Pity the cannabis marketer. Among the 23+ states where recreational use is legal, some prohibit advertising, while others impose myriad restrictions—the rationale, naturally, being to keep minors from seeing the ads.

Even if you’re in a state that allows advertising, good luck online. Google Ads prohibits cannabis advertising, as does Meta/Facebook.

So it’s no wonder that for retail cannabis marketers, an essential in their stash box is something with considerably more leeway: loyalty marketing.

“Loyalty is a cornerstone of the cannabis marketer’s playbook,” Mikaela McLaughlin, SVP of business development at Springbig, which provides loyalty and other marketing solutions for the cannabis industry, told Retail Brew.

But as retailers who’ve moved from other retail sectors into cannabis know all too well, and as Retail Brew has covered extensively this year, the cannabis business seems to always face headwinds, from being dropped by banks and point-of-sale vendors, to being spurned by credit-card companies.

Ditto for cannabis loyalty programs. Setting them up is more complicated than for coffee shops and drugstores, but with a bit of navigation, you can get there. So we leaned on McLaughlin to come up with this cheat sheet.

Keep reading here.—AAN

If customers describe your shopping experience as entertaining and convenient, you’re doin’ things right. And with TikTok Shop, you can do it right every time.

Powered by TikTok’s unique discovery engine, TikTok Shop lets you showcase and sell products directly on the app. Your products get front-and-center billing for new, qualified customers who are already discovering new merchandise on their For You feed.

When it comes to how you sell and interact with customers, TikTok Shop gives you plenty of options, like:

• shoppable videos (Customers can shop directly from their feeds.)
• LIVE shopping (Engage with your audience in real time.)
• shop page (Customers can browse or shop your full product catalog.)
• shop tab (Customers can search and discover your products + promos.)

Start creating fun, easy shopping experiences on TikTok Shop.

Do you hear that? That’s the patter of cork-soled sandals on Wall Street’s cobblestones.

Iconic ugly shoe brand Birkenstock made its public debut on Wednesday, and while so far, the stock is underperforming, a recent SEC filing offers a closer look at a company that’s increasingly leaning on its direct-to-consumer (DTC) channel to drive growth.

DTC sales jumped from 30% of revenues in fiscal 2020 to 38% two years later, according to a prospectus Birkenstock filed on Thursday.

• Between 2018 and 2022, DTC experienced a compound annual growth rate of 42%.
• In the nine months ended June 30, 2023, DTC brought the business $416 million in revenue, compared to $310 million the previous year.
• E-commerce also represented a whopping 89% of DTC sales in fiscal 2022, and the company is banking on this segment to fuel future sales growth.

Keep reading here.—AV

This summer, a Baskin-Robbins in Santa Ana, California, put up a sign in its shop to entice customers to leave glowing reviews.

“Give us a 5-star review on Yelp & get a free kids scoop!!!,” it said. “Show us the review. :)”

While some people may have taken them up and received a cold treat, it also got the business in hot water with Yelp. The platform prohibits what it calls a “compensated activity.” And after a user sent a photo of the sign, Yelp slapped a pop-up window on the shop’s Yelp page.

“We caught someone offering up payment in the form of cash, discounts, gift certificates, or other incentives in exchange for someone to write, change, prevent, or remove reviews for this business,” Yelp warns in the pop-up window. “We wanted you to know because these actions not only hurt consumers, but also honest businesses who play by the rules.”

In a recent post on Yelp’s blog, Noorie Malik, VP of user operations, announced the platform was now publishing an index of alerts about “compensated activity” and “suspicious review activity” on its site.

Keep reading here.—AAN