Cannabis sector businesses face hurdles associated with banking and marketing. Web3 technologies present new possibilities and efficiency, creating the potential to grow the sector. Dispensaries and cultivators are finding new ways to engage customers using blockchain technology that is compliant with regulations.
Dispensaries and growers are adopting NFTs, crypto payments, and metaverse showrooms, exploring new digital avenues to engage customers and enhance their businesses in the rapidly evolving cannabis industry.
NFTs Change Brand Loyalty Programs
Dispensaries are moving away from traditional loyalty cards in favor of NFT-based memberships. Using digital assets, consumers can have valuable perks and an exciting collectible brand experience. Cannabis businesses, like Higher Grounds, recently put out a limited edition NFT collection that provided the holder with discounts, early access to products, and walk-throughs of the grow facility using their NFTs. The digital assets create community at the same time they create verifiable ownership on the blockchain.
Crypto Currency: Not Just for Cash-Heavy Business
Cannabis companies are primarily cash businesses due to federal restrictions. Cryptocurrency can provide an option to engage with payment solutions. Once used primarily only for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and cannabis-only tokens, leading dispensaries now use payment processors to run compliant payments within the region they operate in. The benefits of using cryptocurrency include reduced cash handling risk and transaction records to support operational recordkeeping for regulatory compliance.
Metaverse Retail
Virtual dispensary showrooms are beginning to emerge within the metaverse. Providing these digital spaces allow businesses to display products, host educational events, and connect with cannabis entrepreneurs’ worlds without limit or borders. One cultivator offered a virtual tour of their facility, allowing customers to see the growth without actually visiting the facility. The virtual customer experience enhances the brand association while teaching the consumer how the company grows cannabis.
Supply Chain Transparency Through Blockchain
Blockchain technology can solve a few important supply chain problems facing the cannabis industry: Product authentication from seed to sale, batch tracking within the regulatory requirements, consumer access to testing lab verification, and counterfeiting of products from entering the marketplace. This increase in transparency will build trust with consumers while eliminating labor-intensive report-back requirements within the highly regulated space cannabis businesses must operate under.
The New Future
As the Web3 ecosystem expands, cannabis businesses have positioned themselves perfectly to maximize both rapidly-evolving industries. Smart Contracts may automate the compliance process in the future, and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) may allow communities to jointly own and cultivate the product. The possibilities of technological advancements have changed industries, and the way cannabis companies do business, hire, promote, sell, and meaningfully engage consumers very well may have an impact on cannabis retail consumers as adoption, use, and acceptance grow.
The cannabis sector’s focus on blockchain technology demonstrates how challenges from regulation and operational business can inspire innovation through technology. As the blockchain develops and the digital possibilities evolve, consumers will likely be impacted as the technologies reshape their understanding of the cannabis retail experience.