It was all the way back to the summer of 2018 when CTV News reported on garden center owners operating in Alberta being “disappointed” that the province does not allow them to sell cannabis seeds or cannabis seedlings ever since recreational marijuana became fully legal for people all across Canada.
And the truth is, the garden centers owners’ complaints on that matter are genuine, honest, and nonetheless, fully backed up by the indisputable fact that selling marijuana seeds is simply bound to bring high profits for their best business’ sake.
When taking into account that nursery stores and garden centers establishments in Canada consist of 874 indeterminate or non-employers vs.
1,231 establishments in this industry having one or more employees based on stats shared by Gouvernement du Canada, missing out on the huge paybacks of cannabis seeds sales is not only deprived of any common sense but is also set to deprive business owners of their sacred rights to profit from a brand new, still untapped industry like the freshly established pot industry in Canada.
Fortunately, the post-legalization debacle is slowly but surely smoothing out, and a rising number of garden center owners are getting into establishing a fruitful business relationship with wholesale cannabis seeds suppliers.
Below, you can find curious facts related to garden centers and cannabis sales in Canada, coupled with useful information on how to improve your business strategy.
The Challenges and Golden Opportunities for Canadian Garden Centers after Cannabis Legalization
Back to the disappointed garden center owners’ complaints shared by CTV News several months prior to the highly anticipated legalization of recreational cannabis, on the one hand, garden center customers are free to purchase cannabis grow supplies.
Yet, on the other hand, they were supposed to go shop elsewhere when it comes to purchasing marijuana seeds or live marijuana plants (seedlings).
Of course, this awkward situation increased the already accumulated tension among garden center business owners who were looking forward to profiting from the cannabis segment but were somehow left behind in the government’s plans on marijuana sales regulations.
According to Calgary-based Bluegrass Nursery expert Lisa Silva, customers asking about how to grow marijuana have started growing in number several months before the legalization of recreational marijuana was officially announced. Furthermore, Silva highlighted that she would have “welcomed” the opportunity and right to sell her customers’ cannabis seeds or plants, provided she has the needed support by the government to do so.
Keeping in mind that in 2016, the employer establishments in the nursery and garden center business industry consisted of a total of 40.2% microbusiness (employing less than 5 employees), vs. 59.1% for small establishments, vs. as little as 0.7% of medium-sized establishments, the nursery and garden center industry is bitterly affected by the lack of having marijuana seeds available for sale.
Unlike large-scale establishments dominated industries, this particular business niche remains among the few that are ran mostly on a family business model basis, with large employers in the nursery and garden center sector having more than 500 persons on payroll set at as little as 0% of the total establishment.
With cannabis seeds and seedlings sales making up for a brand new market opportunity for garden center business owners to capture, the possibilities for future growth and sufficient payback are pretty much limitless. Of course, garden centers’ staff has to be well-trained and educated on the secrets of growing cannabis plants, as customers do not only search for marijuana seeds or seedlings when they enter a garden store but they also ask for good advice related with marijuana cultivation.
However, not only is it possible for garden store business to profit big when purchasing cannabis seeds in bulk but they can also make their digital marketing strategy work in their best cannabis sales favor with very little efforts, so the opportunities ahead of garden center owners in the post-legalization era do seem to greatly surpass the associated challenges.
Selling More Cannabis Seeds by Polishing your Garden Center’s Digital Marketing Strategy
1. Cannabis gardening content
Above all, you want to make sure your content is not only engaging, informational, and educational enough to keep your future and existing customers hooked up for more, and hence, greatly increasing the chances that they will prefer to shop at your garden center and not that of the competitors.
Nonetheless, your content must be relevant, or else, you may simply become invisible.
Fortunately, providing your clients with succulent, delicious bits of cannabis gardening know-how is not hard at all, especially for a well-versed expert who is blessed with a green thumb and understands fair well the mesmerizing world of gardening, unlike even the most intelligent and savvy marketing experts possibly can.
The truth is, you don’t need any heavy text content to engage your cannabis gardening community audience, as light and refreshing bits of information can work like charm.
What is important is that you remain patient while mastering your content marketing strategy, whether it be online or offline content marketing, but as long as you provide your clients with useful pieces of advice on cannabis cultivation, high paybacks from cannabis seeds sales are pretty much unavoidable.
2. Cannabis gardening competitions
Holding a competition with a nice prize that can show you value your cannabis gardening customers can make up for a double win-win, as apart from increasing customers’ engagement and deepening your emotional relationship with your clients, a cannabis gardening competition can be a shortcut to gathering tons of new contacts that can help you further expand your client base.
However, it is truly important that you plan your cannabis gardening competition carefully, as you want to boost your business performance by attracting the right audience, and not merely the people looking for some quick freebies.
A clever way to avoid freebie maniacs and to attract the real cannabis grow enthusiasts through the competition you can organize is to make your idea evolve around sharing post-grow results. For instance, you can ask every customer who gets to purchase cannabis seeds from your garden store to leave his/her email address and/or to follow your business social media channels as to be able not to miss on the opportunity to win big cannabis grow prize that is bound to reward the grower who gets to share the best pictures and/or grow info on the seeds purchased from your store every 50 days or so.
Plus, competition is certainly one of the quickest and easiest ways to allure your customers into signing up for newsletters, as well as to further engage on social media, thus, turning from random to loyal customers.
3. Cannabis cultivation newsletter
As already mentioned above, relevant cannabis grows content is what you need in order to maximize cannabis seeds sales.
But since relevant content alone may fail to grant you the high paybacks you have been craving for ever since the moment of finally getting to lay hands on the fine and wide range of bulk cannabis seeds you have selected for your best business sake, you can greatly boost business performance by promoting special offers and discounts to your cannabis cultivation newsletter subscribers.
In fact, it can be a fantastic idea to reward your subscribers with online promotions that are only and solely available to them, thus, making up for a lasting bond between you and your loyal customers.
Ultimately, having cannabis seeds for sale in your garden store alone does not make up for bathing in sufficient paybacks from the marijuana seeds sales business niche. As with any other aspect of life, going that extra mile in making sure you understand and address the genuine needs of your cannabis grow enthusiasts client base is the best way to make the most from what selling “the magic beans” has to offer in terms of awesome profit for years to come.