🎶 Oh Decision Tree, Oh Decision Tree

Since the dawn of cannabis technology, humanity has been in search of one elusive thing:

A decision tree, delivered online in a curated, highly-engaging way. A series of questions that result in relevant product recommendations that are, in turn, very easy to purchase. An effective way to welcome the canna-curious into the fold.

We have gotten pretty close:

• The best search algorithms within online menus allow new shoppers to search by keywords like “sleep” or “anxiety” or “gluten-free”

• In-store kiosks tend to be even more engaging, with some of the best providers executing the ‘decision tree’ model; the issue is, customers are already in the store, and they usually speak directly to budtenders for guidance

• Chat boxes can be pretty sophisticated, whether manned by real people or powered by AI - but these are outside of the native shopping environment

We haven’t really nailed it…

Until now!

Enter Columbia Care, who just released Forage.io, described as a “first-of-its-kind cannabis discovery tool designed to streamline and customize the individual shopping experience for expert and novice patients and customers alike.”

More from Nick Vita here:

🙋‍♀️ Why does this matter?

Well, first - it matters because it’s substantially different from anything on the market right now. The eCommerce experience, due to the prevalence of two or three large players in the space, has become comfortable and well-worn (some companies do a much better job at white labeling eComm experiences, but still - if you have shopped for cannabis recently, you’ll find retail menus familiar).

Forage matters because it’s a proof of concept. It represents the ability for a retail operator to develop something completely customized on the front-end, while leaning heavily on the data infrastructure and APIs of an eComm partner for the nitty gritty back-end.

(If you haven’t read about “headless” eCommerce, you probably should - click on the picture of Prince for a primer on this discussion, and click subscribe so you don’t miss more pictures of Prince).

It also matters because it’s a big swing for a big operator. In my experience, there is a lot of talking about big plans - always intended to be highly-engaging, always intended to welcome new customers into the fold, always intended to be revolutionary - but this a real example.

Let’s dig in.

🤔 What does it do?

First, you are welcomed to the home page, where you can start moving a cursor around to keywords based on how you want to feel (energetic, euphoric, etc.). You can also see your home store, shopping cart, a link to shop all locations, etc. I chose ‘euphoric,’ because who doesn’t want that.

I am prompted to ‘dial in my recommendations.’

The first prompt - in a series of prompts designed to whittle down my decision to a digestible 10 items - is to expand on the initial question. I choose highly ‘euphoric’ with a dash of ‘tingly.’

(In the background, btw, the system is essentially filtering a huge dataset of product information based on my inputs)

Next up is intended activity. Will you be sleeping or working? Focusing or talking? Etc.

Next up is usage occasion. In my case, I’ll be working out at a house party.

Next up is form factor; do I prefer to eat, smoke, vape, dab? All of the above, I tell the system.

Now, I can dig into my recommended products, and peruse items based on brand, price, cannabinoid profile, more details around effects, etc. When I add to order, I’m taken immediately to a checkout screen.

I can check out with my chosen products, just like you might expect. Delivery / curbside / in-store, etc.

👍 The Important Part(s)

That kind of decision tree is common in some other retail verticals, where you can curate, say, clothing, based on your preferences. However, with a seemingly limitless and poorly standardized product set in cannabis, this is a Herculean task that requires standardized data.

Columbia Care designed the flow and the look, and they did a great job - but, to complement their logic and in order to avoid reinventing the wheel, they built on top of Jane APIs for product info, and used our white label checkout for convenience.

This is important because it’s a proof of concept that the eCommerce dream - a fully-native, fully-customized experience that does not take six figures or 12 months to build - is readily available. It just requires some design, smart filtering, and good APIs.

📚 tl;dr

• This industry has craved a decision tree dynamic - which serves relevant product suggestions based on a series of inputs, online - for a while

• Columbia Care built one on top of Jane APIs

• This represents a pivotal proof of concept for ‘headless’ eCommerce, wherein an operator can build a customized experience on the front-end, informed by sophisticated data infrastructure of a trusted partner

• It is Thursday