Are Paper Menus a Valuable Merchandising Tool in Cannabis Dispensaries?
Paper Menus and Cannabis Dispensaries go hand in hand. Do more with your Paper Menus today!
Paper menus have an important place in Cannabis Dispensaries
Paper Menus can be one of the most powerful tools in a cannabis operation, and they’re often overlooked or undervalued. Paper menus check a lot of boxes and their flexibility is unmatched.
Paper Cannabis menus are familiar
Holding a paper menus resonates with customers. The physical nature of paper menus create a familiar grounding experience people like. One of the critical goals of any cannabis retailer is to make their customers feel welcome and comfortable.
Customers are used to paper menus in restaurants and bars and we can translate that calm familiar purchase decision making process to cannabis dispensaries.
Flexibility of Paper Menus
1) Location
Digital menus serve a valuable purpose in Cannabis stores. BudSense even offers a wide array of digital menu options. But you can’t exactly move TVs around your store at a moments notice. With paper you absolutely can!
Not only can you experiment with the location and purpose of all of your paper menus, you can also easily add additional menus for promotions, events, and holidays at a moments notice.
2) Display Style
We’ve seen menu books, binders, acrylic stands, wooden picture frames, menus sitting flat underneath a glass display, and many other display styles over our time in the retail cannabis industry.
Paper menus make it easy to experiment with display styles until you find what works for your store.
Another idea to consider is how seamless you can integrate paper menus into your brand experience. For certain brands, paper menus can be a more natural fit than their digital counterpart - without careful thought, TVs can often distract from an otherwise well executed brand experience. Paper menus seem less likely to cause this issue.
3.) Content
Content is easily the biggest advantage of paper menus. You’re not limited to a certain number of skus like a digital menu, you’re also not forced to make the decision of scrolling to show all your skus, or keeping the menu static to aid in customers purchasing decisions.
With paper- you can print as many menus for as many categories with as much or as little information as you wish.
For shops looking to push the upper limits of sku counts, paper menus, or at least a combination of digital and paper is the ideal solution.
The downside of Cannabis Paper Menus and how BudSense can help
We wouldn’t be doing our job if we only talked about the pro’s of paper menus, there are also several cons. Fortunately, BudSense was built with these in mind and can help alleviate some of them.
1) Data entry
Spreadsheets and InDesign cannabis paper menus are very common in cannabis retail. The reason for this being paper menus have arguably the highest accessibility of any menu type.
This accessibility comes at the cost of data entry, human error, and slipping attention to brand guidelines.
BudSense can help you out by simplifying data entry with global display attributes, automated menus with smart filters, and consistent branding. With BudSense you can delete those spreadsheet templates and ensure your paper menus are always on point.
Human error happens. Minimize it with BudSense
2) Sold out products
If you’ve seen a paper menu at a dispensary you’ve also seen sharpie crossing out an out of stock product. This idea seems comes with the territory of paper menus that cannot be automatically updated. But there’s a better way- and it doesn’t include ugly marker all over your menu.
This scenario happens all too often in cannabis stores…
A customer comes in and checks out a paper menu.
They identify a product they want to buy and ask the bud tender for it by name only to hear “Oh sorry. That’s out of stock”.
It doesn’t take many of these interactions for customers to change their language and expectations from an excited “I’ll grab an eight of the ultra sour” to “Is Ultra Sour in stock?”.
This subtle difference creates a massive difference in terms of basket building and customer experience. By not having accurate customer information you are removing all excitement and urgency from their experience.
To some this may seem like a common occurrence that is unavoidable by-product of the complex and unpredictable cannabis retail supply chain. The supply chain is most certainly hard to manage- but trust us there is a better way!
BudSense has the ability to add “Low Stock” labels to your menus. This method solves several merchandising problems including turning a disappointed customer into a motivated buyer through accurate and well thought out messaging.
Instead of trying to guess what products are in and out of stock or getting distracted by the messy unprofessional sharpie- customers expectations are redefined by Low Stock labels.
It’s the simple things like ‘Low Stock’ Labels that will set your menus apart from the competition
With low stock labels product scarcity is communicated effectively. Customers now subconsciously understand their is a chance of missing out on the highly desirable low stock product.
This idea of informed scarcity also drives their curiosity and motivation that these low stock items are highly desirable and if they scoop one up before they’re gone it’s a win.
We’ve seen the scenario play out several times where a customer is picking up a new strain but notices that one of their other favorites is marked as low stock. This motivates them to pick up both products so they don’t miss out on an almost out opportunity.
With something as simple as a low stock label we can modify customers expectations and behaviour to create a better experience for them and more profitable frictionless experience for you.
3) Time & Accessibility
Pulling out a laptop during a busy in store task schedule and connecting to the printer are all reasons why paper menus can feel like they are always in the way.
Not to mention the reality is that you can’t always be at the store and don’t always have experienced workers in your place. This quickly leads to data entry mistakes , lagging reprints, and more paper menu headaches.
Even though we aim to create efficient workflows, even logging into BudSense can seem like a pain. This is where delivered printed menus come in.
Instead of needing to go into BudSense whenever you want a reprint. We send your automated menus to your inbox daily. All you have to do is decide to print.
Take this scenario for instance -
The store manager has the day off, they aren’t in front of their laptop, and the paper menus are aging beyond their usefulness and need a reprint. Instead of needing to run home or to the shop to fill in a spreadsheet, the daily BudSense email can simply be forwarded to your junior employee and printed. No opening programs necessary, just passing on a simple PDF.
With BudSense - Paper Menu management has never been easier.
4) Print Quality
If you’ve ever used a printer. You’ve been frustrated.
We’ve all been there
Maybe not to this extent.. but you’ve been frustrated. Printers are a necessary evil that always seem to lose bluetooth connection, run out of paper or ink, or jam just when you need it the most.
Unfortunately, BudSense can’t solve all your printer issue but we can make a few recommendations.
Create clean easy to read menus for any product category with BudSense
BudSense paper menus are built with the end print job in mind. We have several options of basic menus that took readability and printer limitations into account when we created them.
Laser vs. Ink Jet
Spend the extra money and grab a laser printer. The print quality is often better for text, they have less bleed, and they are generally more pleasing to the eye. The ink and per unit print cost is also significantly lower.
BudSense Printed Menus
BudSense takes the built in simplicity and accessibility of paper menus and smooths the rough edges to create a meaningful tool for your cannabis retail operation.. BudSense’s paper cannabis menu offering is as simple as three words.
Add brand colours and elements to connect your menus with your desired brand experience
Customized. Automated. Delivered.
Customize your menus into the categories you wish to merchandise, custom titles, colours, and more.
Automate your menus to automatically update using BudSense features such as smart filters.
And finally have them Delivered to your inbox every morning.
All you have to do is decide when to print
These are just a few of the paper menu options we have available. Come to us with your ideas and we will create something you love!
If you’ve liked what you read reach out to us and ask about our $99 paper menu only offering and finally free yourself from data entry and spread sheets.
We hope you found our blog on tips for customized, automated, and delivered paper menus helpful. Book a demo today to learn more about how BudSense can enhance your cannabis shop!
If you’re curious about pricing, check it out on our pricing page. But don’t be a stranger, we are flexible in our offering. Make sure to reach out to us and help us understand your specific needs. We’re here to help.
