Three Things Must Occur Before Michigan’s Cannabis Market Catches Up to Its California Peers
With focused attention, Michigan’s cannabis market can easily and quickly reach its full potential, and overcome the barriers hindering its growth.
Before I helped to found Six Labs, a Michigan-based cannabis company, I did a lot — I mean a lot — of research. I visited dispensaries all over the country. Those in northern and southern California vs those in Michigan and neighboring states like Illinois — well, let’s just say it was like the difference between going to your local convenience store to buy wine and going to a specialty store like Binny’s.
It’s the difference between the makeup counter at Walgreens and walking into Sephora. The former might provide what you need, but the overall experience and the endless choices in the latter not only provide what you need, it gives you options — lots of them — options you didn’t even know you wanted.
For example, the California provisioning centers I saw were lined, some from floor to ceiling, with no less than 300 different product lines. Now don’t get me wrong. This could be overwhelming for a cannabis novice — and possibly a seasoned veteran as well. But once you’re acclimated to the choices, you begin to appreciate the options available to find just what you need.
A lot of the disparities between dispensaries in different states have to do with competition, and California has a plethora of cultivators and processors who are vying for shelf space. Whereas in Michigan the number of product wholesalers pales in comparison. This is unfortunate because the demand is there. Adult cannabis sales in Michigan may exceed $400 million this year, and grow to $1.9-$2.4 billion by 2024.
There is also a distinguishable difference in price. The California products are exponentially higher in many categories, yet consumers are eager to pay for the quality. That emphasis on quality impacts cannabis offerings on multiple levels.
For instance, the California retail experience is truly like no other. In many instances the customer can actually smell flower products, and the process of coming in-store is much more engaging and interactive overall. Even the smaller stores in California have more variety, and in my experience, budtenders across the board are excited, engaging and extraordinarily knowledgeable.
Design the cannabis customers need
Many of the California store designs and finishes are also significantly different. They’re very high-end, which may explain, at least partly, customers’ willingness to pay higher premiums for products. Even better, having an appealing store appearance and offering high quality cannabis is the standard. At least, that’s the case in most of the “legal” stores — there is a swath of illegally run pop-up retail stores in some parts of California that I have never patronized. The legal stores I have visited are abundantly stocked, and provide a truly cultural experience that Michigan and other “newly minted” states have a long way to go before they can replicate.
In order for states like Michigan to catch up, the team at Six Labs has identified three significant milestones that must be achieved. First, cultivators must reach for a gold standard and produce clean, premium strains of extraordinarily high quality cannabis. There are still a lot of black market products floating around, and they can be dangerous, for one thing. But all of the cannabis companies in the industry as a whole must align around the need to produce products that are free of toxins, heavy metals and pesticides. Consumers deserve that. Further, we must establish standardized testing protocols to ensure product safety.
Second, cannabis companies must offer more variety as well as premium packaging for both flower and processed products, including edibles. Currently many Michigan retail operations substantially lack variety in all categories, specifically in the budding demand for extracts, including edibles, which offer the end user the ability to ingest cannabis without inhaling.
Create a cannabis brand customers want
Packaging is an important part of our strategy at Six Labs because we understand that consumers need visual cues and attractants to prompt them to make choices. Packaging is the first touchpoint to enable customers to experience a brand. Six Lab’s consumer brand, which will launch in the coming weeks, is intended to create an elegant and simple visual concept that is consistent across all products. The logo, typefaces, and color palette we’ve chosen not only embody a brand, they represent an experience, even a feeling, one we hope is memorable and sellable at scale.
Packaging must also provide consumers with vital, accurate information. Consumers need this information to ensure the products they choose are not only right for their particular health or wellness needs, but are safely and securely packaged so they know no tampering has occurred, and to maintain ease of use.
The third milestone that must occur for Michigan cannabis companies to catch up to our more sophisticated peers in places like California, is that retailers must take greater pride in their overall product presentation to the public. That includes the design and layout of their stores, as well as increasing their employees’ knowledge and training.
Product presentation matters. Floor space, color and decor choice, end caps, all of these things impact the customer experience, and the customer experience is critical. Dispensaries have to be creative, but they have to be practical too because physical spaces have to blend efficiently and effectively with digital offerings.
It may take years for Michigan to catch up to the convenience of having multiple stores within a stone’s throw of one another, the way things are in many parts of California. There cannabis is almost perceived more as an ingredient than a product, and competition ensures that customers have multiple premium products at their fingertips. But Michigan can start to forge ahead with what it currently has to create a unique and engaging cultural experience for the consumer.
