As I type these thoughts from my home office and you probably read this blogpost from your couch, it is obvious that we live in a new reality and that it is uncertain what the new normal, post isolation, will look like.
COVID-19 is forcing businesses to change quickly and adapt to new circumstances, or sadly, perish. Unfortunately, an entire sector of our economy has been deemed essential and yet is deprived of the tools to succeed or the needed government support to survive.
The cannabis industry has been left out in the cold, something they are used to by now, but in turbulent times is becomes ever so apparent that they will have to fend for themselves.
When we created WAAVE, our main goal was to give small business the automation they need to thrive, never did I imagine how great the need would be.
Recession. Feels like a four letter word. It also feels unavoidable.
I personally believe that the 26% of dispensaries that are not worried, are delusional. You have to worry because when cash is scarce, short term debt is your customer's only option to continue their relationship with your store. As a dispensary you cannot give them that option
Demand. Upwards curve.
Just like alcohol consumption, in times of crisis the demand is bound to go up. No tea leaves to read here, this is human nature. Unfortunately, customers need to be given the tools to fulfill their purchasing needs.
For example, Nevada just approved curb-side pickup, which is great if you want to see an employee going in and out of your store with handfuls of cash. So in short while regulations relaxed, no real system is being implemented, in a way this reflects the general trend of the legalization journey in the States.
Contactless. The new quest
Being deemed essential, and forcing your employees to handle only dirty cash seems like a counterintuitive proposition. In fact even credit cards passing hands or customers touching POS screens are all against the guidelines to flatten the darn curve everyone keeps talking about.
The biggest hurdle the quest for contactless has to face is the need for equipment. Legacy systems don't work with contactless machines, equipment comes at a cost and the transition is not a fast one.
Only a solution that is 100% hardware free that can be deployed remotely is likely to achieve a completely contactless transaction and speed up the operational transformation that is no needed.
This issue applies to all brick and mortar merchants as we find the path to reopening the country and attempting to reignite the economy.
Automation. The key to successful omnichannel sales.
Anyone who has ever serviced the Food & Beverage space knows that a manager's main concern is that the fridge is full of cold beer at the start of the shift, everything else is a cherry on top.
That simplicity no longer applies in this new reality.
Today and in a post COVID-19 world the key to success will be a merchants ability to integrate and automate.
Challenges such as working with less staff, activating multiple sales channels without dropping the ball, creating loyalty programs that require no human input, integrating new logistics and processes are some of the pitfalls where small businesses fail hard. This is not their fault, they simply don't have all the solutions from a single provider, so instead of automation success, they end up working twice as hard managing multiple providers, and achieving half their goals.
Competition. They are coming for you now.
The digital world is coming for the dispensaries and the main players don't get along with the brick and mortar merchants. How many clients will you lose if they can now order their favorites from the couch and pay with their credit card?
The truth is that unless you onboard the right tech you will be at a disadvantage. Not only you compete with other merchants but you now have to fight platforms like Eaze.
Marketing as you knew it, is no longer effective.
For those single-shop operations out there, marketing is often an afterthought, mainly cause they rely on their marketing intern downloading email addresses and shooting emails in the dark.
If you don't rework your approach to marketing you will fall into the never ending black hole of price point competition, where you rely only on discounts to attract new customers and engage the ones you have.
There is nothing more destructive than price wars.
#WAAVE4it. Because it doesn't have to be so hard
While our tagline "recession-proof your dispensary" is new and in theme with these days, our technology is not new.
It was developed over a period of 4 years while we served thousands of underbanked retailers in Asia. The tech is proven, stress tested and validated in multiple verticals.
WAAVE is an O2O (online to offline) automation platform that integrates an extremely successful cashback program (loyalty), a cashless payment system, AI marketing and a suite of logistic tools to cover any retail scenario.
We can provide any brick and mortar retailer with contactless transactions that require ZERO hardware, which means they can be live on WAAVE in 20 minutes, no matter where they are located and regardless of what POS they already use.
WAAVE AI Marketing takes the guessing out of your promotions and campaigns because smart marketing means you don't have to resort to desperate measures to bring in more business, while our cashback program ensures you nurture the relationship with the customers you already have.
So yes, you can turn that fear into action and we would be delighted to show you how WAAVE can make the process painless and positively impact your operations and your bottom line no matter what the post COVID-19 world brings.
