Temeka Group boasts thirty-one years of expertise working with shoppers together with the Nationwide Soccer League, Nationwide Basketball Affiliation, and Princess Cruises, finishing greater than 5,000 shops throughout a number of industries.
4 years in the past, the Temeka crew introduced its experience to hashish retail. Since then, the corporate has labored with greater than 160 hashish companies, from multistate operators to startups, to rework the businesses’ visions into retail designs that elevate their manufacturers and the trade as an entire. Temeka Group additionally affords companies together with millwork, fixtures, set up, graphics, and signage design and manufacturing.
Right here, visionary house owners Mike Wilson and Paul Nieboer supply perception about retail design finest practices, market alternatives, and the way retailers can capitalize on rising developments in retailer design.
Your organization helps manufacturers craft bodily areas wherein to inform their story. Are you able to briefly describe your course of?
Each model has a dream, a imaginative and prescient, and a narrative. Nevertheless, manufacturers generally battle to translate their story to the bodily area. Lots of our hashish shoppers carry us renderings or designs from their license software with feedback like, “That is good trying, nevertheless it simply doesn’t appear to work for what we would like,” or “This design is up to now over our price range, we don’t know the place to start.” We’ve additionally had shoppers who received a license and secured financing however hadn’t thought in regards to the model expertise in any respect.
After we meet with a shopper in the course of the kickoff session, we ask questions on who they’re, what makes them distinctive, and why a client would select them over different retailers. Our goal is to pay attention, observe, and current again the shopper’s imaginative and prescient within the type of a bodily area. We additionally share methods for layering operational and compliance into the design, a consideration that’s usually ignored.
Shoppers are returning to brick-and-mortar shops, however their expectations have shifted with the provision of on-line purchasing, curbside pickup, and supply. What are the largest alternatives to satisfy the altering wants of in the present day’s hashish customers?
The largest alternative we see for retailers is to grasp the several types of prospects getting into the shop. New hashish customers enter a retailer with numerous questions and schooling wants. In addition they take longer to make choices and purchases. On the opposite finish, skilled prospects know what they need and want to get out and in shortly. At Temeka Group, we now design numerous hybrid shops with built-in categorical traces, pickup counters, and bodega-style purchasing with budtenders who encourage wandering and discovery, assembly the wants of all buyer varieties.
One other alternative exists relating to design ideas. We work with shoppers to develop flagship ideas for his or her A-plus areas whereas additionally growing scaled-down, budget-friendly ideas for his or her shops in smaller markets that stay on-point for model expertise. Creating these variations up entrance is extra environment friendly than value-engineering on the fly.
“Related model expertise” is trending in retail design. What does the idea appear like in hashish?
Our shopper Cookies is a good instance of a related model expertise. They know who they’re and what expertise they need to carry to their buyer. Their model’s social media channels and their in-store experiences are very related and distinct from different manufacturers. Cookies is just not afraid to enter new markets with a singular appear and feel, setting them other than their opponents.
Stiiizy DTLA, for which Temeka Group designed furnishings, incorporates many fascinating and interactive parts with out dropping sight of the shop’s gross sales goal. What’s your prime piece of recommendation for designing a retail surroundings that achieves the twin targets of delivering an expertise and driving sturdy gross sales?
Stiiizy created a visionary, iconic flagship at their [downtown Los Angeles] location that the SoCal hashish market wanted. As a part of the method, the model acknowledged 1000’s of individuals would come by the doorways each day, and so they designed across the full client expertise. They centered on parts like parking administration, variety of point-of-sale registers, and a ready space that was stimulating and fascinating, making a must-see dispensary.
Our prime recommendation to hashish retailers is to make an trustworthy evaluation of the situation earlier than leaping to design. Sturdy gross sales usually get derailed when a retailer picks a poor location, which incorporates websites with restricted parking or a constructing that doesn’t enable the expertise the model needs to offer prospects. A retailer can create the perfect design expertise, but when the true property doesn’t match the expertise, prospects will likely be annoyed and go elsewhere. Choose the appropriate constructing!
Not all retailers have huge budgets like Stiiizy or Cookies. What are some steps smaller operators can take to construct distinctive experiences on a restricted price range?
First, let’s speak in regards to the elephant within the room: the corporate’s price range and constructing. Do your price range and constructing enable for the specified expertise? Each greenback of your price range going into a brand new roof, new HVAC, or electrical upgrades takes away from the inside expertise price range.
