Solely a handful of hashish retailers in the US take pleasure in what may very well be thought of nationwide recognition. The choose few have achieved their standing by way of a mix of aggressive franchising (Cookies), main advertising spend (MedMen, Eaze) or, within the case of Planet 13, by creating one thing so excessive it grew to become a social media phenomenon.
Planet 13’s 112,000-square-foot leisure advanced simply off the Las Vegas Strip catapulted the retail model into the nationwide dialog when the corporate had however one location, due to the stoner portion of Vegas’s 40 million annual vacationers spreading the phrase in regards to the “world’s largest dispensary. So when the dad or mum firm introduced in early 2021 its second retailer would open in Santa Ana, a metropolis in California’s conservative Orange County (OC), observers couldn’t assist questioning whether or not the identical blockbuster, tourist-friendly retail idea would work in a spot with a hard and fast native viewers.
Planet 13 Vice President of Gross sales and Advertising David Farris mentioned the corporate knew from the outset it wanted to create an expertise that might preserve regulars coming again. That meant buttressing the model’s penchant for novelty and spectacle with a method targeted on retention.
“The locals don’t go away. They’re right here to remain,” mentioned Farris, who joined Planet 13 six years in the past as an intern and labored his method up. “A giant a part of the initiative in Santa Ana was to deal with native prospects, the people who find themselves purchasing each week, and actually construct up that base. Specializing in these prospects helped us so much after we first opened the shop.”
Increasing into a unique type of market meant boiling down the model right into a sequence of pillars that might delight and encourage again and again, whatever the nuances within the particular communities a retailer serves.
Whereas some multi-location dispensary manufacturers prioritize symmetry and familiarity throughout each location, the Planet 13 group needs every retailer to steer with spectacle, scale, and tech integrations whereas reflecting the neighborhood that walks by way of the door every day.
“We wished to create and domesticate distinctive experiences with selection from location to location,” mentioned Farris. “We don’t need you to really feel such as you went to the OC retailer, so now there’s no motive so that you can go to the Vegas retailer.”
Just like the Vegas location, Planet 13 OC greets its visitors with an enormous purple planet sculpture out entrance, resembling nothing a lot as an infinite dropped pushpin. “Our huge purple ball water characteristic is a beacon of Planet 13,” Farris mentioned. “Numerous individuals take images in entrance of it, and it has develop into a very huge a part of our vacation spot.”
As soon as inside, visitors have interaction with one other pair of activations as they wait for his or her identification to be checked. Framing the doorway to the store flooring is an eighty-foot-long, floor-to-ceiling-and-beyond LED display screen radiating a fuschia Pacific sundown, full with digital waves (and scuttling crabs) ebbing out onto the ground. Simply past sits a Volkswagen camper van—an everlasting emblem of California surf tradition—door ajar, beckoning prospects to snap selfies as a smoke machine hotboxes the automobile from the within.
Farris recognized the small print as examples of Planet 13’s integration of native character into retail design, serving to the dispensary mix into the material of the neighborhood with out “trying corny.” In addition they exemplify the user-generated content material development turning into more and more frequent amongst forward-thinking dispensaries. By encouraging prospects to take images in entrance of sculptures and murals, shops can leverage their prospects’ social-media clout to broadcast their model.
Tech-forward artwork installations, particularly, are hallmarks of Planet 13. Some items are the primary of their type within the nation. “We’re actually targeted on growing the type of experiences prospects can actually work together with,” mentioned Farris.
As shoppers stroll by way of the digital turnstyles and onto the store flooring, they’re greeted by one other pair of visible feasts: A colossal purple octopus with sprawling tentacles looms over the area, whereas a bevy of brightly coloured umbrellas perches just under the ceiling.
Fifty-two numbered cashstands body the room. As soon as prospects have checked in, they’re free to roam the open flooring, analyzing merchandise earlier than receiving a textual content with a station quantity the place they’ll meet their assigned budtender. The hybrid of a basic counter system and the extra fashionable open flooring plan is meant to provide prospects the most effective of each worlds by coupling informal shopping with discreet, one-on-one interplay.
“We realized individuals gravitate towards strains however don’t take pleasure in standing in them,” mentioned Farris. “What we’ve been capable of create is an setting the place you browse and take a look at merchandise on the ground previous to assembly along with your budtender.
“Lots of different shops don’t care about giving the shopper a high quality expertise; it’s simply churn and burn,” he continued. “However we really feel making the purchasing expertise safer and extra comfy, permitting them to take their time and buy what they need, is in the end way more useful to our enterprise.”
The stock is displayed in 4 rows of basic glass jewellery cupboards, organizing manufacturers, merchandise, and type elements by their reputation within the retailer. One other hallmark of the Planet 13 OC dispensary is the store-within-a-store merchandising characteristic, by which main manufacturers like STIIIZY and Choose lease segments of the shop and construct displays with video screens, merch, and a devoted budtender who specializes within the model’s merchandise.
“We make certain our workers is extra-trained on these particular merchandise to allow them to deal with educating prospects and answering questions on these particular manufacturers,” mentioned Farris. “It’s simply an additional layer of communication and advertising all through the power.”
Launching the OC retailer was an necessary step in Planet 13’s bid to develop into a nationwide dispensary chain, versus a single-location behemoth. Not solely did the model check its mettle in a extremely aggressive market with many stalwart legacy shops, however Planet 13 additionally discovered much-needed flexibility in its presentation and execution to convey the idea into markets with fastened audiences.
With extra shops anticipated to open in Chicago and Miami this yr, Planet 13’s aspirations to nationwide stardom inevitably will check the enduring attraction of spectacle as a draw and the corporate’s capacity to draw and retain locals with the issues that matter to them: nice weed at good costs.