The Real Importance of Budtenders
Published February 21, 2024
Working in the cannabis industry, we’ve been inundated with the rhetoric that budtenders are the key to growing your brand. As gatekeepers to the industry, they’re thought to “educate customers, display your brand image, and create upselling opportunities” with marketers expected to invest in budtenders to grow their business.
““[Budtenders] role in the shopping process is critical, and their recommendations can make or break a brand’s success.” ”
““Your budtenders are more than just salespeople—they’re your brand ambassadors, product experts, and the trusted guides for your customers’ cannabis journey. Discover how investing heavily in your budtenders isn’t just essential, but a strategic imperative for driving growth and loyalty.” ”
But what if that way of thinking no longer applies? Are you wasting your money on ambassadorship that doesn’t make an impact on the final sale? We set out to understand the real importance of budtenders, and you might be shocked by our findings.
Over the last 5 years, we have run the most robust cannabis shopper study in Canada and identified the drivers that consumers ranked as most important in their decision to purchase a cannabis product. Each year, “Budtenders’ recommendation” ranked between the 6th to 8th most important factor in cannabis consumers’ most recent purchase. Budtender recommendations rank consistently lower than “Quality”, “Price”, “Format”, “High THC” and “Health Benefits” as purchase drivers for Canadian cannabis buyers.
Top 10 Drivers in Product Choice – Source: Cannatrack, n= 12,084, 2023 n= 11,989
We further segmented category buyers based on purchase behavior to gain a deeper understanding of the role of budtenders in the cannabis purchase journey. Heavy consumers, who consume at least weekly or more often, represent over 95% of total category spending. These shoppers are especially uninterested in budtenders’ feedback. Last year they ranked budtenders as the 9th most important factor after “Specific Strains”, “On Sale”, and “Brand”. Lighter users of cannabis (who consume at least once a year but less than monthly) are more likely to take recommendations from budtenders (ranked 5th), however they don’t buy cannabis often enough to account for much sales volume.
Even with post-pandemic shopping driving more people in-store and interacting with budtenders more often, the influence these staff have on shoppers really hasn’t been significant. If anything, this relatively low ranking of budtenders recommendations may represent a “best-case scenario” given that in-store consumers are typically obliged to interact with staff to complete their purchase.
In addition to not being particularly influential on consumers, it’s also important to note that budtenders do not affect which products are stocked in store. Typically, stocking decisions fall on store owners and franchisees, further reducing the impact that the average budtender can have.
We do believe there is a role for budtenders in the cannabis shopping value chain or category education system. However, their inflated importance in terms of driving sales volume has led sales and marketing teams to over-invest in paid budtender advocacy, often at the expense of focusing on more fundamental brand and product-fit marketing initiatives. As the category continues to mature, we suggest companies and brands reconsider spending their budgets on budtenders, and instead, shift focus to what matters most – the consumers.
