The Costs of Cash: Why Every Dispensary Needs To Offer Digital Payments To Thrive

As most in the industry already know, cannabis retailers simply don’t get the same convenience when it comes to payments as other industries. Outside of cannabis, these businesses can speed up transactions with Apple Pay, Google Pay, or Shop Pay, while dispensaries get left in the past. Yet recent consumer behavior from Onbe’s 2022 Future of Payments Survey shows:

“74% of consumers prefer to make payments using digital methods over traditional forms, including cash. 65% of consumers believe digital payments are the most secure as opposed to other payment types.”

Customers simply find digital payments more secure and convenient—just like merchants do! These stats tell you why consumers love paying digitally instead of with cash or debit/credit, but let’s review how this change can boost your operational efficiency and dispensary revenue. To learn more, download How to Grow Your Dispensary with Better Cannabis Payments.

Here are four ways digital payments can benefit your business:

1. Going cash-free enhances safety and reduces security costs.

Not only is cash expensive to manage, but having on-site ATMs and large sums of cash around is a known target for robberies. To protect your revenue, you must fill and service the ATM regularly, review your cameras for theft, reconcile and lock up large sums in a safe every night, and hire armed transportation for bank drops. 

Your closing staff may report feeling vulnerable when it gets dark out, and you might stay up reading about recent dispensary robberies and budgeting ways to upgrade your alarm system. Besides safety, the average cashless order value is typically at least 25% higher. So, why not go modern?

2. It’s a far more efficient (and dynamic) way to accept payments

ACH (Automated Clearing House) payments can be used for in-store, online, order ahead, and delivery cannabis sales. With a mobile app, your store can accept payments in seconds, and your staff can process transactions anywhere your state allows. Not only are these order types cost-efficient, but they cater to the needs of cannabis patients struggling with mobility.

“As a disabled individual, Spendr makes my trips to the dispensary that much more convenient,” shares one Spendr user – highlighting the value that convenient, ACH-based can provide for everyone who wants to purchase recreational or medical cannabis.

Cannabis checkouts become a breeze with QR code payments. When your customers can scan and go, you save valuable time and increase your average sales volume. Plus, the right ACH provider will pre-authorize your transactions, verifying the customers’ available funds before the purchase. When you offer customers the ability to prepay for their order, big sale holidays like Green Wednesday run much faster and produce a higher return. The result? Larger orders, more revenue, and happier customers.

3. Maintaining compliance becomes simpler and safer.

Another reason to choose a cashless and cardless digital solution is that it’s the most compliant. Staying compliant with state regulations means avoiding penalties or threats to your business license. Cash allows room for human error, which can cause inconsistencies to be reported. 

As shared by Flowhub in their expansive 2023 Guide to Cannabis Payment Processing Solutions regarding ACH transfers, “Since these transfers are electronic, businesses can immediately verify that the funds exist and go directly from the customer's account to your bank account. ACH or bank transfers are simple, secure, legal, and reliable.”

Cards aren’t truly compliant and have been proving more and more unstable. ACH payments are easy to track and simple to report to the state – plus they reduce the risk of fraud. It’s a win/win for every dispensary that can figure out how to offer ACH payments.

4. A better consumer experience means higher customer retention. 

In the cannabis retail world, convenience is a new horizon. There are more options than ever for improving your customer experience, so dispensaries must take advantage of them or be left behind by more tech-savvy competitors.

Later on in the National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA) article shared earlier, they state, “The most important benefit of going cashless is that you’ll see a massive increase in sales and revenue. When a customer is not limited by the amount of cash on their person, they always tend to buy more, and budtenders are better equipped to upsell.”

People love buying cannabis quickly and paying with a few mobile taps at checkout, not waiting in line and worrying if they have enough cash on hand. Dispensaries that offer solutions that provide a modern buying experience tend to see return customers and bigger orders – which means they grow faster. It sounds simple, but doing it the right way is deceptively complex, especially without the right partners to help.

By studying the evolution of cannabis payments throughout the US, Spendr developed a strategy for mastering dispensary payments. Download the complete guide to learn more: How to Grow Your Dispensary with Better Cannabis Payments.

Image sourced from Shutterstock

This post was authored by an external contributor and does not represent Benzinga's opinions and has not been edited for content. This contains sponsored content and is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.