Dispensary Best Practices: A Q&A with Stephen Spinosa
Stephen Spinosa, vice president of retail operations at Good Chemistry, has over seven years of experience working in the cannabis industry in the operation and management of licensed dispensaries.
He was previously an inventory manager in a 7,000-square-foot medical marijuana cultivation in Colorado. Spinosa is currently part of the team at Good Chemistry dispensaries, which has locations in Aurora and Denver, Colorado. He oversees staff training, state and local regulatory compliance and seed-to-sale inventory tracking.
Spinosa recently delivered a keynote presentation at the Dispensary Next Conference in Portland, Oregon titled “From Waiting Room to High-End Retail Experience: How Dispensary Culture Has Changed from 2009 to Now.” He discussed the rise of high-end experience and gave tools for dispensaries to improve retail operations.
In the presentation, he covered supplier quality, security, tiered pricing, inventory tracking and safety issues. Much of what he discussed revolved around the consumer experience and how important the culture at a dispensary is for the buying experience. After his keynote presentation, I sat down with Spinosa to discuss the customer experience, consumer education and safety and sales trends.
Cannabis Industry Journal: What are some of the key areas where dispensaries can improve the quality of customer experience?
Stephen Spinosa: Ultimately, the dispensary experience is like any retail experience. Good Chemistry’s staff is always friendly, smiling, welcoming and helpful to all customers that walk through our doors. Having employees who are experts at providing advice to any user level, and who are extremely knowledgeable on each strain and edible effect is extremely important to us. It is all about making the customer feel comfortable in their experience, especially for novice users who may feel timid when entering a dispensary for the first time.
Good Chemistry’s high-end retail experience includes our up-to-date LED menu screens that present our daily flower menu. That may seem like common sense, however, you would be surprised how many dispensaries do not have a flower menu for their customers to peruse. It helps the customer navigate through all the strains that we offer, and adds to the overall retail experience. We offer twenty or more strains every day.
Additionally we do not have an armed guard hovering at the entrance, making our guests feel uncomfortable. We have highly sophisticated security, like every dispensary, but we’ve left out this intimidating and unnecessary aspect.
CIJ: Can you discuss what you and your employees do for consumer education and safety?
Spinosa: When introducing cannabis to consumers, it is our mission to educate our customers on the correct dosage based on experience level. Our bud tenders are trained to ask a lot of questions before recommending anything. If a customer is a first timer, the bud tenders will have certain recommendations based on their experience level, such as high-CBD [cannabidiol] flower, a low THC percentage vaporizer pen, or a 1-5mg edible serving.
That said, strains of cannabis often cannot be neatly compartmentalized into sativa vs. indica, so our bud tenders also educate customers about the entourage effect, the interaction of the various compounds in marijuana to produce each strain’s unique feeling.
We have developed a pioneering category system to help our customers, whether novice or connoisseur. The system is broken down into four main categories to help consumers decide what sensation they would like to experience: stimulation, relaxation, sleep or relief. We use the four categories to guide our customers through our daily flower menu by labeling each strain with a category.
If a customer is purchasing edibles, we provide an Edibles Education brochure from the Cannabis Business Alliance that stresses the Start Low, Go Slow motto. We also educate consumers on the difference between edibles made with butter vs. oil. Additionally, all of our third party vendor edible products for adult-use are packaged safely in 100% child resistant packaging.
It is important that our customers have a great experience, which is always possible with good guidance. A happy customer is a repeat customer. We are also well aware of the importance of educated employees. Our employees go through a formal training program, and we have monthly meetings where vendors come in and educate the employees on how to sell and dose various products.
CIJ: Can you tell me about your inventory and some consumer trends you are noticing?
Spinosa: Flower is the biggest seller, and for good reason: we have award-winning strains that are $30 an eighth, every strain, every day. Not many dispensaries offer such incredible pricing. Right now, the purchasing trend tends to lean toward the strains that have the highest THC percentage.
This may not accurately depict the best strains, because there have been findings that the entourage effect means different strains can have unique lifts, but it is definitely what the industry is seeing as far as sales trends. As far as edibles, gummies are the biggest sellers followed by hard candies, chocolate and baked goods. Lastly, concentrates such as live resin, shatter and wax have increased in popularity. Good Chemistry produces a new product called solvent-less rosin, concentrated THC oil that is produced using just heat and pressure. Rosin is currently picking up a good amount of traction, although not many dispensaries currently offer it.