For CBD business owners, April 20 (420) can be the most lucrative day of the year. However, success doesn’t just happen without some planning and hard work on your part. 

Implementing best practices for dispensaries as well as a few effective marketing strategies can help your store to fly high this year.

1. Review your payments infrastructure.

If you are unable to reliably and efficiently accept customers’ payments in-store or online, all of your other plans will go up in smoke. To that end, be sure that you are working with a high-risk CBD payment provider with expertise in the industry. 

Although you will be hit with higher fees as a so-called “high-risk” business, you cannot avoid being categorized in this way. What’s more, collaborating with a merchant account for a CBD businesses company can help to reduce fraud and smooth your customers’ buying experience.

In addition to partnering with a CBD-friendly company, check out your website and your point of sale system. 

Be sure that both are easy to use and have been updated with the latest software to avoid any glitches during this busy week before, during, and after 420.

2. Get ready for the rush.

You already know that 420 and the days preceding it will bring extra traffic to your store and website. Make sure you are ready for the influx.

To that end, consider remaining open for extra hours. Set up your website to allow pre-ordering, allowing customers to pick up their goods a few hours later. 

In order to make it easier for you and your staff to manage the increased commerce, set maximum order limits.

3. Curate your product offerings.

Because this will be your busiest season, stock a selection that you know your customers will want. A good way to navigate this is to review your historically successful product offerings to learn where the demand lay last year on 420 and during the following months. 

If you have slow sellers languishing on your shelves, use the increased traffic to offload them — even if that means offering them at lower prices.

4. Optimize your 420 layout.

Whether in your store or on your website, give customers a reason to think about the fun of 420 by putting curated products front and center. 

Prominently feature unique 420 bundles and upgrade your menu imaging to inspire people to take a second look at your offerings. Add the personal touch by creating a shelf of staff favorites.

5. Reward your loyal customers.

The point of sale system that helps you run your physical and online business is equipped with a robust set of customer relationships management functions that allow you to launch and run a loyalty program. 

This rewards your frequent buyers when they hit preset purchasing benchmarks. Additionally, it enables you to capture contact details that you can use for other types of marketing campaigns.

To prepare for 420, get in touch with everyone on your list of loyal customers. Entice them to buy online or in-store by offering special members-only discounts and promotions. 

You might also encourage them to refer a friend so that both of them can benefit from special 420 coupons.

6. Prepare your employees for the big day.

On the actual day itself, be sure you have sufficient staff and management to handle the added traffic. Consider motivating your employees to excel by launching a sales competition with handsome prizes to reward the top performers. 

Additionally, be sure your inventory management system is updated so that it accurately reflects correct product quantities in real time. This will ensure that your budtenders don’t get slammed or waste their time hyping items that are not currently available.

7. Keep them coming back.

Although success on 420 is a great boost, it’s even better when you can entice the customers who came in April to return throughout the year. A great way to do this is to add a discount to their receipt that expires two or three months from now. 

Also, encourage anyone who has not already done so to sign up for your loyalty program. This will ensure that they receive any future promotions or announcements of new products or contests.

Although strict regulations about promoting your physical and online dispensary remain in place, there are still things you can do to create a buzz. 

With careful planning and attention to your customer base as well as the content and layout of your offerings, you can turn this year’s 420 into a reason for celebration both for you and your customers.