There are many factors to consider when opening a new dispensary location, from product selection and hiring to opening day sales and promotions. These days, businesses must also consider social distancing and increased sanitation in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and multistate cannabis operators Trulieve and RISE did just that when launching their new locations in Florida and Ohio this month.
Florida-based Trulieve opened its newest store in Titusville, east of Orlando, on April 18, marking the company’s 46th dispensary in Florida and its 48th nationwide.
“There was some different planning, there’s no doubt, especially with a store opening during a pandemic and leading into 4/20 weekend,” Tim Morey, Trulieve’s chief sales officer, tells Cannabis Dispensary. “I think through the pandemic, Trulieve has done a great job in putting our patients first, and our employees.”
To ensure a safe environment for its staff and patients, Trulieve has implemented air scrubbers and weekly professional cleanings at each of its locations. For the launch of the Titusville location—the first that Trulieve has opened since the coronavirus outbreak—the company adjusted its usual grand opening procedures to accommodate the unprecedented situation.
For example, Trulieve launched online sales the day before opening day, which allowed patients to place orders and schedule pick-up appointments to support social distancing and reduce the time each patient spent in the dispensary.
“We had the ability to process those orders and have them ready for the patients the next day, which we’re doing across the majority of our dispensaries right now,” Morey says. “It’s a significant shift in our business. What was about 60% walk-in business is now about 30% walk-in and our pick-ups have moved over to about a 60% ratio.”
On opening day, Trulieve offered patients a 25% in-store discount at the Titusville location, and the company ran a “four days of 4/20” promotion with a 20% discount at all of its dispensaries to help space patient traffic out over multiple days.
Elsewhere, in Ohio, RISE opened its second dispensary location in Lakewood, a westside suburb of Cleveland, earlier this month.
“We’ve been planning to open for a while, and the timing didn’t work out the best,” Market President Brendan Blume tells Cannabis Dispensary. “It never does, but … we were able to open the store and follow our SOPs. making sure we’re adhering to social distancing, sanitation and proper equipment [guidelines] to protect our people and our patients.”
RISE is encouraging its staff to wear face masks and shields, and is also accepting phone orders and offering curbside pick-up at select locations.
“It’s just one of those things where we just need to be conscious of it,” Blume says. “Following the CDC’s guidelines is the most important thing, and that’s what we’ve been taking as our true north as they change and more information comes out. It’s just staying in communication with the teams and making sure we get that communication out as quickly as we can to make the best decisions.”
RISE will typically invite media and the local community to new dispensary locations the day before a store’s grand opening to showcase the new location. For its newest Lakewood dispensary, however, the company opted for virtual tours and walkthroughs in the wake of COVID-19.
“I think we’ll do an opening after all this is over and maybe a grand reopening … to show people we’re there and to get the word out,” Blume says.
Best-Laid Expansion Plans
When identifying opportunities for expansion, Trulieve looks to the location of its patient base, physicians and market demand. The company uses its delivery service, which is available throughout Florida, to track where demand lies in relation to its dispensary locations.
“We hear from our patients where those dispensaries need to be to service them in the best possible manner,” Morey says. “That’s why we opened Titusville; there was a big demand in that area.”
Trulieve aims to have 68 total dispensaries by the end of the year, and in addition to Florida, the company operates stores in Connecticut and California, with one location set to open in Massachusetts in the coming months.
To support its rapid expansion, Trulieve has added roughly 200 retail employees to support not only the new locations, but also the uptick in deliveries in the wake of the pandemic.
RELATED: Trulieve Hiring Hundreds of New Workers in Multiple States
“We’ve been in a hiring mode, and [for] every new dispensary, we try to look for that team 30-45 days in advance of a potential store opening,” Morey says.
Trulieve also promotes from within, he adds, and all employees are trained in advance of new store openings to ensure they are ready to serve patients on opening day.
For RISE, it was a connection with the local community that sparked the company’s second Lakewood location.
“We’ve partnered with the local community and we’re well-received there, so we think it’s a good area,” Blume says. “There’s a good population of patients, and we like to partner with communities that want us instead of going into communities that don’t want us and then it’s a fight. Partnering with Lakewood and having open lines of communication, we just felt it was a good move to have multiple locations there.”
While RISE generally holds in-person interviews to hire for new dispensary locations, its hiring practices have shifted toward digital meetings via FaceTime and Zoom to maintain a personal interaction with potential candidates. And like Trulieve, RISE also promotes from within to fill new roles.
When it comes to product selection, Trulieve carries roughly 250 SKUs across all its Florida locations to provide a wide range of products for its patients, but the depth of each product category varies by dispensary based on demand.
At the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, Trulieve saw a spike in flower sales, which Morey attributes to the uncertainty surrounding whether dispensaries would be allowed to remain open under states’ stay-at-home orders.
“Being an essential business, we saw that business normalize after that first week, and we haven’t seen a significant shift in our overall product mix,” Morey says. “I would say if there was anything, we do see a little bit more of a value-price customer, which is to be expected during these times.”
RISE also carries the same products across all its locations, ranging from flower, vapes and extracts to edibles, tinctures and topicals.
“There isn’t an exclusive that it’s just sold at this store, but we have a wide variety of product offerings that will keep patients coming in and excited,” Blume says.
And so far, the new Lakewood location has been well-received, he adds. “It’s another place for people to come and experience the RISE brand.”
What Lies Ahead
The Trulieve team has quickly adjusted to online ordering, in-store pick-ups and increased delivery, and Morey says the pivot to a more digital business doesn’t stop there. The company has implemented additional online features in order to send patients text notifications when their orders are ready for pick-up, and it has started using an app called Waitly to invite customers into the store once they arrive.
“Everyone can go back out to their vehicles and maintain social distancing, and we can have a nice flow and a safe environment by texting people when it’s time to come in,” Morey says. “These are some things we had been working on that obviously got accelerated with COVID-19.”
Time will tell whether this digital business model becomes permanent, he adds. “We have a very mature Trulieve following. Most of them really know what it is that they’re looking for, so as we introduce new things, we may get more walk-ins, but overall, I think we’re going to have a blended version when we get back to regular business after COVID.”
Both Trulieve and RISE plan to follow their patients’ lead in the weeks and months ahead, evolving their business models to meet their needs.
“We feel like the patient is the most important thing that we do here at Trulieve, and we always look for better ways to service them,” Morey says. “Through the pandemic, we’ll take learnings from that and we’ll continue to find ways to improve our service and expand our model as we move forward.”
“We’re just excited to really keep people employed, keep the doors open, keep patients coming in and keeping them happy at a time like now when many businesses can’t do that,” Blume adds. “We’re just very grateful for that and we’re making sure that we take that seriously."
