Legitimate Cashless Payment Options Are Becoming Available for Dispensary Customers

The cannabis retail sector is going beyond cash with new, fully transparent technologies.

Canpay

This article originally appeared in the April 2018 issue of Cannabis Dispensary. To subscribe, click here.

Stuck between state legalization and federal prohibition, cannabis businesses have historically been forced to be cash-only operations. Even for those with stable banking relationships, the decision by all major credit card and debit card companies to veto card transactions for this federally illegal substance put legitimate, transparent, cashless purchases out of reach. But recent events have caused businesses to find new solutions.

Banking Digital Main FmtIn an unprecedented move for the cannabis industry, Hawaii announced in September 2017 that the state’s newly opened medical marijuana dispensaries would be cashless by Oct. 1, 2017. The state adopted CanPay, a mobile debit app that provides cashless payment solutions for the cannabis industry, as the only state-approved alternative to cash transactions in Hawaii’s medical dispensaries. Despite some initial confusion about whether dispensaries could still accept cash (they can) and if offering the state-sanctioned cashless option was mandatory (not yet), the announcement garnered lots of attention within the U.S. cannabis industry.

Helen Cho, director of integrated strategy at Honolulu-based Aloha Green Apothecary, feels that CanPay provides patients who are uncomfortable carrying cash with an important, state-approved alternative. Roughly 10 percent of the dispensary’s transactions are through CanPay, and that’s with clientele predominately aged 55 years or older. “They like to stick by the rules; they like to do things that are legal. It was important that they had an option that they knew was sanctioned by the state,” Cho says.

Cash-only transactions don’t only affect how businesses operate, they also affect customers’ and patients’ convenience in making purchases. As the industry becomes increasingly competitive, the consumer experience is becoming increasingly important as well. Cannabis consumers are seeking the same ease and frictionless experience they enjoy when purchasing any other legal product.

Tim Cullen, CEO of Colorado Harvest Company, views traditional payment methods as a right for the industry and strives to provide them at the company’s three Colorado dispensaries. Each store accepts cash (there are ATMs on site) and the CanPay app as payment options. “I want people to have an alternative to carrying cash with them,” Cullen says. “In today’s society and economy, it’s actually quite rare that someone pays for something in cash outside of shopping in a dispensary.”

Arizona-based Nature’s Medicines implemented a digital payment option offered through Hypur, an Arizona-based payment solutions provider. Nature’s Medicines Marketing Director Nathalie Porter says the Hypur system “has shown to be very convenient for a lot of our patients, and it also helps cut out a lot of those [patients’] bank fees.”

To read the full article in Cannabis Dispensary's April 2018 issue, click here.

Top photo courtesy of CanPay

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