CALIFORNIA RESEARCH TRIP
My Role
Product Designer
UX research
Team
1 Designer
1 Product Manager
Timeline
June 2021
Background
Where we stood with CA (June 2021):
34% of retailers with a LeafLink account that had never logged on were CA buyers
45% of retailers who had not logged on in the past 3 months were CA buyers
26% of our SGO (seller-generated orders aka orders placed by the seller) Heavyweight retailers (>75% of orders are SGOs) were CA buyers
CA buyers had the least amount of weekly sessions and weekly page views and this is correlated with purchasing frequency
40% of the ‘Low GMV’ and ‘Medium-Low GMV’ buyers were CA buyers
Goals
Uncover and recommend product opportunities to increase buyer engagement in CA
Validate and learn more about the centralized purchasing concept
Understand how relationships are created and fostered
Understand why buyers don't place BGOs (Buyer Generated Orders aka orders placed by the buyer) once a relationship is established
Understand how buyers are using the platform if they aren't placing BGOs
Learn about sampling processes
Learn how terms are negotiated and agreed upon
Our Approach: Attitudinal vs. Behavioral
This distinction can be summed up by contrasting "what people say" versus "what people do" (very often the two are quite different).
Non-directed interviews
Contextual interviews
First Click Testing
Usability Testing
We wanted to see people in their work environment interacting with LeafLink or non-LeafLink interactions
Participants
All personas:
were glued to their phones 24/7, need to know what is currently in store/in transit/on order, and they all expressed that LeafLink requires double entry of orders
Victor’s Pain Points
Prefers to pick up the phone and talk to a real person, and doesn’t want back and forth
Centralized purchaser (meaning he purchases inventory for all of his locations at once, ships them to his main store, and distributes them to their other locations from that main hub)
Ty’s Pain Points
Is always on Instagram looking for new things to purchase
Vendor-controlled inventory management (meaning the seller controls what items are sold in his stores)
Introduced the Slotting Fees concept to the cannabis industry
Artin’s Pain Points
Requests his menus via text and records the store’s orders via paper & pen
Expressed that the platform was not intuitive for him to use as a first-time user
Themes we saw
Centralized Purchasing
Retailers who have multiple locations, purchase in bulk to a main hub and distribute that inventory to all their locations.
What we observed:
Buyers are bulk purchasing for all their locations together
Goods are sent to one location and stored in the back room
Different systems are used to “distribute” the products to individual locations but no company has a great tech solution to facilitate this
Seller-controlled Inventory Management
Sellers who manage the inventory/product selection for retailers by placing orders on their behalf (via LeafLink or through their own systems)
What we observed:
Brands aid in or entirely manage which products and how much inventory to order for the retailers
Retailers will send the inventory currently on the shelf
Brands look for holes in inventory and place the order on the retailer’s behalf
Data Informed Purchasing Decisions
Retailers use various different platforms to assess their inventory and often manually analyze their data to help inform purchasing decisions
What we observed:
All buyers looked at the inventory they already have in store (POS)
Check to see what inventory they have in transit (Metrc)
Look to see what inventory they have on order (LeafLink and/or ERP)
Calculate a sell-through rate, make any manual adjustments and then place orders
LeafLink orders then need to be entered again into the ERP
Mobile Usage & Platform Usability
Buyers and Sales Reps are constantly communicating via texting or calling to place orders or manage inventory instead of using the platform. Buyers in CA also often find the LeafLink platform confusing to use and express that it’s just easier to call or text in their orders to a Sales Rep.
Mobile Usage
What we observed:
Purchasing Managers are always on their phone, texting in orders, and calling for order updates
Requesting their brand’s latest menu by text message
Responding to the text with what they want to order off the menu
Platform Usability
What we observed:
Not easily searchable (Distro search non-existent / All searches are very rigid)
UX is confusing to navigate especially for a first-time user
Brand Menus are difficult to gain relevant information (such as terpene content for cartridges) because there is so much content spaced out, whereas in their excel sheets they can see everything all at once
Summary & Solutions
During this trip, we learned that the CA market served as an example of how cannabis purchasing habits are antiquated & complicated.
Once we returned to NY, we reviewed & synthesized all of our research and came up with some key problems and how we planned to solve them in the coming quarters.