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Arizona is a competitive, license-capped market (about 170 licenses) with heavy promotion pressure and MSO dominance. Sonoran Roots and Ponderosa run seven locations across the state: Flagstaff, Tucson, and the Phoenix metro. Each store serves distinct local demand patterns such as college-town seasonality up north, or value sensitivity in newer locations. The team manages house brands (Sonoran Roots and Canamo) plus a curated mix of third-party vendors, often under reciprocity agreements.
Manual, spreadsheet-driven buying made it hard to keep up with growth and market velocity.
Ordering dragged on for days
“When I was doing manual inputs… I wasn’t finishing the ordering process for four locations until Wednesday, and sometimes Thursday.”
Limited time for strategy
With most of the week lost to spreadsheet wrangling, there was little bandwidth for vendor negotiations, demand planning, or field time with store teams.
Risk of over or under ordering
Without live run-rates and predicted days-on-hand, initial buys could be too big (tying up cash) or too small (missing demand), especially with seven stores and highly variable local patterns.
Cash flow and aging inventory pressure
Arizona’s promo-heavy environment means slow movers age fast. The team targets 21 to 30 days to turn inventory, and hitting that consistently required tighter control and faster feedback loops than spreadsheets allowed.
“If you’re constantly placing orders or spending your time in spreadsheets and pivot tables, it slows you down from understanding the market and moving quickly.”
Drew moved the end-to-end buying workflow into Happy Buyers and standardized how the team plans, orders, and communicates:
Run-rates and Days on Hand at a glance
To right-size initial buys and avoid dead stock.
Just-in-time weekly ordering
To keep shelves fresh and cash moving.
Cart builds and CSV exports
To share transparent performance with vendors.
Portfolio view across seven stores
To tailor quantities by foot traffic, demographic, and vault or floor capacity.
With Happy Buyers, I can get everything done on Monday. The rest of the week, I’m in the field meeting vendors, touring grows, and sitting with store teams.
Drew moved the end-to-end buying workflow into Happy Buyers and standardized how the team plans, orders, and communicates:
21–30 day turnover standard, with escalation at day 21.
Start small on new items, then scale by store performance.
Data-backed vendor conversations (velocity, pricing, Days on Hand).
Margin protection so promos do not erode profit
Uniform promo and naming conventions across stores
We typically don’t test in one store, we implement across all locations with centralized discounting and naming, then monitor run-rates to scale.
Drew moved the end-to-end buying workflow into Happy Buyers and standardized how the team plans, orders, and communicates:
One-day weekly buy
Ordering for all locations now lands every Monday.
Store-level nuance
Quantities flex by location (for example, more vapes and edibles in Flagstaff with student demand and cold weather; tighter case packs in low-traffic or value-driven areas).
Fewer surprises
If predicted Days on Hand balloons (90 plus), the team triggers a structured playbook, vendor check-in, marketing assets, budtender incentives, and promo cadences before product ages out.
Vendor enablement
Vendors receive exports showing movement and inventory health, enabling collaborative fixes such as marketing spend, displays, field reps, and incentives.
“Last thing you want is product sitting. If it’s not moving by week three, we go back to the drawing board with data.”
Before: Reactive order entry, spreadsheet triage, late-week crunch.
After: Proactive revenue engine
Standardize a weekly buy day and stick to it.
Target 21–30 day turns, escalate with vendor-backed action plans at day 21.
Right-size initial orders by location using run-rates and days on hand, do not be afraid to start small.
Require margin protection and marketing plans from vendors up front.
Centralize promos and naming across locations for operational clarity.
Share movement data with vendors, transparency earns better support.
Tie procurement to revenue goals so buying decisions map to P&L outcomes.
See the impact Happy Buyers can have on your cash flow, time, and peace-of-mind. 14 days. No risk.
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