.svg)
.svg)
There’s one kind of event that Happy Cabbage will ALWAYS sponsor and attend: a legit buyer’s club.
While these are rote and taken for granted in other retail industries, in cannabis they are few and far between. Most of them fail to meet the mission of getting buyers into the room.
Getting retailer cannabis buyers to show up anywhere is a miraculous feat it seems. We’ve found little parts of events here and there that bring a few out.
We’re not being paid to write this, but one in particular stands out well above the crowd that we want to highlight for brands and retailers: The Exchange.
What is a Cannabis Buyer’s Club?
An actual buyer’s club is a group of retailers that pool their resources to get better rates on purchasing things they collectively need in bulk. This is not what we’re talking about.
The term is often misused in our industry to mean an event that brings buyers and sellers into a space to evaluate each other and make purchasing decisions or relationships on the spot. Sort of like a “trunk show” for fashion, you get brands to show off their wares and buyers meet with them.
This isn’t exactly the same as a conference. A true buyer’s club ensures meaningful and high quality relationships are formed. They’re highly structured and curated. They aren’t dominated by ancillary or software companies, like ourselves.
Why We Like The Exchange
They get retailers to show up. Their last event in Michigan boasted over 70 retailers.
Unlike typical conference booths and tables, The Exchange operates a bit like arranged speed dating. For two days, they have brands and retailers meeting in the event space in designated privacy booths for 20 minutes at a time.
Before the day of the event, brands and retailers select which meetings they want to take. After a little finagling, the schedules are set and the attendees are off to the races, meeting and forming truly quality connections.
Why Retailers Love The Exchange
The fact that retailers will actually show up to this event speaks volumes about how well executed it is. It isn’t a waste of their time. It’s an opportunity for retail buyers to knock out a lot of work in short order.
Two days of meetings packed with more brands than retailers, as is typically the case, lets buyers learn about a lot of good products they could add to their mix without having to take a bunch of time spread out over weeks of meetings.
Susan and Julie work their asses off to make that happen. And retailers continue to show up in growing numbers to their shows because of how well they create value for both sides of the table.
Yes, Happy Cabbage is in the mix which isn’t exactly what retail buyers are looking for at these events. They want to meet and learn about as many brands as possible.
However, we almost never experience buyer’s remorse about accepting a meeting with us because we’re offering a solution to a whole slew of problems buyers have that no one is helping them solve.
So yes, even retailers are happy to meet a software company here. That speaks again to the quality of the event The Exchange puts on; they only bring in very select software and ancillary providers that they know are valuable for retailers to learn about.
What Else is Out There?
The only thing that bums us out about The Exchange is that it currently only happens in Michigan and Oregon, with 2 shows per year in each market. They plan to expand into a third market next year.
If you’re a buyer in either state, you need to sign up for their next events.
However, we don’t know of any other events that can do exactly what The Exchange does. As we learn about more of them, we’ll share that information with you here on The Patch (our blog).
Do you know of any great buyer’s club style events out there?
Please hit us up and share the knowledge. We’ll be happy to educate all the retailers on our list about them and make them even more well attended.
Let’s up the community and grow these events together!
.png)
.png)
.png)