Cannabidiol (CBD) is one of many cannabidiols that may help with health issues and does not have psychoactive effects. These issues include anxiety, depression, diabetes, pain, and stress, just to name a few. CBD is now being adopted in various industries in the pharmaceutical and medical fields. Others include wellness, health, and food industries. If you are venturing into marketing your CBD products, you need to have an efficient and effective marketing strategy. One of the most effective ways to do so in a tech-savvy world is by using a website.
Research shows that the market for CBD products will grow at a rate of about 30 percent through 2024. For this reason, more and more CBD businesses are turning to website development. If you have a CBD dispensary, your website should be modern and comprehensive to be able to tap into this market more effectively.
A CBD shop is simply an e-commerce website where you can sell CBD products in your dispensary. However, modern dispensary websites are more than platforms solely for selling. Through some interactive features, you can also educate users and potential customers about CBD products.
Here are some great pointers as to what features your dispensary website could be missing but should have to be effective.
This is one of the most important features that your dispensary website should have. Users or visitors to your website should be able to register and log in to your website via a couple of options. Among the most effective ways to do this is by providing sign-up options using an email. Users should also be able to do so using their verified online profiles such as Facebook, Linked In, or Google.
Most websites only have an option to enter if users are above a certain age. However, there is no way of verifying whether the user is telling the truth. Social media profiles undergo more thorough verification and can be an easier way to make sure only users of legal age are on your website. This can be very useful in avoiding legal issues.
After verifying their age, users should have an option to record their information on your website. A personal profile includes important information such as a delivery address, location, methods of payment, and others. Additionally, your customer should be able to see their order status, order history, and more. This information can be quite useful if you have some kind of a loyalty program for rewarding customers. A personal profile page has information that makes doing business convenient and efficient.
It has been said that about 50 percent of all online transactions happen via mobile devices, such as smartphones. If your CBD dispensary website is missing this feature, you will not have access to this market. Many businesses are said to have reported sales increases after optimizing their websites for mobile device use. Furthermore, most of the population that is open to CBD product use are young and do almost everything on their smartphones. Involve experts who know how to best deliver your web content to customers on their mobile devices in an easy format.
This is the main part of your dispensary website. For this reason, it should be not only concise but also comprehensive. It should contain:
From the above, a potential customer may want to know more about a product. For this, they can then proceed to the product profile. Here, they should find comprehensive information on the product, ratings, and reviews. Additionally, users should get information here about the product’s compliance with laws relevant to your region.
This is a very important feature for your dispensary website, yet it is quite sensitive. It is one step away from your customers making a purchase. As such, special attention should be paid to this feature. It has been said that about 76 percent of these shopping carts are abandoned worldwide. This has been attributed to various factors that you should address on your dispensary website. These include:
The amount of money your dispensary website can generate largely depends on how you address issues with customers who have abandoned their shopping carts.
After customers have selected the product they wish to purchase, it is time to check out. This is another crucial feature that, just like the shopping cart, might lose you some customers. Checkout should be smooth because most shoppers rarely try again if something goes wrong. Also, ensure that your dispensary website is credible and does not need too much information during this stage. After everything, a payment gateway will be required.
Receiving money for CBD products can be a bit tricky. Most mainstream banking institutions are still reluctant to indulge the world of CBD trading. For this reason, your website will require a high-risk payment gateway. Additionally, you may not be able to accept payment from some credit cards.
You may need a CBD merchant account. This is a merchant account that has approval from your provider to sell CBD products. This allows you to receive credit card payments. Some of the providers that accept CBD merchants include Easy Pay Direct, Square, SMB Global, and PaymentCloud, among others. It has been said that Visa stopped transacting with CBD companies, although Discover and Mastercard still do.
Chatbots and live chats are important features in the competitive world of website development. Should your customers have any queries about the products, your dispensary, or their orders, you should have a way of answering them quickly. This feature allows your dispensary website to offer 24/7 customer support. This is because chatbots can automatically answer basic questions. However, access to interaction with live human beings is imperative. This allows the chatbots to redirect complex questions to someone who can assist you further.
This is another important feature that your dispensary website should have. Due to increased online shopping in today’s world, a large majority of shoppers buy products based on what other customers say. Have a feature that allows customers to leave a review for products you sold them. This makes it easier for other customers to make a decision.
Do not let your potential customer go to other sites to find out more about the product. You might lose them in the process. Additionally, this creates a sense of your website’s authenticity.
One of the best ways to communicate to your existing and potential customers is by starting a blog. It is a great means to establish each product, grow your sales, and increase your dispensary website credibility. Content marketing through various tools such as SEO can be very effective and beneficial to your business. Moreover, it does not require a huge investment, unlike paid ads.
A good blog will attract more traffic to your website, which in turn leads to increased sales. You can write about various aspects of the CBD niche, such as recent studies or laws. You can then incorporate aspects touching on your specific products, such as their benefits and tips on using them.
Analytics is an admin tool that your site should not be missing. Although you can use other interfaces such as Google Analytics, having analytics on your website is important. This way you can compare the results. It is an important tool for your dispensary website and should be integrated before your website goes live. Some of the most important aspects that analytics helps you address include:
Some of the most popular analytic tools that can be integrated into your dispensary website are Hotjar and Google Analytics.
This is an integral part of your website and is your control center. From here, you change your website’s content and view its general outlook on how your business is performing. Also, you can see your users’ profiles learn about their trends. Additionally, you can interact with them in a live chat. For this reason, your admin panel should be easy to use and feature-packed.
If an admin panel is too limited, you constantly need the expertise of a web developer to make changes. This should not be the case, as it increases your operational costs and is a huge inconvenience. If your dispensary website is missing an admin panel, you should consider making changes. For instance, if you have sellers on your website, you should be able to moderate the products they publish on the marketplace. You should also be able to edit the products’ order statuses.
If your website is missing an appealing design, traffic to your web content will be significantly low. To have a successful dispensary website, its design should be outstanding. Although the CBD industry is relatively new and there are countable competitors in the market, standing out from the rest is imperative.
A huge percentage of your traffic will probably consist of the younger generations and millennials. To this group, visual presentation plays a key role. Use high-quality images, but do not overdo it because it will slow down your website.
This is one area you do not want to cut corners. If your budget is limited, do not compromise your website’s UI/UX design. Other ways to make it work are available. For instance, you can make use of talented developers from freelance sites who deliver top-notch quality UI/UX designs at lower rates.
Since CBD is a relatively new product to many customers, a frequently asked question section is a must-have. This section will promote brand confidence before customers can trust your products.
CBD is a health and wellness product, and this should be marketed in this section as such. Have loads of information about the potential health benefits of using the products on your dispensary website. Presenting this information using the FAQ strategy is very user-friendly and palatable even to first-time customers. Additionally, you can use this section to address other issues, such as shipping, payment methods, resetting passwords, and others.
Hopefully, these 13 tips give you an idea of what your dispensary website is missing. Moreover, if you do not yet have a website, now you have information on some important features that your CBD dispensary website should have. However, starting and operating a CBD business poses many government restrictions and legal issues. Ensure that you have all the necessary certifications relevant to your region to be on the safe side. If you are good to go, focus on marketing and promoting your quality products, and increasing sales.
To learn more about how to make your cannabis business success, visit Cannabis Promotions for more information