Dispensary Online – A generation ago the legal purchase of marijuana was a freedom very few people enjoyed. The international floodgates of decriminalisation and legalisation opened in the mid-nineties and has gained wonderful momentum over the past few years. As the legal landscape continues to change, so does the market.
From Dealer to Dispensary Online
Up until fairly recently, marijuana buyers were portrayed in an almost cartoonish fashion: slumped shoulders, glazed eyes, aimless gait, hanging out at dodgy places looking to score. Thanks to the ceaseless efforts of marijuana law reformers and activists, we know that medical and recreational marijuana benefits society from top to bottom, rich, poor, and everyone in between.
As with any other business, the next logical step in selling marijana legally to the public is to sell it through marijuana dispensaries online. Backed by sophisticated, secure online shopping portals, dispensaries online have become the go-to option for most buyers.
Dispensary Online: A Brief History
It is widely agreed that the website considered to be the first in cannabis e-commerce, is Weedmaps. Weedmaps was founded in 2008 as a “website where medical marijuana patients can connect with other patients in their area, to freely discuss and review local cannabis co-operatives and dispensaries.”
What is not generally known is that the first ever online transaction was for cannabis! John Markoff describes this in this paragraph from his 2005 book ‘What the Dormouse Said: How the 60’s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry’:
“In 1971 or 1972, Stanford students used the university’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory accounts to conduct a business transaction with their counterparts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Before Amazon and eBay, the seminal act of e-commerce was a drug deal, as students used the ARPANET network to discreetly agree to the sale of an indeterminate quantity of marijuana.”
Is Online the Future of Retail?
Jeremy Johnson, an expert in the field, answers, “Yes, Covid changed everything — but e-commerce for cannabis is here to stay. There aren’t a ton of statistics surrounding how much of cannabis sales are online vs in-store at the moment, but there’s no denying the impact of curbside only service had. During peak COVID it wasn’t unheard of for 80%+ of sales to come from online. Even today, many dispensaries see 50% or more of their sales come from their online store. More and more, people are searching for products online before buying and it’s important to leverage those consumer trends.“