The legal cannabis market is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world. After the slew of recent legalization measures passed in Arizona, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota, about one in three Americans now live in states where cannabis is legal. Cannabis online orders have also skyrocketed during COVID-19, forcing dispensaries to adopt models for digital shopping and payments that have become the new normal for many other industries. There’s no doubt that the “green wave” in e-commerce is here to stay.
At Dutchie, our mission is to redefine the modern cannabis consumer experience. We process 10 percent of all legal cannabis sales worldwide and power 25 percent of all legal dispensaries in the United States and Canada. After years of discussions with customers, we realized a huge unmet need in the industry. Despite the growth of the space, even the largest dispensaries and multi-state operators are currently unable to create innovative, customized online shopping experiences. Instead, most have to rely on outdated technology that hampers their ability to modernize operations and compete against the much larger illicit market.
This is why we recently launched Dutchie Plus — the first and only enterprise-level solution on the market that gives brands and dispensaries the ability to create fully customized and on-brand e-commerce experiences to drive sales and retain more customers.
For the first time ever, dispensaries will now have full control over their online presence down to every line of code to give consumers a completely unique, seamless shopping experience like they would have in other mainstream industries. Dutchie Plus is a data-driven solution that gives dispensaries a “blank canvas” with no restrictions or limitations on what they can create through an open API and unique back-end data points. Dutchie has been in talks with various major multi-state operators (MSOs) that are eager for differentiation and looking to fully control the look and feel of their online presence and experience. Cookies, one of the world’s top cannabis brands, is among the enterprise-level retailers building their new online experience on top of Dutchie Plus. Native Roots is another top MSO that upleveled their digital presence with an open source API when they made a switch from their custom platform to Dutchie’s system at the onset of COVID-19.
“Thus far, Dutchie has provided a product that retailers love. It’s easy to use, seamlessly integrates with store operations, and is quick to launch for small to mid-size dispensaries,” said Zach Lipson, CPO and Co-founder at Dutchie. “Large, multi-state operators have different needs and wants, though. Namely, they’re looking for a completely custom, on-brand design for their online menu. Dutchie Plus is the first product to completely unlock this potential. Retailers can take full advantage of the industry’s most advanced set of back-end e-commerce tools, and couple it with a completely unique experience, designed to their specifications, on the front end. It’s the best of both worlds.”
According to IBM’s U.S. Retail Index, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift away from physical stores to digital shopping by roughly five years. With markets continuing to expand on the heels of the election and with more and more players entering the cannabis space, there has never been a bigger need for solutions — like Dutchie Plus — to help take the industry to the next level. Cannabis companies need access to the same technology afforded to other legal industries to help them grow their business, scale online, and expand access to cannabis for the growing number of legal consumers.
New innovations are essential to pushing the industry forward and making the most of this important inflection point. At Dutchie, we’re proud to be empowering the best and the brightest in the space with the technology tools they need to build the future — without any limitations.
