The cannabis industry is hardly “new” anymore. The waves of adult-use legalization are more than ten years old now, and the days of cold, pharmaceutical-style in-person shopping are over. As consumers turn toward more sophisticated, interesting brands, the future of retail is evolving—and the online experience is more important than ever.
Third-party marketplaces such as Weedmaps and Leafly have cemented themselves as crucial components of the e-commerce ecosystem. These platforms attract significant traffic because they have earned domain authority and consistently rank well in search engines—often higher than the brands and dispensaries they feature. This makes them a convenient solution for both consumers and retailers, but convenience isn’t always the most cost-effective, profitable, or enjoyable way to approach a task.
Traditionally, self-hosted e-commerce solutions were beyond the financial and technological reach of most dispensaries, but the emergence of native e-commerce menus is changing how retailers present and sell products. Less disruptive for shoppers, better for discoverability in search engines, and relatively easy for dispensaries to implement, the technology offers numerous benefits over popular third-party solutions.
The most common third-party dispensary menus are implemented via an iframe plugin. Think of this kind of menu as reaching through a window on one website and interacting with a completely different site. The menu is hosted on the marketplace’s servers, which can present a number of challenges, including limited access to data generated by transactions.
The technology dates to the 1990s and was adopted as a way to get dispensary menus up and running quickly in a rapidly growing industry. While iframes allow for quick integration, the third-party marketplace ultimately controls everything from data to search engine optimization (SEO) and aesthetics.
With native e-commerce menus, the entire online shopping experience happens within a single website, which the e-commerce merchant controls. Nothing is handed off to a third-party marketplace. Major clothing retailers like Nike, Zara, and H&M use this structure. Among the nifty features native menus allow is sending direct links to product pages. That’s not possible with iframe menus.
Native e-commerce menus are coded directly into the dispensary’s website, providing the store with unfiltered access to SEO, style, user interface, and in-depth analytics. From the moment a customer arrives on the site until they click the “purchase” button, the site’s owner has total access to all data, which can be leveraged to support marketing strategies.
A host of search engine optimization benefits also accrue. Native menus allow dispensaries to rank in search results for the products they carry in their online stores, enhancing visibility and driving organic traffic. Among other things, this means operators can access location-based data, attract more foot traffic, and cater to local consumers more effectively.
For instance, when a customer searches for competitive keywords like “cannabis near me” or “cannabis edibles,” rather than a third-party marketplace popping up in the coveted first few search engine results, an SEO-optimized native menu can help individual dispensaries rank there instead.
Beyond the SEO benefits, native menus allow for an enhanced and inclusive user experience. Seamless integration with a dispensary’s website creates trust and familiarity, allowing the website to mirror the in-store experience, potentially leading to higher conversion rates.
More importantly, clear site navigation lets every customer, regardless of abilities, easily use the site and shop the products. For example, clearly labeled links and URLs make it easier for those who use screen readers to understand the website’s structure.
More dispensaries are moving to native e-commerce in today’s competitive landscape. The early adopters are benefiting most, but it is likely the majority of dispensaries will move to a native solution soon.
Hennep, a recreational dispensary in Provincetown, Massachusetts, was an early adopter. A month after launching a native e-commerce menu, the online store’s organic traffic soared by 69.68 percent, its conversion rate improved by 104 percent, transactions were up 145 percent, and revenue increased by 74.3 percent. In other words, switching from a third-party menu provider to an SEO-optimized native menu helped Hennep increase its online visibility and brand awareness while driving customers to shop at its online store.
So, is it time for you to leave third-party marketplaces behind? New dispensaries with limited budgets may be better off sticking with an iframe solution for the short term. They’re easy to implement, the third-party marketplace handles most of the maintenance, and costs are reasonable. On the other hand, established retailers looking for long-term success may benefit from investing in an SEO-optimized native e-commerce menu.
The industry will continue to evolve. Whether they’re adapting to consumer behavior, new technology, or changing legislation and policies, operators constantly must ask “What is the future of cannabis?”—and meet their customers there.
Dan Serard is vice president of sales and marketing for Cannabis Creative Group, an award-winning marketing agency. A six-year veteran of the cannabis industry, he is a member of professional organizations including the Cannabis Marketing Association, Rolling Stone Culture Council, and the National Association of Cannabis Businesses.
