How to Design a Dispensary: Budget-Friendly Tips for a Memorable Consumer Experience

Customers across industries have more choices than ever before, making it increasingly crucial for brands to excel and stand out. Cannabis brands are no exception — cannabis retailers around the United States need to ensure that they make informed, careful decisions from the very onset of their dispensary plans. From maximizing the budget to keeping accessibility at the forefront, dispensaries can perfect the science of retail design. 

READ: Opening a Dispensary Business — Everything You Need to Know

Thoughtful branding at all budgets

Thoughtful, innovative dispensary design can be achieved at any budget, whether a company can spend hundreds or thousands of dollars. Utilizing turnkey solutions can provide the flexibility to adjust to any budget, keeping the project on schedule while still leveraging the resources for quality, custom work. 

When working within the framework of a budget, businesses and their turnkey designers need to find the balance between generating ideas that highlight the brand, give it its own life and echo the vision while aligning with financial considerations. Fortunately, when a brand prioritizes its needs and level sets, it can achieve its dream results at the right price.

Initially, brands can share inspiration boards and images of their ideas for the turnkey provider to build upon, providing a baseline language to guide the project. From there, designers can select the best materials and systems within the budget to maximize success. As long as the turnkey provider is strongly committed to quality design and attention to detail, the approach to the build will be the same regardless of the price. 

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Strategic choices that keep consumers coming back

Brands that prioritize accessibility and overall experience will keep consumers coming back. Ultimately, consumers have a choice in where they want to shop — a dispensary with excellent prices and an accessible location will encourage consumers to return for their future cannabis purchases.

Designers can do anything with any space, but they cannot change the site of the store or the population it serves, making location perhaps the most important decision that a brand can make. Retailers should select real estate on a main road in a populous town with ample parking and even walking access when possible. 

When it comes to cultivating the physical retail space, focusing on creating a welcoming, memorable consumer experience is essential. It’s just like trying a restaurant for the first time: if the atmosphere is great but the food is subpar, you are not going to come back for seconds. When you go to a bar, you go where you feel comfortable and have fun, not just the place with the lowest-priced drink. Dispensaries are much the same.

Retail environments, like those of a dispensary, should be inviting and friendly, complete with knowledgeable staff members who guide a consumer through their experience. The most successful stores reflect the environment of their average user and consumer, and dispensaries should do the same.

The FireFlower Craft Cannabis dispensary in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is a prime example of combining budget, accessibility and consumer experience to create a beautiful retail location. Situated in the “Land of Enchantment,” FireFlower invites users to “explore an enchanted state” with its warm, desert-inspired colors and artistic branding. Located conveniently in downtown Albuquerque, FireFlower is a lesson on accessibility in location, allowing consumers to easily drive or walk to pick up their products. 

The bottom line

From working within the budget to developing an ideal consumer experience, there is much to consider when it comes to designing a dispensary. When a brand gets it right, often through strategic teamwork with a turnkey solution provider, consumers will stay loyal and keep returning to purchase their favorite products. Looking towards the future, dispensaries can take notes from fellow retail brands or even other gathering places, like bars, to innovate upon the consumer experience.

Increasingly experiential activations may be on the horizon for dispensaries — hosting real, social experiences that encourage consumers to spend time in the location may be the next frontier of cannabis, akin to a bar hosting special events. For now, dispensaries can amplify their designs through informed financial choices and thoughtful accessibility decisions to cultivate the finest retail experiences. 

As urban-gro’s Executive Vice President of Business Developments, Sam Andras brings decades of architectural and engineering design experience to the urban-gro executive team. Previously, Mr. Andras was the senior principal and partner at MJ12 Design Studio, Inc. and 2WR + Partners prior to the firms’ acquisition by urban-gro in 2021.