Choosing the right cannabis eCommerce software for your dispensary website is more important than ever.
Over the past five years, cannabis consumers have completely changed how they shop at dispensaries and how they decide which dispensary to order from.
The majority of cannabis consumers browse the menu on a dispensary’s website before they visit the store so they can see what products are in stock and place a pre-order to reserve the products. Pre-ordering also makes for a quick and stress-free experience when you pick up your order.
An online menu is typically the first interaction shoppers have with a dispensary. It is how consumers find products and where they make the decision if they are going to purchase or not. A poor eCommerce solution can hurt your conversion rates and revenue, while a good solution can help you acquire and convert new customers.
As a dispensary owner, it is crucial that you choose an eCommerce solution for your website that will fit your needs and have a positive impact on your sales.
Here are some considerations when choosing a dispensary eCommerce solution.
- User Experience – Easy to use and intuitive from browsing to checkout.
- Branding and customization – Provide an eCommerce experience consistent with your brand standards
- SEO (Search engine optimization) – Can your product and category pages be indexed and discovered on search engines?
- Integrations – Does the eCommerce platform integrate with your existing technology stack? Make sure it works with your point-of-sale software, loyalty software, and other software.
- Price – Do you need an inexpensive and easy-to-set-up solution or are you willing to make an investment in a more advanced solution?
There are three types of cannabis eCommerce solutions
iFrame Menus
Iframe menus are third-party websites that are embedded on your own website. It is almost like you are looking through a window on one of your web pages and interacting with the other website. These menus are typically inexpensive and easy to set up. However, they offer no SEO value, provide a poor user experience, cannot be customized, and cause website analytics tracking issues.
Subdomain Menus
A subdomain menu is when you put a third-party website on a subdomain of your website. So if your website is www.yourdispensary.com, you might put your website on the “shop” subdomain. Your website would remain on your domain, but your online menu would live on shop.yourdispensary.com. Most subdomain menus can be discovered by search engines but they offer very low SEO value. E-commerce analytics are usually more accurate with subdomain menus, but they offer the least customization. It is usually a poor user experience clicking from your main website to a subdomain menu because they usually look like completely different websites.
Native eCommerce Menus
Native eCommerce is when the full online shopping experience from product discovery to checkout happens on the same platform and website. This is how traditional eCommerce websites operate but is relatively new for the cannabis industry. Native eCommerce menus offer incredible SEO benefits to dispensaries because their product, product category, and brand pages and be discovered on Google. Most native eCommerce menus and be customized and analytics are typically very accurate.
Here are the best cannabis eCommerce software solutions
- Dutchie – iframe and subdomain menus
- I Heart Jane – iframe menu
- Spark Menus – Customized, native eCommerce solution that integrates with Dutchie Plus and Jane Roots
- Tymber – Native eCommerce menu
- Dispense – Native eCommerce menu
- Olla – Subdomain menu
- Weedmaps – iframe menu
- Leafly – iframe menu
Dutchie
Dutchie is the largest and most well-known dispensary menu software on the market and over 5,000 dispensaries use their software. They provide one of the cleanest user experiences and their iframe menu allows dispensaries to quickly embed the menu on their website. In addition to their eCommerce platform, dutchie also offers a point-of-sale solution and payment solution so the entire shopping process is seamless.
The company has been operating in the cannabis industry since 2017 and they have a great support team with live chat assistance.
Types of menus solutions they offer:
- Iframe
- Subdomain
- Dutchie Plus – API access for Native eCommerce integration (with menu solutions like Spark Menus)
If you are looking for a reliable eCommerce solution that is easy to set up, Dutchie is the best choice for most dispensaries.
I Heart Jane
I Heart Jane is the second-largest eCommerce platform for cannabis businesses after Dutchie. They offer a great user experience and many integration capabilities with POS software solutions. Many dispensary owners choose Jane because of their product photos and description library which makes setting up the menu a lot easier. Jane currently only offers an iframe menu solution which makes for an easy setup, but comes with many SEO and analytics tracking limitations.
Types of menus solutions they offer:
- Iframe
- Jane Roots – API access for Native eCommerce integration (This is an expensive paid option they will also require custom eCommerce development)
Jane is an excellent solution if you are looking to quickly fill your product library and embed your menu on your website. It is important to make sure that your eCommerce software integrates with your other preferred software solutions and Jane has a lot of integration capabilities.
Spark Menus
Spark Menus is a native eCommerce menu platform that integrates with Dutchie Plus and Jane Roots APIs allowing dispensaries to upgrade their iframe menu to a normal eCommerce website. This was recently only available to large MSOs and dispensaries with high marketing budgets, but Spark Menus has built a platform to make native eCommerce affordable and accessible to dispensaries of all sizes.
This is a managed service built on your website by the Spark Menus team. The backend of the menu is still managed via Dutchie or I Heart Jane.
Types of menus solutions they offer:
- Native eCommerce (with Dutchie Plus or Jane Roots)
This is the best option for any dispensary marketer or owner looking to grow their business. It includes hundreds of SEO-optimized eCommerce pages that can rank on Google and allows for design customizations so dispensaries can offer a branded experience on their menu.
Tymber
Tymber was the first widely available native eCommerce platform for dispensaries and they continue to improve their products. They offer some customization capabilities and the ability to add custom text to product category pages.
Types of menus solutions they offer:
- Native eCommerce
Dispense
Dispense is a newer native eCommerce platform that getting a lot of people’s attention. They are building a solution that is focused on the retailer to differentiate themselves from cannabis marketplaces and iframe menus. They highlight their SEO benefits and data privacy advantages over marketplaces and other iframe menu providers.
Types of menus solutions they offer:
- Native eCommerce
- Iframe menus
Olla
Olla offers subdomain menus with some custom branding capabilities. The company highlights the SEO value of its menus but they still have limitations. Subdomain menus are better than iframes, but still not great for SEO because a subdomain is a different property from the main domain.
Types of menu solutions they offer:
- Subdomain
Olla is a great solution if you like the user experience and want some SEO benefits.
Weedmaps
Weedmaps is one of the most recognizable names in the cannabis tech space. They are a cannabis marketplace that also allows dispensaries to embed their menu on their website in n iframe. This solution is built to be a marketplace, so there are many limitations for dispensaries using it as a website menu solution.
Types of menu solutions they offer:
- Iframe
Weedmaps is a great eCommerce solution if your local market uses the Weedmaps marketplace a lot and you don’t want to manage your menu on multiple platforms.
Leafly
Leafly is a marketplace similar to Weedmaps that made its name by providing amazing content about strains, products, terpenes, etc. to educate users and help them find the perfect product for their needs.
Types of menu solutions they offer:
- Iframe
