Same day weed delivery: what are the challenges that the industry faces?

With Covid-19 drastically altering our world and its businesses, we may have to refine our understanding of consumer behavior. While it has made many services obsolete, it has also opened new avenues for others. New platforms and ideas are gaining immense growth and traction. For the cannabis industry, its rise is rapid and has hit record sales in many states in America. Cannabis delivery services and dispensaries have witnessed a 67% increase in consumption over the past year. The sales in the US alone have hit 17.6 billion dollars. 

This shift has also opened new opportunities and revenue-creating avenues for producers, retailers, and delivery services which ensure a safe and quick delivery. Urban and rural economies can flourish as these demands increase influxes of money, even helping refurbish livelihoods in rural communities. 

While the economic benefits from this rise, there are equally limiting hurdles with such a drastic increase in demand. How is the market responding to it?

Given a sudden rise like this, one should take into consideration the legal restrictions. It is so because legislation has a role in cannabis sales and markets. As many states have legalized cannabis, we witness a drastic rise in consumption. In most states, it’s legal, while in more than thirty states, medical permits are still necessary. There are some exceptions as well. For example, in California, agents can deliver weed to your doorstep like any other food package. With that ease from a legal standpoint, how does this pose a problem to the dispensaries and delivery services? Apart from a few reliable options like Black Rabbit Same Day Delivery, how are businesses optimizing this boom?

Same day delivery

Amidst the lockdowns, one thing most businesses could not adapt to was the change to supply at your doorstep. This leg of the supply chain caused a lapse in the market and the supplier. Optimizing such a gap includes making a shift to online, home delivery options. Other alternatives that were trendy include curbside pickups etc. Apart from the lockdowns, consumers did face anxiety with stepping out even when the restrictions were relaxed. This change in trends reflects a market that is largely untapped by services today. If these changes persist even today, why haven’t most businesses adapted to the shift yet? The answer lies in the constraints that exist in promising same-day delivery.

Challenges

Home delivery of weed was made available by certain companies last year. This change influences more consumers are starting to incline towards convenience. For the customer, it’s far more efficient and effortless to receive shipments at their doorstep. Even if customers want to pay more for these deliveries, they expect shipments in ninety minutes. But what are the hassles businesses face in this stage- in offering quick and efficient deliveries? Let’s look at a few-

• Lacking Fine Operations – The industry is just beginning to see its day. In such a time, most retailers and dispensaries are still carrying out all operations on an ad hoc basis. If most work takes place manually, one can expect a delay in the delivery process as work is tedious, time-consuming and errors are not unexpected.

• Sipping across states – Even though the ease has relatively benefited markets, shipments across borders aren’t so easy to carry. Since cannabis delivery is illegal at federal levels, transportation complications are bound to occur. This regulation means that cannabis sold must be grown, sourced, and produced in the same state where the company delivers it. Such an arrangement may work for larger states to a good capacity. Small businesses, however, cannot afford to offer the same.

• Safety concerns – Same-day deliveries require agents to deliver an expensive amount of shipments in a short amount of time. The safety of agents delivering packages and the shipments themselves are a cause of concern. Since burglaries are common, the supply chain needs to be strengthened before offering same-day deliveries.

Way Ahead 

Even though we are equipping ourselves to the pandemic, any image of a pre-pandemic or post-pandemic life is not possible. We are undeniably altered by the pandemic and continue to remain so. Businesses and institutions are adapting to these changing demands and behaviors. It’s difficult for suppliers to venture out and offer a same-day delivery plan. The cannabis industry has to do so as well. 

Usual constraints in this process include manual route planning, incorrect addresses, and a lack of standardization in daily planning. To get past these, one must first address operational lapses.

One can address these by

• Efficient planning – If a company streamlines the processes and replaces manual actions with automation, work could solve most of these hassles. From ordering, dispatching, delivery routes to optimizing delivery at every step, automation could help simplify work accordingly.

• Real-time planning – The same-day delivery will require agents to make decisions in real-time, confront and respond to unexpected accidents. Lapses in approvals and reporting can delay further orders. To avoid these issues, geocoding can help track delivery agents and offer consumers tracking services as well. Tracking relieves both the supplier and the consumer, even in case of unforeseen delays.

• Effective decision making – The data collection of these behaviors could help understand the consumer pattern for the particular service or company. This study could help suppliers preempt orders and sales, and by preparing accordingly, they could fasten this process.

• Enhanced Logistics – By planning deliveries based on time-slots, suppliers can stay ahead of the consumers. Working with expected statistics and time-slots can offer enhanced on-ground operations and improved utilization of resources.

Bottom Line 

Relaxations in our states don’t necessarily promise a change in consumer behavior. With the added comfort offered by same-day deliveries, consumers may not prefer to go back. If small companies do not manage to catch up, they may lose out on the market for the service. By optimizing services at the end of the operation, most of the processes can be made effective. Tapping this market could help study and adapt as trends change.