Cannabis producers can now provide samples to cannabis stores in BC!
This was announced by David Brown from StratCann in his article from September 25th, 2024.
https://stratcann.com/news/cannabis-producers-can-now-provide-samples-to-cannabis-stores-in-bc/
With this regulatory change, cannabis retail store licensees and their employees can now accept samples from licensed producers.
While this initially seems like great news, there are a lot of headaches for licensed producers that come with these new regulations.
Giving out a cannabis sample isn’t quite as easy as one may think, and the ROI of providing a sample to a retail cannabis store is quite questionable at this stage.
This blog post will introduce you to the new sampling rules and discuss how to maximize the ROI of your cannabis samples.
What are the challenges with Sampling?
To learn more about the current sampling regulations and the work that the Licensed Producers have to put in to get their samples into the hands of the budtenders, we’ve interviewed Gemma Hayes, the Head of Operations and order fulfillment at Sweetgrass Organic Cannabis.
In our conversation, Gemma highlighted that besides all of the bookkeeping - as highlighted in this StratCann article - and the manual labour of preparing the samples by excise stamping and packaging them, the most challenging step is getting their samples into the hands of the budtenders.
“We’ve been really excited about the sampling program but found it challenging to keep our labour costs low as we’re only a medium-sized micro with no sales rep on the ground to deploy these samples at the stores,” said Gemma and added, “also, by restricting the reps from handing out not more than 3.5 g’s of flower or 1 g of concentrate per store, it’s been challenging to give the budtenders a good representation and proper variety of what our products are like.”
Still, as a former legacy producer, Sweetgrass is used to navigating the complexities and challenges of the cannabis industry and has found an innovative way to reduce its costs and increase its impact when it comes to giving out samples.
“One way we discovered to give out samples without a rep is by making them available for stores to order on our direct delivery site,” explained Gemma before emphasizing, “We got the thumbs up for this workaround by the LDB, who said that we can ship more than 3.5 g’s of samples to a store as long as it’s not distributed by a sales rep.”
So, if you’re a cannabis store that’s interested in trying Sweetgrass’s products, you can head to their direct delivery site to order samples and even get free samples with your first direct delivery order or for display jars and PK sessions. However, sample preparation and distribution are only the first challenges of the new sampling program. The challenge that comes right afterwards is to capture an actual ROI from your product samples.
Where’s the ROI in cannabis samples?
When we asked Gemma about the current outcomes of the sampling program, she said, “It doesn’t feel like a lot, to be honest. Even after following up with the stores.”
I then asked her what their hopes at Sweetgrass would be regarding the sampling feedback.
She answered that they would hope to:
- Empower budtenders to sell their products with confidence
- Show how craft is different from other products by letting the product speak for itself
- Build brand trust through consistent sampling
- Get proper feedback to develop products
- Have a streamlined feedback process instead of relying on Reddit & Social Media reviews
After we talked about their hopes for the sampling outcomes, I wanted to know more about what’s actually going on with the feedback they currently get from their stores, and Gemma told me the following:
“The reality is that most often, we don’t get any feedback at all, and if we do, it’s mostly not concrete enough to be actually valuable for us. Don’t get me wrong, any feedback is better than no feedback, but even when someone tells us, ‘Your product is awesome!’ we still don’t know what that actually means and how to track the sample’s impact on the sales and interactions of the budtenders. At the end of the day, sampling is intended to improve the sales abilities of a budtender, but how do you track that? With the lack of a proper feedback mechanism, it feels like producers are just expected to be vending machines for cannabis to get budtenders stoned for free. Some companies are okay with that, but we believe that you actually devalue your product if you just become known for giving it all out for free, and that’s not viable for craft cannabis companies like us. Craft is different. We want to educate. We want someone to take the time to really evaluate our products. We want their honest feedback because we know that is how our products will stand out and how we can keep working on improving our portfolio.”
With that insightful statement, Gemma told me everything I had already expected based on my previous experience in the cannabis industry, where I could constantly observe a lack of adequate product feedback and meaningful exchanges between stores and producers.
However, at the same time, I got excited about Gemma's honest perspective, as these problems are part of the many reasons why we have worked relentlessly on developing our Sensemillier Grading Platform, which is now also in use by producers like Sweetgrass Organic Cannabis to change the Sampling Game forever.
How to maximize the ROI of your samples
“So, Gemma, now that we talked about all the challenges and the lack of ROI with the past sampling process, what excites you about working with us to change the Sampling Game for the better?” I asked.
“So, first of all, I love how you are incorporating mindfulness into your evaluation process and how your Grading Platform can help us see the full circle where we hit all of the industry, from us as the LP to the retailers and all the way to the consumers. Getting relevant feedback about what everyone thinks of our products will help us immensely in being a forefront top-shelf craft cannabis company,” Gemma answered with a smile on her face and continued, “We really want to educate the market and customers. Still, there’s only so much we can do as a small craft producer. We can’t take on the responsibility of educating the entire market by ourselves, which is why we are excited to partner with thought-leading educators like Sensemillier. Everyone wins when this industry becomes more educated.”
Gemma highlighted something very important here, which is that “Everyone wins when this industry becomes more educated,” and we couldn’t agree more.
The ROI of your samples doesn’t only get maximized by getting relevant product feedback through a streamlined grading process that allows you to track who has taken the time to evaluate your samples, but it’s especially maximized by creating a pathway that will enable the entire industry to become more educated by collecting this vital feedback for you.
As a result, the consumers will learn what product quality is and how to shop for quality products.
The budtenders will increase their product knowledge and educational skills and be able to talk about your products in much more detail to increase your sales.
Finally, you, the producer, will now get relevant product information and be able to track your sampling efforts to achieve a better ROI on your samples by allowing you to improve your products and relationships.
Are you curious about testing our Grading Platform for your own sampling program?
Sign up for the Pro Plan today and take your sampling ROI to new heights, or click here to book a live demo with us.
We look forward to supporting you and working together to take this industry to the next level.
Lastly, we want to thank Gemma and Sweetgrass for their continuous support and the great interview.