Hey Guys,

This question is mostly aimed at our fellow MOMs, but I'm curious to see the communities input.

Like any other MOM out there, we want to keep growing our business. We've had a lot of success in our home base, because we do same day delivery in our area, but we've had a bit of trouble getting some buzz around our mail order side of things and it's grown fairly slow.

I'm wondering what else we can be doing to grab attention. Maybe there are some channels we're missing, maybe we have some places we could improve on specifically. We want to be taking the right steps to building a respected MOM.

In short, I guess the questions are:

"what are some of the bigger, established MOMs doing to stand out"?"

And

"What do you as a buyer look for in a MOM?"

Hoping it isn't too much of a conflict of interest. I figured who better to ask these questions to than the forum dedicated to it right?

Cheers!

Not a MOM but I've seen hundreds, tried 40+ in the last year. What makes be come back as a customer, and recommend a MOM, is quality product at reasonable prices and above all, consistency in providing these two simple elements. I say simple, but it's not, especially for new MOMs who probably do not have the connections to be able to do this, very often, you end up having to chose between quality and price and cannot get both, let alone offer both. They key, I would think, is to get closer to the growers to cut middlemen and assert yourself as a reliable buyer in order to get better prices and better quality from those growers as well.

As far as your business specifically, what came out of the multiple reviews (including mine) is that your product is average and your prices aren't amazing. While you can definitely build a business with this model (I could name you 20+ MOMs that have similar quality and price off the top of my head), it will be slow because you do not stand out.

A large part of the market is chronic users who pretty much want the cheapest THC/$ ratio and everything else for them is gravy, so having a 100$/OZ offer is something that will bring some business. Not the most lucrative one, but these chronic users buy a lot, so it may even out in the end if you can find decent product you can offer at that price.

Another part of the market, which I'm part of, is looking for top quality flower. Every MOM out there has "AAAA" weed on their menu, but only a handful ACTUALLY have AAAA weed. If you can find a way to have that quality at a price that isn't outrageous, you'll get a lot of attention. None of the samples I got from you were close to what I expect from AAAA, if it's any reference. You might sell less of these, but the profit margin will be higher.

Hope that helps!

Just looked quickly but I’d get rid of the “someone in Calgary just bought x”, it’s tacky. Also, add an option so I can see all flowers at once, not just by indica sarica or hybrid.

What have you tried in terms of marketing? What customer retention tools do you currently imploy? How much budget do you currently allocate to 'review' product?

Trust, in my opinion, is the number one aspect to gaining new customers. Information kept private, product is what's described, etc. Build trust and Word of mouth for customer acquisition goes a long way towards your branding.

Otownkush wrote: Sat May 11, 2019 1:55 pm Just looked quickly but I’d get rid of the “someone in Calgary just bought x”, it’s tacky. Also, add an option so I can see all flowers at once, not just by indica sarica or hybrid.

Yeah this is one we were really unsure of implementing. Another MOM we have friends in recommended it, but we didn't want people to see the names of our clients along with location. That seemed unsecure to me. So I locked out all the personal info from our front-end servers to keep it marked as "someone" for a better security comfort on my part.

I'm glad you brought it up though. Great to see the direct feedback on these things.

Supherbs wrote: Sat May 11, 2019 2:15 pmYeah this is one we were really unsure of implementing. Another MOM we have friends in recommended it, but we didn't want people to see the names of our clients along with location. That seemed unsecure to me. So I locked out all the personal info from our front-end servers to keep it marked as "someone" for a better security comfort on my part.

Never quite understood what MOMs expect this kind of notification to do.

WhiteRabit wrote: Sat May 11, 2019 2:09 pm What have you tried in terms of marketing? What customer retention tools do you currently imploy? How much budget do you currently allocate to 'review' product?

Trust, in my opinion, is the number one aspect to gaining new customers. Information kept private, product is what's described, etc. Build trust and Word of mouth for customer acquisition goes a long way towards your branding.

We've been building steadily over the past 2 years or so now. The only marketing we've really done has been Direct word of mouth on our product, as well as weedmaps and of course here.

