What Dispensary Buyers Look for When Stocking their Shelves with Pre-Rolls

U.S. pre-roll sales shot up nearly 50% in 2020, generating approximately $941 million in sales across five legal states, even as the pandemic raged on. Beyond crowning itself as an explosive product category, pre-rolls are a marker that legal and commercialized weed has arrived.

Every retail consumer seeks convenience, and that’s finally made its way to dispensaries. When’s the last time you purchased a pre-roll from an illicit dealer? With illicit cannabis, you get what you get and you go. No choice, no convenience. Medical cannabis patients with conditions preventing them from rolling their own joint or packing a bowl, also rely on pre-rolls, like people with Parkinson’s disease.

In the cannabis supply chain, what most people don’t realize is how much power the dispensary buyer really has. Dispensary buyers are people solely responsible for finding products to put on the dispensary’s shelves.

They meet with brands, cultivators, and manufacturers to stock the dispensary with things consumers want to buy. Buyers look for cannabis products to have certain factors before approving or denying the products, acting almost like a gate to the storefront’s shelf space.

So, we asked dispensary buyers a few questions about what they most look for when stocking pre-rolls for their store.

Singles vs. Multi-Packs

Our buyers don’t hold a preference for single pre-rolls vs. multi-packs. When our respondents were asked which of the two they prefer, we received a 50/50 response.

Cannabis data analytics company, Headset, dove deep into pre-roll multi-packs and found they accounted for 79% pre-roll units purchased in Canada. But, they only accounted for 25% of pre-roll purchases in the United States.

This statistic isn’t saying to avoid individual pre-rolled joints, but rather highlighting the importance of carrying multi-packs. At the end of the day, leaving the choice up to the customer by providing as many options as possible is always the most valuable option. However, we will say multi-pack pre-rolls sales grew 69.4% from February 2020 to February 2021, while individual pre-roll sales only grew by about 18% over the same time.

Individual pre-rolls are great for casual consumers who don’t smoke a lot or customers sampling the product before purchasing a multi-pack. Multi-packs work well for heavy consumers and people meeting up with friends who also smoke.

Product Priorities

THC percentage is the most important priority for dispensary buyers when it comes to purchasing pre-rolls. 75% of our respondents identified the percentage of THC as a highly-important factor for purchasing. No other factor mattered as much to as many of our surveyed buyers as THC did.

Dispensary buyers will always mirror what the consumer wants to see. A 2021 study found THC to be among the top five most important attributes in a dispensary cannabis product. Other polls and surveys yield the same results. The consumers want THC, so dispensary buyers want THC, too.

Our results found similar findings as the 2021 study did. 50% of respondents in our survey said price is of the utmost importance to them when choosing a pre-roll, along with the flower’s quality. Pre-rolled joints used to get a bad rap for low-quality flower and trimmed plant material only, but most brands are stepping it up and filling their pre-rolled joints with ground, whole flower, often from the same harvest as their top-shelf bud.

Luxury Pre-Rolls

20% of our dispensary buyer respondents always purchase luxury pre-roll products when they’re available, like those with wood or glass filters. Luxury pre-rolls like the glass-tipped blunt and hemp wraps with wooden tips are a way to differentiate your brand and retail store from other pre-rolls on the market.

While the new and shiny cannabis industry is still in an experimental phase, cannabis consumers in general have been dubbed the “dream” consumer demographic. Uber’s study with Fyllo in 2020 found cannabis consumers are 32% more likely to want to be the first to try new products and services. They’re also 25% more likely to share their opinion about a product or service through ratings and reviews.

Most cannabis consumers are open to trying new products and even rating them afterwards, so luxury pre-rolled joints fit right into the mix.

The Reality of Reefers

Our respondents overwhelmingly keep half-gram pre-rolls in stock more than one gram pre-rolls. 80% of our respondents said they prefer keeping two half-gram pre-rolls in stock vs. single one-gram pre-rolls.

Other findings support what our dispensary buyer survey discovered. A 2017 study found cannabis consumers tend to overestimate just how much flower they’re putting in their joints when rolling at home. 24 of the participants estimated they rolled as much as 9/10 of a gram. But, none of the joints had more than 0.44 grams total, indicating most consumers really do prefer about half a gram in their joints.

Providing unique half-gram options like tendu leaf wraps and slim half-gram sizes appeals to a wide range of cannabis consumers.

Indica, Sativa, or Hybrid?

There’s not a strong preference from dispensary buyers for sativa, indica, or hybrid. The biggest preference is ensuring there are both options available for consumers. One buyer remarked they seek out sativa more, because finding a good sativa cultivar is hard. Indica varieties are easier to grow than sativas, which could play a part in the lack of high-quality sativas. As the cannabis industry learns more and more about the structure of different cultivars and how they work with our endocannabinoid system, it will be interesting to see how consumers move away from shopping based on indica vs. sativa.

Interestingly, some of our dispensary buyers said they like to stock up on sativas in the summer and indicas in the wintertime.

Let’s Talk About Blunts

Our survey found hemp and palm leaves are tied for popularity, in terms of what dispensary buyers look for in a pre-roll. Interestingly enough, our respondents said palm leaf is more of a preference when it comes to stocking dispensary shelves.

Palm leaf blunts are also called cordia wraps, as they’re made from cordia leaves. King Palm jumped on the opportunity to capitalize on recreational cannabis, dubbing a cordia leaf wrap and tube King Palm leaves. Differentiators like palm leaf wraps, in addition to classic hemp and tobacco wraps, appeal to most cannabis consumers.

In Conclusion

Quality, price, and THC percentage remain in the top few factors that matter most to both dispensary buyers and consumers. Convenience has never mattered to cannabis consumers more than getting the best product at the best price.

Now is the time for brands to release experimental pre-rolled products. We’ve learned that not only is the market in a “try it” phase, cannabis consumers in general are more experimental and willing to try new products and services. They also are more likely than non-consumers to leave reviews.

Ultimately, dispensary buyers will always mirror what the consumer wants to see. The best dispensary buyers consider the national and local market when choosing which products to stock on their shelves or not.