The cannabis industry has grown exponentially in recent years, and with that, has come new data: market analysis, trends, predictions and insights. Now, this data is available to businesses through platforms such as Headset Insights, Zefyr, and Equio. Accessible at your fingertips, these platforms are providing real and quantifiable advantages to the cannabis industry.
|Data Collection and Analysis|
Tracking market trends, inventory and consumer data is not crucial only to dispensaries. Cultivators, processors and even state officials are benefiting from the ability to have this big data in the palm of their hands. If there is one thing that is common to everyone that works in the cannabis industry, it is that there is hardly, if ever, any downtime. Not only are there time-constraints when attempting to collect market and competitor data, but there is also a lack of accessibility. All too often, inventory analysis consists of the time-consuming process of pulling several reports from a database and analyzing known trends. However, with these new platforms, the legwork is done for you and guessing is no longer necessary. These platforms are collecting information from millions of data points and presenting them through customized dashboards and reports that can be accessed from almost any device, anywhere you go.
Most of these platforms have some similar capabilities, but each also offers their own niche into industry data. For dispensaries, each platform can track inventory levels, market trends and even manage re-ordering across multiple locations. Headset retailer, by the creators of Leafly, can measure budtender performance and make sales comparisons per budtender. For example, a dispensary can track and compare the number of transactions per budtender against the number of items sold per transaction and the transaction total. Equio, by New Frontier Data, can manage marketing campaigns while Zefyr provides detailed insight into consumer data like spending and healthcare trends.
|Inventory, Trends and Forecasting|
As for cultivators and manufacturers, the ability to track inventory and inventory trends is essential to success. Not only are inventory trends readily available at the click of a button, but so is the entire competitive landscape. Knowing inventory trends is crucial for several reasons, such as the ability to make an educated decision, based on facts and not guessing, when dictating grow cycles and production schedules. It also gives insight into other aspects of the business, such as packaging needs, staffing and product rollouts. Market intelligence allows cultivators and manufacturers to stay informed and ahead of national trends, which allows for easier navigation of the market. These platforms are also able to track both your own and competitor brands. Providing data such as competitor product releases, prices, and market share, will help ensure success.
These platforms collect various types of data that can be useful to others involved in the cannabis industry, such as investors or state officials. Equio provides projections on both medical and recreational cannabis sales as well as real-time stock tickers and wholesale pricing indexes. Zefyr provides detailed insight and visibility into consumer trends; from age and race to malady and preferred ad medium to name a few. In addition to creating interfaces for both the retailer and producer, Headset launched Bridge, a direct-data sharing platform that allows for information to be communicated between the retailer and producer in real time.
As the cannabis industry continues to grow, so does your business’s need to remain relevant in it. To stay ahead of the curve in this industry, one has to stay informed, and until recent years this was easier said than done. With analytical data platforms such as Headset, Zefyr and Equio, visibility into the industry is now possible at both macro and micro levels. With the use of these platforms, dispensaries can track inventory and market trends. Cultivators and manufacturers can stop guessing and grow and product based on actual demand. These platforms are able to present the information you need and want in dashboards and reports that are both customized for you and readily available to you. The world of big data has finally come to cannabis; now it is up to businesses to decide whether or not they will use it to gain an overwhelming advantage.