Second, let’s focus on timeline. Many consumers inform us horror tales from launching their first dispensary—that it took months or years to open or price an excessive amount of. Usually, somebody has a buddy who is happy and prepared to assist with structure or development, however they is probably not the appropriate individual for the job. As retail design veterans with thirty years’ value of expertise, we regularly get companies open a number of months sooner than anticipated whereas staying inside price range, producing much-needed money circulate after the lengthy licensing course of. We additionally perceive the challenges and prices of the licensing course of and supply financing choices to suit retailers of all sizes.
What are the commonest missteps you see when retailers are planning their retailer design?
We frequently focus on this query in our crew conferences. The most typical points we see embrace:
Not figuring out gross sales projections or anticipated buyer circulate. A very good instance is when a retailer initially needs a bodega design till they understand they anticipate 1,000 prospects a day. At that time, efficiencies must be factored into the design.
Not understanding the true prices of retail build-out. These prices embrace furnishings, fixtures, and gear, in addition to updates on poorly chosen buildings. We’ve got seen all of it, from a constructing with less-than-eight-foot ceiling heights or buildings that wanted all-new HVAC and sprinkler techniques to buildings that had been cheaper to demolish and construct new.
Missing plans for managing buyer orders. Will the shop have budtenders? Will product be fulfilled from again of home or from behind registers? Will product be on show or ordered from a menu? Throughout previous design kickoffs, we’ve discovered many consumers hadn’t given a lot thought to those questions.
Involving family and friends to assist with design and development, particularly after they have by no means labored on hashish or different industrial tasks. We’ve got seen tasks take 9 months to finish when they need to have taken two months. We’ve got seen millwork that didn’t match or was non-compliant. These conditions could also be additional sophisticated when the chums or relations are traders or companions, leading to too many cooks within the kitchen.
Taking shortcuts that negatively mirror on each the enterprise and the trade as an entire. We all the time need to take the excessive street and be totally clear with metropolis officers whereas using a superb design, a superb set of plans, and good contractors.
There’s full of life debate about whether or not in the present day’s customers choose to work together with screens or people on the gross sales ground. What function does retail design play in combining rising tech and the budtender expertise to create a singular and fascinating buyer expertise?
We love expertise, and we additionally consider expertise won’t exchange budtenders. We work with a terrific expertise firm that gives interactive retail shows to coach prospects, enhance capability when budtenders are busy, and seize information on buyer behaviors whereas on the display screen. This in-store expertise is highly effective as a result of the expertise is like purchasing in your cellphone at house: scroll, click on, study, add to cart, repeat.
One other nice instance is when the budtender interacts with expertise whereas speaking to the client on their first go to. When the client comes again later, they will go to the expertise and fulfill their very own order with out the budtender. In essence, the client will get to decide on which expertise they like.
What rising retail design developments are you most enthusiastic about within the coming yr?
We simply completed the millwork and fixtures for the NFL flagship retailer in Las Vegas, and we beloved the radio-frequency identification (RFID) expertise the shop integrated to expedite checkout. Prospects can drop their gadgets right into a bin on the register, and the display screen will instantly give you the overall and be able to cost the client’s bank card, lowering delays.
We’re already seeing comparable RFID expertise at some California dispensaries. When a buyer picks up a safe sniffer can of flower from a product show, the display screen instantly tells them in regards to the pressure; reveals photographs, movies, and worth; and asks in the event that they need to add it to their purchasing cart. Expertise is evolving quickly to boost the model expertise and buyer expertise in ways in which get us excited.
Trying forward, what is going to Temeka Group be as much as within the coming yr?
Since increasing into hashish, we’ve seen a lot of our shoppers battle to handle licensing, compliance, and retailer openings. They had been utilizing every little thing from spreadsheets to databases, making an attempt to pressure software program to satisfy a particular want. These shoppers all thought they had been the one ones combating protecting every little thing organized, however by our one hundredth hashish retail shopper, we knew this was a typical problem with no good answer.
In response, we launched a brand new firm and developed a software program platform known as Greenspace designed to assist hashish operators handle tasks together with licensing and compliance, constructing, working, and scaling. We at present have twenty prospects on beta, with plans to launch nationwide this summer time. This software program will likely be a game-changer for the trade, serving to stage the enjoying area for small to midsize firms to get open sooner and higher.