We're currently looking to make massive changes in our approach because we're at a point where we're comfortable growing quickly (in the beginning the team struggled to keep up)

We're going to be putting more attention on review product, because they certainly add some buzz. We saw that just from a recent review request we did and had a good impact (as well as gave us some pointers to improve on with our service)

Our customer service is great, but I feel we've left ourselves out of the conversation as a whole. This is us seeing where to jump in.

Thanks for the feedback!

xsinx wrote: Sat May 11, 2019 2:17 pm

Supherbs wrote: Sat May 11, 2019 2:15 pmYeah this is one we were really unsure of implementing. Another MOM we have friends in recommended it, but we didn't want people to see the names of our clients along with location. That seemed unsecure to me. So I locked out all the personal info from our front-end servers to keep it marked as "someone" for a better security comfort on my part.

Never quite understood what MOMs expect this kind of notification to do.

Show potential customers visiting that people are buying their product. If people are making purchases then the site must have a desirable product, and to reassure the visitor that they'll get what they paid for (instead of being ripped off - You are afterall buying a grey market product).

xsinx wrote: Sat May 11, 2019 1:31 pm Not a MOM but I've seen hundreds, tried 40+ in the last year. What makes be come back as a customer, and recommend a MOM, is quality product at reasonable prices and above all, consistency in providing these two simple elements. I say simple, but it's not, especially for new MOMs who probably do not have the connections to be able to do this, very often, you end up having to chose between quality and price and cannot get both, let alone offer both. They key, I would think, is to get closer to the growers to cut middlemen and assert yourself as a reliable buyer in order to get better prices and better quality from those growers as well.

As far as your business specifically, what came out of the multiple reviews (including mine) is that your product is average and your prices aren't amazing. While you can definitely build a business with this model (I could name you 20+ MOMs that have similar quality and price off the top of my head), it will be slow because you do not stand out.

A large part of the market is chronic users who pretty much want the cheapest THC/$ ratio and everything else for them is gravy, so having a 100$/OZ offer is something that will bring some business. Not the most lucrative one, but these chronic users buy a lot, so it may even out in the end if you can find decent product you can offer at that price.

Another part of the market, which I'm part of, is looking for top quality flower. Every MOM out there has "AAAA" weed on their menu, but only a handful ACTUALLY have AAAA weed. If you can find a way to have that quality at a price that isn't outrageous, you'll get a lot of attention. None of the samples I got from you were close to what I expect from AAAA, if it's any reference. You might sell less of these, but the profit margin will be higher.

Hope that helps!

This was a really useful piece. Because you're right. Especially in the beginning, it's challenging for a MOM to get and be able to offer these simultaneously.

The recent reviews gave us a big stepping off point on making improvements. The flower we offer might be great on same day delivery, but packaging the same way and doing the same thing for cross-country definitely affects the quality we offer and ultimately our name.

We're looking in to better packaging right now, as well as constantly working with our growers to see what we can do.

Never considered the budget bud before, but it's definitely something we can look in to. We always tried to source the best flower from our growers so we only offered "AAA" and up, but it seems our quality may not be where we think it is, and we'll have to be more considerate of what we put out there.

Thanks!

Supherbs wrote: Sat May 11, 2019 2:28 pmWe're looking in to better packaging right now, as well as constantly working with our growers to see what we can do.

Never considered the budget bud before, but it's definitely something we can look in to. We always tried to source the best flower from our growers so we only offered "AAA" and up, but it seems our quality may not be where we think it is, and we'll have to be more considerate of what we put out there.

For packaging, I would highly recommend boveda or integra packs. Wholesale these will cost you less less than a dollar (just bought 25 8 gram ones - which are good for up to an OZ of flower - for about 1$ each, you can use smaller/cheaper ones still for smaller quantities) and they make a world of difference, especially if you pre-package items. This can make the difference between crunchy and fresh and helps preserve aromas which are pretty much the first thing people face when they open the bag. This is even more true with samples, people aren't going to jar 1g samples for a week before trying them, they'll just bust it up and roll it on the spot so if it's too try it can really hurt the appreciation.

