contact us with questions about our product also improves conversions.

What is your tech infrastructure? 

Paris: Technology in the cannabis industry is our most consistent challenge, and to our surprise, it’s one of the most undeveloped aspects of the industry. At this point, there are still very few points of sale options to select from, and they all have their flaws. For example, outages are typical from a well-known point-of-sale service. They’ve been in Massachusetts for years now, and you think they’d be able to minimize this. 

Lisa: More than once, we have lost connection at four or five o’clock on a Friday to do a software update when the store is jammed, and the system shuts down, forcing us to do cash only, and it can last anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour. It causes chaos.

What is the future for consumption lounges in Massachusetts?

Lisa: The Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) in Massachusetts thinks there is still much work to be done before consumption lounge licenses will be available.

Are you partners with delivery services? I think Massachusetts requires dispensaries to work with social equity delivery services for the next two years.

Lisa: Yes, you got it. We’re paired with Zip Run, but they are still working on getting their license. So it’s primarily a waiting game with the Cannabis Control Council right now. 

Are you hearing a significant demand from your customers for delivery?

Paris: There isn’t a lot of demand for delivery. But I think once it’s available, people will start to consider it as another option.

What are the biggest challenges you faced opening a dispensary? What would you say if someone came to you and said, I want to open a dispensary?

Lisa: I would say how much money do you have? I’ve heard horror stories of people who have been waiting to get open for years. And in those years, they’re paying for zoning fees, permit fees, or rent on buildings. That’s a huge challenge. 

Licensing is another part of it, making sure you have all the checks and requirements for the CCC. It’s synchronizing all the moving parts. And then you have the community that may not want a dispensary in their neighborhood. It’s undoubtedly multi-layered.

Last question. What are the plans for Redi?

Lisa: We are getting ready to open our second store and have been granted provisional licensing and have a meeting this afternoon to talk about the build-out. And then the third location is in the Fenway Park area in a high-traffic location. It should be easier the second time around if we learn from our mistakes, right?

Do you use billboards to market Redi?

Advertising is so limited in Massachusetts for cannabis companies. And one of those requirements is that a large percentage of people viewing your billboard must be 21 plus. Our billboard increased foot traffic dramatically. So, we will probably continue to do so.

Article by Pam Chmiel. You can listen to this interview on our podcast, The Mary Jane Society.

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