MJBizMag April 2022 - 12

FIVE QUESTIONS with Ryan Sinclair
Post-Pandemic Retail
Your CBD Store's chief marketing officer discusses retailing
trends in the cannabis sector
By Kristen Nichols
C
ustomization and no-contact
delivery are two big retail
trends that appear to
contradict one another: Consumers
are looking for personalized
formulations, but they don't
necessarily want to spend a lot of
time in a store.
The twin trends present a
special challenge for cannabis
retailers-both those selling
high-THC marijuana in regulated
markets and those selling low-THC
hemp extracts nationwide. That's
because cannabis retailers must
also navigate a thicket of confusing
legal requirements as they fend off
challengers from the illicit market.
To find out how a large,
multistate cannabis operator
captures the wellness-minded
consumer while juggling complex
regulations, MJBizMagazine
caught up with Ryan Sinclair, chief
marketing officer for Your CBD
Store, a Florida-based chain of
franchised cannabinoid retailers
with more than 500 locations in the
United States and United Kingdom.
How has the pandemic
changed cannabis retail?
There's greater consumer desire
for convenience. They're willing
to spend more to get that
convenience.
For some of the other CBD
brands, they didn't have the brickand-mortar
locations that we had
with a community we'd already
created. I think that's one thing
12 April 2022 | MJBizMagazine
health claims about your
products?
We have an extensive training
program that all our store owners
go through to learn how to communicate
everything around CBD and
the endocannabinoid system.
We're not going to put a product
out there and make claims that it
can prevent COVID or cure COVID.
But there's an opportunity to dig
deeper into those cannabinoids
and the potential that those
cannabinoids have.
Ryan Sinclair
that's helped us not just maintain
our business levels through the
pandemic but continue to grow.
Going forward, there's a tremendous
opportunity for us to grow our
online presence. The key there is
focusing on it in the right way.
We deliver an amazing experience
in our stores, providing that
touchpoint, that interaction with
someone who can help walk you
through a journey or help explain
a new product. We want to be
able to translate that to our online
experience. And that's something
that we're in the middle of working
on right now.
Consumers have seen a flurry
of headlines about CBD's
potential to treat COVID-19.
How do you capitalize on that
news without making illegal
One retail trend that
accelerated during the
pandemic is no-contact
shopping and curbside
delivery. Do you think
no-contact shopping is
coming to cannabis?
It's a huge point of differentiation
for our brands, having that expert
in the store and having that
interaction in the store. Especially
as we continue to bring new
products to market, it's important
for that interaction to happen.
But I will say a key focus for us
going forward is to improve our
online experience that we offer
our customers, whether that's
helping them order products online
that they can pick up in-store
or providing them additional
information on new products that
are coming out and an easy way
they can go pick them up.
Still, that connection to the
wellness expert in our stores
MJBizMag April 2022

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