Are your cannabis retail sales stagnating? If you can’t seem to boost your sales per visitor, and every effort at upselling and cross-selling is failing, your customers just might want more options. Increasing your average basket size can be as simple as sparking consumer interest in a category of products instead of shoving a single product at them as an incentive.
The former gives them more freedom of choice, while the latter may make them worry that the product you’re pushing is less desirable.
Learn how to maximize average basket value using the TechPOS solution and these tips for in-store and online checkout.
What Is Average Basket Size?
In retail (including cannabis retail), basket size is your customer’s total purchase. You can measure basket size by the number of items but it is more commonly defined by total dollar value. Tracking both can give you a good idea of where pricing pain points are and how to overcome them.
Basket size across the four major Canadian provinces tends to hover just north or south of $40 in value. Increasing the size/value of your average basket means more revenue per customer and per store. Developing incentives for both your budtenders to sell more and your customers to buy more can help increase basket size and value.
Tips for Increasing Basket Size In-Store
Cannabis consumers shop in-store for the one-on-one service they get from their budtender. You can increase in-store basket size by:
- Ensuring your staff are well-informed and communicative
- Staffing your store(s) adequately to allow time to talk with each customer
- Stocking a robust selection of products
- Avoiding out-of-stock situations
Or, you can incentivize budtenders to make or exceed average basket sales by holding competitions or offering an end-of-week or end-of-month bonus tied to their personal average for basket size. You can incentivize customers to spend more on each visit by offering a free sample (in accordance with local provincial law) with a minimum purchase.
Tips for Increasing Basket Size on eCommerce
Cannabis consumers shop online for convenience. Plus, they also look for potential sales and discounts that may not be well-publicized in-store. You can increase online basket size by:
- Ensuring your online store is easily navigable
- Showcasing new products on the home page
- Organizing products by category type (flower, edible, topical)
- Creating unique mood product profiles (relaxation, sleep, appetite)
You can incentivize online customers to increase the value of their basket by offering free shipping with a minimum purchase, but make sure to set this minimum high enough to defray the cost of the shipping involved.
Make sure your branding, promotions, and advertising align with Canadian law regarding the marketing of cannabis products, and beware of any tactics that could be perceived as targeting those under the legal purchasing age.
Increasing Basket Size with TechPOS
TechPOS provides you with the ideal solution for increasing average basket value. Our point-of-sale screen is two-sided, with the main screen facing the budtender. Many retailers choose to show a mirror image of the budtender’s screen or a store logo on the secondary, customer-facing screen.
Our latest innovation is a menu option for display on the customer-facing screen. This screen is fully customizable and easily changed in your POS system. You can use this screen to:
- Choose specific curated items to display
- Select a category to display products from
- Highlight new products only
- List “staff picks” for higher budtender engagement
- Showcase “popular flowers” to pique interest
Since the menu is image-based with limited text, it’s almost like digital signage in miniature, right at your customer’s fingertips. They can see the product, its specs, and current pricing clearly displayed in the visual grid.
Your customer can select from the screen and add to their basket during in-person checkout prior to making their payment. Then, the system automatically removes items as you sell out, in real-time, as inventory updates with each transaction.
Combining the customer-facing menu options screen with TechPOS business insights reports can help you gain deeper insights into customer purchasing habits. You can use this data to inform future marketing efforts.
For example, tracking which products perform well on this customer-facing menu screen can help you learn about expanded customer preferences. So, if those who commonly purchase “X” start adding “Y” when given the option, “Y” may be a good item to bundle as an in-store promotion, and you could target these items as potential cross-sells online as well.
Ready to increase the value of every sale? Contact TechPOS to learn more about our innovative POS customer-facing menu screen option today.
