Don’t expect “Deals of the Week” or “Best New Ontario Finds” when the Ontario Cannabis Store’s e-commerce website launches next week.
Advertising on the website, which is the only place Ontarians will be able to legally buy cannabis on Oct. 17, will be strictly limited. Licensed producers won’t be able to bid on electronic shelf-space to have their product listed more prominently.
The website will have a default setting that lists products from lowest price to highest, although shoppers will be able adjust search parameters to list products from highest price to lowest or to search by strain type and THC and CBD profiles.
The lack of “in-store” promotion stands in contrast to the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, where alcohol companies pay for physical and digital shelf space, and could make it difficult for brands to differentiate themselves early on in a crowded marketplace. Bricks and mortar cannabis stores aren’t expected to be open in Ontario until April 1.
To catch the eye of new OCS shoppers, companies will have to rely on a limited set of branding elements, and considerable creativity, according to Rebecca Brown, CEO of Crowns Agency, a branding agency focused on the cannabis industry.
“The industry needs to get very good at shorthand," she said, pointing to a few brand elements that companies should focus on:
- Packaging: "While there's a ton of restriction on how you can package your product, there's no restriction on the shape of the package," said Ms. Brown. “It has to be matte and smooth. But there are different materials that are matte and smooth; there's matte and smooth wood, and there's matte and smooth rubber, so… you could have a material that carries a story because it's more eco-friendly."
- Colours: “It would be smart to lean heavily into colour as a mnemonic device; like who will be the first brand to assert a Tiffany Blue, to make that connection happen?”
- Name: "In a world where there’s so much constraint on our ability to communicate, it feels like you would have a head start if your brand name intrinsically declared, ‘I’m for this kind of person,' or had some immediately apparent associative meaning. Otherwise you have to spend a lot of money creating narrative and attaching meaning to that brand in a world where you have very few open channels to do so,” Ms. Brown said.
Companies will also need to put considerable effort into advertising online, off the OCS website, effectively intercepting Google searches and guiding consumers to the OCS website through their own channels. The legal scope of this activity, however, is still unclear given the prohibition on advertising to people under the age of 19, said Ms. Brown.
“Ad tech that uses a probabilistic algorithm to target people who are within certain age ranges, where they can also report back within what percentage it's accurate, is that a reasonable step? I'm not hearing that there's great comfortability with that," Ms. Brown said.
Beyond branding, companies need to focus on the general mechanics of e-commerce if they’re going to succeed in Ontario’s early online-only environment, said Bernard Dahl, the creative director at e-commerce agency Absolunet.
“Have all of your product information ready to go and easily distributed: what’s the name, what’s the description, what’s the different weight and sizes available, what are the images, do you have 360-degree images," Mr. Dahl said "If you have your e-commerce fundamentals down and you have a real solid structure you’ll win the long tail. It’s the unsexy part that actually leads to profit.”
Other takeaways about the new Ontario Cannabis Store e-commerce system, previewed to media on Thursday:
- Start time: 12:01 a.m., Oct. 17.
- Delivery time: one to three days.
- Delivery cost: $5 flat fee per delivery.
- Payment methods: Visa and MasterCard.
- Order size: Individual orders can’t exceed 30 grams. There’s nothing, however, preventing someone from making multiple orders.
- Age gating: Customers need to enter their birthday, and confirm they’re above 19 on a second web page, before entering the OCS website. There is no requirement to submit proof of age, such as a driver’s license. Canada Post will check ID at the point of delivery if the person appears to be under 25.