Mello Cannabis: 22% Online GMV Growth | Video Case Study

Mello Cannabis, based in Haverhill, Massachusetts, has partnered with Dutchie for about five years, running full stack: POS, E-Commerce Pro, Loyalty & Marketing Pro, Pay by Bank, and more, on the platform. In this conversation, Mello Cannabis CEO Matthew Richman talks through how automation, open API access, and Dutchie’s Consumer AI Alpha are helping the dispensary grow online sales, win back lapsed customers, and serve shoppers, including senior customers, more easily than ever.

The Conversation

What excites you most about where the cannabis industry is headed?

One of them is the impact of automation and AI on cannabis businesses. One thing Mello built using the Dutchie API is a customer win-back campaign, because we noticed we had some churn in our customers.

I basically ripped the data apart, tied it all back to their purchasing histories, tied it to my inventory, and found out a lot of them left because I wasn't carrying certain products.

It's really helping me be more precise in how we run the business.

What Dutchie products have made the biggest impact on your business?

“Since we switched over to E-Commerce Pro, Mello's online business has increased by probably 25%. And our online order cart has increased as well; it's always about 20% higher than our in-store.”

The exact figures: Mello Cannabis saw a 22% increase in online GMV and a 21% increase in online orders year over year after moving to Dutchie E-Commerce Pro.

Mello also has a delivery business which is all online, so E-Commerce Pro has been huge for us, along with the integrated Loyalty and Marketing Pro.

We use it all. For outreach, we had three different loyalty companies. Now it's integrated into Dutchie and it works very well for us. Our customers love it. It's simple and easy. We just bought a second store, and it took the team a week to get them up and running on E-Commerce Pro as well.

The other big thing is that the data availability in the system is wonderful. It's set up very well, so we've been able to take the data and use it. I've been able to leverage the Dutchie API to build all kinds of amazing tools for my business.

We have a restocking dashboard that tells the team what's out of stock and what the next package to pull is. It does everything automatically for them. All of this is us leveraging the system; it's just a matter of manipulating the data.

How do you think about building custom tools versus buying software?

We're an operator of cannabis. We're not a technology company, so that's the line I have to draw. Our preference is generally to buy, but I can't always buy what I want.

The way I'm using systems today, Dutchie and others, is more as an interconnected, flexible system that I can not only use what's in, but build the things that I want. Having tools inside of something like that, that allow me to build these things and connect these things, that's where I think about the future of software platforms and how they become more open, flexible, and interconnected to allow operators to leverage them.

As we roll out Consumer AI, what would success look like for you?

One would be on our customers. I believe they will get an enhanced shopping experience, they will be happier, they will be more inclined to use the online tools that we have, and I believe that ultimately results in higher revenue and more stickiness with the customers. Being integrated into the products is critical for an AI tool, and the way Dutchie is positioning Consumer AI is very exciting to me.

Secondly, we're committed to being on the front end of technology and AI for cannabis. I want Mello to be respected as a company, and being on the front end of new technology and new tools, working with Dutchie in a much bigger capacity, helps build that credibility for Mello.

The last thing is the automated answering tool. My first response was that it's another opportunity for us to get sales.

“Every time a customer calls after hours, I just lost an opportunity to interact with that customer, and potentially to make a sale or make an impact on them. The automated answering tool is going to go a long way.”

We have a lot of senior citizens who are our customers, and they have a lot of difficulty putting in online orders and doing delivery orders. This voice system should facilitate shopping for my seniors.

One of the things we're about at Mello is trying to make cannabis more accessible to everybody, and the tool Dutchie created helps that happen. All those things kind of triangulate into what we're trying to do as a business.