You’ve chosen an excellent location for your marijuana dispensary. You’ve selected the highest quality bud options, consumables, and an interesting array of accessories to offer your customers. You have a marketing plan to establish your brand and get customers in the door. But what about the store itself?

A dispensary is really just a specialty retail store. Cannabis and hemp products may be the newest entries into the retail market, but there’s nothing new about retail merchandising. So, the key to your business is still the psychology of selling.

How can you arrange your dispensary to appeal psychologically to your consumer? What layout inspires the most purchases? You don’t have to start from scratch to imagine or build a store layout that effectively displays your wares and encourages maximum sales. You can simply tap into our experience.

With our long history in retail display and merchandising, from kiosks and small stores to cell phone merchandising and more, our Palmer Retail Solutions pros know which layouts and display fixtures sell best and inspire customers to return.

Psychology essentials for planning your shop’s layout

Whether folks wander in your door for a first look around or they visit with something specific in mind, you want to make them feel at home, encourage them to browse, and tempt them with impulse items. Do not overlook those impulse items, because they account for an impressive percentage of total retail sales.

Colorful displays and showcases that make it easy to see products will be especially effective. But that’s just the beginning. Keep these key tips in mind:

• An open, uncluttered entrance is most inviting. It provides a landing space where people can to take a moment to transition mentally and glance around to get the big picture of your store.
• You may be surprised to learn that American shoppers nearly always turn right when they enter a store. Reward them by displaying featured or especially popular items a short distance inside and to the right. This display will be one of the first things customers see, tempting them farther into your store. (The wall to the right offers high-power sales visibility, too.)
• Laidback as your clientele may be, you still need to respect the “butt brush effect.” American shoppers like to have enough personal space when browsing so they don’t accidentally bump into one another. A more open floorplan will make shoppers more comfortable and keep them engaged longer.
• Long, grocery style aisles discourage exploratory browsing. Instead, place wall units and taller displays such as apparel racks around the perimeter, then use cabinet style showcases and multi-sided islands with glass sides and tops that provide the greatest merchandise visibility. Cabinets can be fitted with locks, like you see in jewelry store showcases, to secure merchandise while ensuring convenience for your budtenders as well as customers.
• Rotate your displays every few weeks, so your store offers new vistas every time a returning customer enters. People quickly become blind to displays they’ve seen before, so relocating merchandise or displaying it in a different way gives it some fresh appeal.
• Give brand new items a place of prominence, so customers can’t miss them.

Finally, set up your cash wrap (checkout counter) as a last-chance sales opportunity, not just the place to pay. Making room to display smaller, inexpensive impulse items such as lighters (branded with your logo, of course) and gift cards can lift your sales to a new high.    

We’re here to help

The cannabis market has gone mainstream, and it’s already a wildly competitive marketplace. You’ve invested a lot in getting ready to sell, and you can’t afford to waste precious time and resources on trial and error layout as more competitors open their doors. You need to get it right, right away.

So call on us, for advice and for pre-designed turnkey solutions that will have you up and running quickly and affordably, with custom finishes that blend sleekly with in-store branding. With your savvy merchandise selections, the right store layout and sales-friendly displays, your cannabis dispensary will be the one customers choose above the competition.