As for budget, everybody wants quality, but not everyone has money for it. The more one smokes, the truer this is. Also consider the crowd that buys to flip, they are looking for those cheap OZ to flip for profit. Not happening on 200$ stuff. A friend of mine grew weed for years and he basically grew the easiest/cheapest shit he could find.. not because he wanted to profit more, but because clients would rather pay 10$ less an OZ even if the quality is double. Money talks, there's a huge market for "meh" weed so long as it's bone cheap.

Supherbs wrote: Sat May 11, 2019 1:07 pm
In short, I guess the questions are:

"what are some of the bigger, established MOMs doing to stand out"?"

And

"What do you as a buyer look for in a MOM?"

Hoping it isn't too much of a conflict of interest. I figured who better to ask these questions to than the forum dedicated to it right?

Cheers!

nothing, speaking as a community member and MOM
nobody stands out, everyone has done their course of time to be known or be established

do your time, run it properly. this market is big enough everyone has a piece of the pie
as the months go on, you will get busier

key thing - how you resolve issues

lets face it, mold, shorts, wrong order received is going to happen, ignore the reddit or trash talkers, nobody ever sees what it takes to be an actual MOM behind the scene

if you're sabrina, then thats a different story, (not bashing on them) but sabrinas been blasted too many times for the same reason
which goes back to my point above on why

no mom doesnt matter who it is is 100% flawless,

There's a bunch of different markets when it comes to this business.

Do you want to push AAAA for $250/oz and hit the "connoisseur" market?
Do you want to push moderately-priced, decent quality weed and hit the market of your "casual" stoners?
Do you want to push lots of bulk and market to resellers?
Doing something BETTER than anywhere else is what makes you stand out.

Lots of dispensaries try to do a whole bunch of stuff, but if you look at the most successful ones they usually know what they want to be, and go for it. CheapWeed for example provides decent quality bulk, at usually some pretty nice prices. He's killed the bulk market and gotten huge from it. CoastalWildFire was the talk of the town a few months ago because they had real top of the line AAAA cannabis that the community was going wild over, and even though it was incredibly overpriced (in my opinion) it was flying off their shelves and they couldn't hold stock longer than a couple days. GanjaWest gave away a free ounce on their next purchase to anyone who bought and reviewed their bulk strains. I saw them go from a MOM that was brought up once-in-a-while to being a name I see everywere, because their bulk was priced very well, and the quality was great for the price. Obviously having reviewers jumping on the free ounce and advertising for them helped too.

I'm sure you can get big by doing it all, but from what I've seen it's not the best way to go about it. Find your niche and be the best at it.

In terms of web presence, be present but don't sell. Be helpful, get involved in conversations, but dont always bring back discussion to your products. I see some moms on reddit, where someone will ask for shatter, and some moms will show up and be like "hey check us out" when they dont have shatter (just an example). Get your name to be familiar and have good product, people will come

SEO is an important aspect. If I search for some common keyword for your website I'm not able to find you within the first 20/30 results. Organic traffic and google search will bring some sales as well locally and from anywhere in Canada.

Hire a firm or a specialist, that will cost you around 500$ per month and they will help you define objective on page SEO and get you on top page for some keyword. As you want to be in top10 while searching for Canada online marijuana dispensary, online cannabis ect..

You lost me and a friend as customers right off the bat. We both emailed about the free samples for reviews, were told to send in our info and the samples would get sent out. Neither of us have received our samples and we both get regular junk mail from you now. Typical shitty sales tactics.

farmingbaked wrote: Mon May 13, 2019 9:03 am You lost me and a friend as customers right off the bat. We both emailed about the free samples for reviews, were told to send in our info and the samples would get sent out. Neither of us have received our samples and we both get regular junk mail from you now. Typical shitty sales tactics.

Same thing happened to me from another mom. At least let me know if you're no longer sending them out, because just ghosting after I send you personal info makes it seem like they are phishing

farmingbaked wrote: Mon May 13, 2019 9:03 am You lost me and a friend as customers right off the bat. We both emailed about the free samples for reviews, were told to send in our info and the samples would get sent out. Neither of us have received our samples and we both get regular junk mail from you now. Typical shitty sales tactics.

