Sunmed, Your CBD Store manages data from hundreds of franchises

Sunmed, Your CBD Store was facing operational challenges. As America’s largest CBD retailer and a fast-growing franchise business, they need to continually understand changing consumer behavior and needs within an evolving regulatory environment across 48 states.

But without a centralized system powering their entire business, efficiency was a struggle. Franchises were operating on Square point of sale, which didn’t have the depth of functionality they needed. Headquarters didn’t have full visibility on data from every location, and couldn’t easily roll out updates to every franchise at once. That meant their processes were suffering.

The Sunmed team knew that they needed to take the pressure off their franchisees. Headquarters needed to manage the operational side of the business, while franchisees needed to focus on day-to-day retail.

Take customer education, for example—crucial in an industry still in its infancy. Not having clear customer and transactional data from every franchise was hindering their ability to engage with customers at a personal level.

“Before Lightspeed, we were not doing any consistent, centralized common messaging or email marketing. So we were not engaging with our customers in a consistent manner with a consistent message,” says Wilfredo Rodriguez, CFO for Sunmed, Your CBD Store.

“We wanted a product that was going to be stable and reliable and easy for our franchisees to use,” says Wilfredo. So they turned to Lightspeed.

It was like flipping a lightswitch. They went from having limited visibility into store performance and customer behavior at the corporate support center to having a complete picture of both in one place. Using Lightspeed’s open API and expert teams, they got to work building solutions tailored to their business.

With Lightspeed connecting them to transactional data from franchise locations, Sunmed is able to better understand customers’ needs and provide greater support to its franchisees—like crafting consistent customer messaging and supporting franchisees with store operational performance analyses.

“The day after they visit a store, they’re receiving the first email communication from us,” says Wilfredo. “And it’s so critical for us to have that detailed transactional data in order to be able to engage with the customers at a very individualized level.”

It’s paid off. Open rates and customer engagement are growing, fast. And because franchisees don’t have to sweat the operational details, they can focus on the experience in-store, helping to grow revenue.

Going forward, Sunmed plans to work with all its franchisees to migrate all stores to Lightspeed—it just makes sense. Using the open API and tools from Lightspeed, they plan to build customer loyalty and inventory management solutions that will enable the corporate support center to better support its franchisees.

“We will be in a position using the API to propose a purchase order for them, so they can just review it and approve it,” says Wilfredo. Lightspeed will enable optimized stock across locations, tailored to performance data, that franchisees can order with just a click. That means better sales and inventory management for the business as a whole.