🎰 Kiosks and those who love them

As the cannabis retail industry determines best practices to service its shoppers, we have tried a lot of different models:

• Traditional retail storefront

• Delivery-only, no storefront

• Mall storefronts with no actual product, but with an off-site delivery license

• Adult Disneyland style, lots of screens and huge retail spaces

• Consumption lounges

• Drive-thru!

You get the point.

All of these models - and the nuances in the shopping journey associated with each - are intended to satisfy specific usage occasions from specific consumer groups.

Today, I’d like to focus on one in-store solution that cannabis has borrowed from traditional retail: the kiosk.

🛒 Convenience and curation

Shoppers make decisions based on a huge number of variables: price, brand, social proof, form factor, etc. - but for the purposes of this conversation, let’s focus on two biggies: convenience and curation.

By convenience, I mean the way in which a customer collects their goods. The most common fulfillment methods are pickup (“curbside” is a sub-section of this one so don’t @ me) and delivery.

Let’s assume that delivery is more convenient, because you don’t have to move your body.

By curation, I mean the extent to which a shopper desires to be guided through the buying process. How much do shoppers want to interact with your staff? Do they want to engage and ask questions, or do they want to order and get out?

Let’s assume a higher level of curation = more interaction with retail staff.

Here’s how shoppers shake out across these variables:

🏎 Wario and Kiosks

As mentioned above, Wario wants to drive to the store, but he’s ornery, so he doesn’t want to interact with anyone. He’d rather keep to himself, order quickly, and leave.

Enter kiosk mode.

What is it? 

Kiosks are touch screens that host digital menus. You can order with a click of a finger, and pay with a swipe / tap / jiggle.

McDonald’s has been making noise about touchscreen kiosks since 2018, and rolled out the systems to thousands of US stores over the last several years.

McDonald’s justified their mass adoption of digital menus with a few financial reasons: less overhead and higher ticket size. You don’t need to pay a kiosk minimum wage, and it turns out that people order more when they linger a bit longer (which they tend to do at kiosks).

For McDonald’s, this makes sense - because the menu is 100 years old and customers don’t tend to ask questions about products (or rely on staff to make recommendations). For cannabis retailers, the financial benefits are secondary to the primary benefit of servicing Wario-like consumers.

🌱 How have cannabis retailers leveraged kiosks?

Call centers

Some markets require a call center component - where patients can call in orders for fulfillment. Rather than requiring call center staff to mull through POS data (which is largely not enriched with images / descriptions / etc.), some retailers opt to have call center operators place orders on behalf of patients via an eComm menu embedded on iPads (in “kiosk” mode).

Efficient and time-saving, and allows call center staff the ability to speak intelligently to all products in real-time.

Queuing efficiently

Some retailers - mostly in limited-license states - serve so many customers that they can’t really keep up with demand. They are running at absolute capacity (nice problem to have).

Mobile kiosks are an incredibly efficient way to process orders before customers have even entered the store. Throughput goes up, processing times are reduced.

Think In-N-Out drive-thru lines. For East Coast readers…use your imagination, I guess.

Express ordering

The most common way to leverage kiosks is to set up stations where Wario-inclined customers can shop in peace, without having to engage with anyone. The menus should provide a baseline level of product education and information, and easy checkout capabilities like the systems at McDonald’s.

What does the future look like?

Successful cannabis retailers meet their customers where they are. If they’re at home, on their phones, give them a mobile-first eComm experience and deliver to their door. If they stop in, and want to have a conversation, give them your chattiest, most knowledgable budtender.

But if your customer is a Wario - someone who stops in but wants to order in an expedient way - give them a kiosk.

📚 tl: dr

• Customers fall somewhere along the convenience <> curation spectrum, and their preferences should inform what kind of shopping tools a retailer provides

• McDonald’s and other large retailers are embracing kiosk technology, to reduce overhead and increase basket size

• Kiosks work for cannabis retailers in a few ways:

  • Call centers

  • Queuing efficiently

  • Express orders (in-store)

• It is Thursday