Hey @farmingbaked,

I am going to follow up on this right away. I know you were 100% on the send-out list for those reviews, so I'm going to talk to our team and see what's going on. Can you DM us the user of your friend that did as well?

**UPDATE: Thank you for bringing this up. This was completely our bad. We did some backtracking and found exactly where we dropped the ball and are going to send out the missed packages right away.

I literally just wrote the best advice and longest, detailed post and It took me so long to get everything just-right that this website auto logged me out and when I hit submit, it asked me to log in again and it brought me to a blank page again... whoever coded this site to do that seriously needs to change that.

Man that sucks because I don't have it in me to retype it, perhaps after a joint later tonight I'll come back and try again.

Tony Soprano wrote: Mon May 27, 2019 8:56 pm I literally just wrote the best advice and longest, detailed post and It took me so long to get everything just-right that this website auto logged me out and when I hit submit, it asked me to log in again and it brought me to a blank page again... whoever coded this site to do that seriously needs to change that.

Man that sucks because I don't have it in me to retype it, perhaps after a joint later tonight I'll come back and try again.

Yeah not sure why that happens, some get it a lot, some very rarely. I've had it a few times. Whenever I have a long post or reply, I copy it before submitting so I can just paste it back if it fails.

xsinx wrote: Mon May 27, 2019 9:16 pm

Tony Soprano wrote: Mon May 27, 2019 8:56 pm I literally just wrote the best advice and longest, detailed post and It took me so long to get everything just-right that this website auto logged me out and when I hit submit, it asked me to log in again and it brought me to a blank page again... whoever coded this site to do that seriously needs to change that.

Man that sucks because I don't have it in me to retype it, perhaps after a joint later tonight I'll come back and try again.

Yeah not sure why that happens, some get it a lot, some very rarely. I've had it a few times. Whenever I have a long post or reply, I copy it before submitting so I can just paste it back if it fails.

Gonna have to start doing that too now I guess lol.

I look for quick and courteous replies when I ask questions. (Quick is within 5 days, I know you guys are busy!)
I also look for trial/variety packs where you don't have to buy huge amounts each. I don't want a variety pack with 14g each of strains I don't know if I will like. I would prefer 3.5g per sample variety. I don't expect sample packs for free, but when I do order, it always impresses me if there is a free gram or something cute in there. Even a sticker or a pocket ashtray, etc. It always makes me feel valued as a customer. I really love when they send a sample gram or preroll (labelled), as it has certainly encouraged me to look for higher priced strains. Maybe the MOMS out there don't think that someone who sticks with lower priced strains will go for something higher priced, but for me, if I try a $10 strain that I love, I will definitely buy that over the $5 strain that is good, but not great, I just don't want to throw my money away beforehand. I have only ordered from 4 different places so far, as I am new to cannabis, (A few months now). My favourite for customer service is GreenGod (Walter White strain from them was completely kief free though - over tumbled maybe?), Price - faircannacare, MarysSecret has good weed, well packaged and labelled, fair prices. Doesn't stand out above the others, but I will buy from them again, as I know they can be trusted. I have just made a purchase yesterday from TripleLoud. At first the guy seemed annoyed with me, but then he was very sweet and kind, so it might have just been me. He has sent me a few emails now updating on my order, and I have a great feeling about this place. I will update. Above all though, good, funny, kind customer service people who are not afraid to laugh at the odd joke when a stoned person writes asking questions, will always get you on my good list. If the customer service seems cold, I am sensitive to that, and will be less likely to buy from you, because then I worry you won't send me good weed. If I trust you, if I feel you care about my order no matter how small, then you are going to get my bigger orders, and have my word of mouth advertising.

Off to try some pineapple trainwreck from MarysSecret now.

TheRealMrsMVP

I'm looking to put an order through with you guys(I've ordered twice before now, you are local to me) and the customer service has been rock solid. I wish the packaging was much more discrete personally, but not a big issue.

I would suggest creating the ability to buy an oz of weed, but have it very 4 different varieties. As someone who can never choose what i want, i really enjoy being able to sample a few at a time.

But really solid customer service from what i experienced so far. Let me know if you guys do anything for reviews. I can definitly do up a review for you. Supporting local when i can.