Want return cannabis customers? Try these tips from a retail designer

By the time interior designer Kim Myles visited cannabis retail stores for her reality TV show “High Design,” many of the owners were in dire straits.From high fees and taxes to challenges building clientele, Myles said her clients’ No.

1 concern was competing, especially in areas where zoning laws prompted several retailers to open in the same neighborhood. ADVERTISEMENT “It’s expensive to brick-and-mortar, so that tended to be what their concern was: being able to stay afloat,” Myles said.

The interior designer and winner of HGTV show “Design Star” spoke with MJBizDaily about her favorite cannabis retail designs, industry trends and how focusing too much on technology could be keeping marijuana retailers from upselling customers and growing basket sizes.What are some design hurdles that keep cannabis retailers from reaching their potential? As entrepreneurs – and I include myself in that; people who are entrepreneurs are bootstrappers and DIY queens – there is a tendency to look at the giant to-do list and say, “Oh, I can pick a paint color.

… It’s just cases, it’s just some shelves.I can do that.

I don’t need to pay for that.” And I understand it; (design) does not get put up high on the priority list when the budgetary concerns come in.The problem with this is: Most people aren’t designers.

Someone’s in your space, and that is so rare these days.As a consumer, when I walk into a dispensary where no thought has been given, you will never see me back there.

For the same price, usually, I can have a bodega experience, or I can have a luxury, homey, local and specific experience.I can choose my adventure.

ADVERTISEMENT What are some trends you are seeing in cannabis retail this year? Brick-and-mortar in most places is a much more hyper-personalized approach.A lot of dispensaries that are owned by entirely different people look...