Consume Cannabis Retail Case Study

Executive summary

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Introduction

About Consume Cannabis

Consume Cannabis is a multi-state operator (MSO) with 13 retail locations across Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio, with some of these stores have both a recreational and medical menu. They have a particular focus on providing a better cannabis experience to their consumers, which is why they started using StrainBrain's AI Budtender.

Business goals

Consume Cannabis had the following goals with the integration:

1. Align e-commerce with business goals
2. Improve online shopping experience
3. Build upon the loyalty program

Integration

As a testament to StrainBrain's ease of integration and seamless scalability, Consume was able to add the AI Budtender to all 19 menus within a couple hours with no technical hiccups.

Consume Cannabis mostly uses Jane as their e-commerce provider, with one location using Dutchie. Since we have an integration with both Jane and Dutchie, connecting the inventory was a breeze — even though different locations used different providers!

Adding the Alpine IQ integration was similarly straightforward, taking just a couple of minutes to get the API key from the Alpine IQ dashboard and pasting it into StrainBrain's dashboard.

Results

Goal 1: Align e-commerce with business goals

Improve e-commerce metrics

Perhaps the two most important numbers on here, we were able to show using statistics that we had a positive impact on the 10,000+ of Consume's shoppers who we help each month:

• After using our software, shoppers has a 20% higher conversion rate to make a purchase.
• When a shopper completes a purchase after using the AI Budtender, they spend 23% more, on average.

Selling more of the right products

Using the "Boost Products" feature, Consume was able to show more of the products and brands that they want to prioritize. Even more excitingly, they were able to make partnerships with their vendors and get paid for it (learn more about this program here).

Understanding their customers better

Using our advanced analytics dashboard, Consume was able to browse the consumer preference data that StrainBrain collects. They could use this data to inform purchasing decisions and marketing campaigns. This is particularly important since Consume operates across many different geographies that each have unique customer profiles.

Goal 2: Improve online experience

We helped a lot of shoppers

We were able to help a ton of people:

• On Consume's sites, the AI Budtender makes around 350 recommendations each day. That's a busy budtender!
• At that rate, it took less than 3 months for $1,000,000 worth of products to be recommended.

Customers love it

Qualitatively, we have received dozens of notes from shoppers using our AI Budtender at Consume Cannabis about how helpful our tool was. It is encouraging to hear that real end-users appreciate our tool. It also reinforced the credibility of the quantitative improvements by knowing they are grounded in human tendencies.

Consistency in experience

Consume was able to achieve two levels of consistency of customer experience: 1. within a store and 2. between stores.

The first type of consistency — within a store — is very important for regular shoppers. Shoppers start returning to the same store once they can rely on a consistently high level of customer service. Their AI Budtender accomplishes this for online shoppers.

The second type of consistency — between stores — is important for building a brand. Shoppers at each Consume location can shop online the same way, even across the country, and experience the same great customer experience. Brand-building is crucial for any business, but especially so for multi-state operators.

Goal 3: Grow and improve loyalty program

New sign-ups and vastly increased CLTV

We were able to drive hundreds of new loyalty sign-ups each month, accruing huge value.

The quality of the sign-ups is also very important. We compared the "StrainBrain sign-ups" cohort with a matched cohort that signed up for loyalty around the same time. We found that the average customer lifetime value (CLTV) of the customers we signed up was 2x higher than the control cohort.

Compared to the control cohort, the sign-ups through StrainBrain were spending 45% more per order and returning 6.7x as frequently — an enormous increase sustained over hundreds of members. The only drawback is the first-purchase rate was lower, which make sense since many control cohort sign-ups were made in-store during their first purchase, whereas StrainBrain sign-ups are done online before a purchase is made.

Engagement of existing members went way up

We compared pre-existing loyalty customers who used StrainBrain's AI Budtender to those who didn't. We examine the active rate, a measure of how engaged users are and their likelihood of purchase.

The group that used the AI Budtender had an 2x higher active rate as compared to the control group, 63% vs. 31%. Other metrics like average spend and days until next purchase were both significantly improved.

Conclusion

• Improve the online experience
• Drive higher AOV
• Drive higher conversion
• Sell the products that aligns with business goals
• Form vendor partnerships that created a new revenue stream
• Drive more loyalty sign-ups with high CLTV
• Increase purchase frequency of existing members

StrainBrain's AI Budtender created a great customer experience that accomplished real business goals. What more are you waiting for? Book a demo today.