Legal cannabis sales in the United States alone are expected to exceed $30 billion as soon as 2022. Needless to say, optimizing your dispensary and retaining customers is critical in such a hot, growing market. If you’re stressed about how to keep your customers coming back for more, don’t fret. You can use something you already have – your point of sale (POS) – to do just that.
What is a POS?
A POS is the time and place where merchant-customer transactions are completed. The system includes both hardware and software, and calculates the amount owed by the shopper, communicates that amount to the customer, presents payment options, facilitates payment, and provides a receipt. It is also commonly used for essential business functions including inventory management and sales reporting. But really, a POS goes beyond those basic functions and can be used to engage shoppers, improve brand loyalty, and remain compliant, among other tasks.
How Dispensary POS Improves Customer Experience
For dispensaries, POS systems are used for much more than payment processing. In fact, they can play an integral role in improving the customer experience by helping dispensaries:
- Provide a professional checkout experience: Creating a professional environment is of utmost importance to dispensaries. Unfortunately, there is a history of stigmatization of the marijuana-purchasing experience, but luckily your POS can help you fight that. With a sleek, professional, and modern POS, your hardware seems “real,” and to many, “real” hardware is synonymous with a “real” transaction. Unlike untracked digital Venmo or CashApp transactions, customers feel confident and reassured when purchasing at a physical POS terminal.
- Leverage customer data: A huge benefit of your POS system is its ability to maintain up-to-date customer information like purchase history, shopping preferences, birthdays, and more. You can then use this data to offer relevant promotions to shoppers for the strains they like, sending birthday discounts, suggesting new items they might enjoy, and more.
- Remain compliant: Compliance is key. Cannabis is a highly regulated market, and the receipts produced by your POS system are a must. As we explored in a previous Star blog post, receipt printers are integral for every dispensary as they provide proof legal purchase.
- What to include on a cannabis receipt? While required information varies by region, some common items to include are store name and address, product category/name, and the appropriate tax code/identifier.
Successful Software Needs Successful Hardware
That’s where Star comes in. CDG proudly integrates its software tools with a variety of Star hardware including the all-in-one mPOP®, TSP654IISK linerless label printer, Value Series Cash Drawers, and more.
POS Delivers Superior Customer Engagement
To engage with customers is to create memories with them, and being memorable means a greater chance that they will return to your dispensary. Customer engagement is a multifaceted feat, but your POS can help you tackle multiple tactics within that journey. Here’s how:
- Confidence
As we discussed above, customers want to feel secure in their shopping experience. A shopper is far more likely to return to a business where they felt confident in the safety of both their product and personal information, versus one where they felt unsure and unsafe. A professional checkout experience provided by a proper POS system can build that trust by providing a secure transaction and proof of legal purchase via printed and digital receipts.
- Reliability
As ancient Greek philosopher Theophrastus once said, “Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.” In other words, time is money and if you waste your customer’s time, you can pretty much count on them not returning. Luckily, the right POS can help you avoid that situation. A reliable system will consistently stay connected to the internet, meaning no downtime or network issues. Providing a smooth transaction process gives your staff more time to engage in meaningful discussion with customers and builds consumer confidence in your establishment, meaning a greater chance of repeat business.
- Loyalty
According to bigcommerce.com, 92% of consumers believe suggestions from friends and family more than advertising, and 74% of consumers identify word of mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decisions. Simply put, customers tell others about their great shopping experiences, and your POS can help you provide a memorable, buzzworthy encounter.
Beyond providing a seamless purchase, your POS can also provide customized promotions to boost customer engagement and retention. For example, with PromoPRNT, Star printers can print customized messages directly on the bottom of receipts for free. These messages can promote upcoming sales, new strains, “strain of the week,” e-commerce sites, delivery services, loyalty programs, now hiring messaging, social media accounts, and more.
Drive Customer Engagement with C-Trax
Now that you understand the importance of POS when it comes to customer engagement, retention, and satisfaction, how do you choose a POS system that will help you succeed?
Star is proud to partner with C-Trax, one of the industry’s best cannabis software POS providers and the first cannabis software solution bringing integrated payments to retail and wholesale.
C-Trax started in 2019 after its founder visited a dispensary in Las Vegas and had an unbecoming checkout experience. That moment motivated C-Trax to build software aimed at solving bad customer checkout experiences and contributing to a positive, memorable shopping trip instead.
You can find C-Trax software in the Southeast United States and beyond. Designed for CBD retailers, the solution features the Star Micronics mPOP® receipt printer/cash drawer combo which is seamlessly integrated with both C-Trax software and popular payment platforms like Square. Other C-Trax features include:
- On-screen customer buying history and product preference
- Back office management of analytics, orders, inventory, and roles
- On-demand data analytics reporting including average ticket pricing, sales percentages across categories, vendor affinity across budtenders, and more
- Integrations with Square, Shopify, QuickBooks, Mailchimp, and more
Learn more about the all-in-one mPOP in the below video: