Cannabis dispensary design has evolved steadily over the years, meeting consumer needs as they too grow more sophisticated and nuanced. A nicely laid-out store will facilitate strong interactions with customers, leading to increased profits for your business.

As more state markets come online in the U.S.—and as other markets continue to mature at a rapid clip—cannabis retailers will find new trends and new merchandising tactics to help them along.

Nick Jack, chief retail officer at Diego Pellicer-Colorado, explains how his team considers design and atmosphere in its dispensaries.

Cannabis Dispensary: What kind of considerations is your team thinking about when they plan their store design that maybe other dispensaries might be missing?

Nick Jack: For us, we're trying to cultivate a familiar experience, a familiar retail shopping experience. A lot of the cannabis dispensaries don't provide a familiar retail shopping experience, and, for Diego Pellicer, we're really trying to capture a much broader demographic of people that previously weren't consuming cannabis and are open to trying it. For us, a big part of our success is being able to design a store that that provides a familiar retail shopping experience for our guests.

We touch on all the different touch points—from the initial greet to the merchandising to the customer service, down to the final point of sale at the registers. We just try and streamline everything to be as efficient as we possibly can. A lot of dispensaries, you get down to the register, so to speak, and it's a whole processes and procedure in itself—versus when you're just at a Nike or something in the mall, it’s just ‘get out your card and check out.’

CD: In terms of having that discussion and planning how that experience will work in your store, what are some good ways that that a business could go about doing that? Is that just having candid conversations, or is it setting specific goals?

NJ: It’s certainly both—having candid conversations and setting specific goals. A lot of it has to do with competitive analysis, as well. It’s really as simple as providing an experience for these guys that that they're used to, that they're familiar with.

I use my mom all the time for a good example; I’ve been in the cannabis industry for eight years now, and Diego Pellicer was the first dispensary that she came in and experienced for herself. And the reason we were able to do that [was that] we provided a comfortable atmosphere: We've got friendly employees, we don't have bars on our windows, we don't have a security guard with a gun.

It's normalized. We professionalize the industry with our retail experience. And we compare it to anything else, like a Tiffany's or a Nordstrom or whatever people are familiar shopping at.

CD: How much crossover should a dispensary maintain in terms of product categories and displays?

NJ: None, for us. We merchandise our entire store basically by sector. We have concentrates, we have CBD and lifestyle, we have liquid edibles, we have chocolates, we have confections and then we have baked goods—all separate from our flower. The only time I'll really cross-merchandise will be on a potential upsell opportunity. For example, selling a torch next to some concentrate.

We don't really overlap with our merchandising at all. A lot of dispensaries do, and it makes it really confusing for the consumer. Our consumer journey is a lot more friendly, and we kind of guide them through that that whole process.

CD: You mentioned the consumer journey just now and we’ve talked about consumers who are new to cannabis. How does the traffic flow of a store and the atmosphere of a store affect actual conversations with staff members and budtenders? Are you guys setting up the store in a way that customer conversations can happen more freely?

NJ: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the way we merchandise and the design of our store really helps with that. When you come in, it's an initial greet—and we greet you just like you get greeted at an Apple store, so to speak. We’re not behind-the-counter budtenders, and our sales employees are not behind the counter. They’re on the floor with you and they're walking the floor with you. They will browse the display cases with you, and as you have any questions [they] will help kind of guide you to the right section of the store.

Our staff is a big part of our success as well. We’re all very professional; they're all extremely well educated. When you come in and you're a new cannabis consumer, we're going to ask you what you're in for [and] what you're trying to alleviate or what you're trying to experience. We're fortunate enough that most of our vendors use our stores as a flagship store. We have all the best displays from all of the most current vendors. We carry every product the cannabis industry has to offer. Truly, we have something for everybody. The layout of our store and how we guide you through that process—or quite literally walk you through that process—make it very easy for the conversations between our budtenders and new and returning customers to generate sales for us.

CD: The industry is normalizing and there are new customers coming in each day. Are there broad trends that you've been noticing in the last maybe six months or so in terms of retail stores, new stores in the East Coast, new stores anywhere else where they really reflect that normalization?

NJ: Good question. The industry is changing so rapidly. If I were to say there was one thing that's really kind of trending that normalizes the industry,

I think, honestly, it would just be the whole process and procedure that you're supposed to go through. Five years ago, you walk into a dispensary and it's kind of like going through TSA. That’s what it felt like. Now, a lot of these dispensaries are really just trying to streamline their operations so that these people can be in, they can be out. There's not a 15-minute wait in the lobby anymore. That's huge for us—to be able to come in, have somebody present their ID, and then go right to the sales floor, rather than sitting in some sort of medicinal-feeling lobby. That’s huge.

