I Followed a Secret Shopper Into Dispensaries. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to See.

Dispensaries and cannabis brands are increasingly borrowing a page from mainstream retail by using secret shoppers to evaluate the in-store experience. Secret shoppers enter a store like any other customer, make a purchase, and observe how staff perform, without employees knowing they’re being evaluated.

Cannabis dispensaries are a bit different from other retail environments. Products are age-gated, regulations vary by state, and legal dispensaries are still relatively new. Because not every state has legalized cannabis, many customers walk in needing a fair amount of education. For first-time shoppers, especially, the experience can be overwhelming and confusing, not to mention the variety in consumption options and brands.

Secret shopping didn’t start as a customer service tool, it began as a way to catch dishonest employees. Pinkerton detectives famously used secret shoppers to prevent theft during railway bank transfers. Over time, the practice evolved, and today major retail and food service chains use secret shoppers to test everything from employee knowledge to compliance with company policies. It’s also one of the best ways to see a business through a customer’s eyes.

While modern technology can track demographics, buying habits, and foot traffic, it can’t replace human interaction. It can’t tell you whether an employee asked the right questions, made helpful recommendations, or treated a customer with respect. That’s why secret shopping still has an edge.

Sara Gluck saw an opportunity for secret shopping in the cannabis space and launched Above Board, a company that works with both dispensaries and brands. Dispensary owners want to know if their staff are greeting customers, making thoughtful recommendations, and upselling appropriately. Brands, meanwhile, want insight into whether budtenders are recommending their products, or worse, steering customers away from them.

“I start by assuming a specific persona before entering a store,” Gluck said. “I might be a new consumer who doesn’t know what they want, a regular consumer testing a budtender’s knowledge, or a value shopper looking for deals.”

Before entering, Gluck photographs the storefront and makes sure not to wear any cannabis-branded clothing. Inside, she evaluates everything from whether IDs are checked to how long the overall shopping experience takes and how the store is arranged. She notes the date and time of her visit, as that can affect store traffic and service. “We do adjust the time that we go, so you know secret shopping during 1 PM on a Tuesday is going to be different from secret shopping on a weekend, or during rush hours,” said Gluck.

I joined Gluck as she visited several dispensaries in Midtown Manhattan. Every store checked our IDs at the door, but after that, the experiences varied widely.

At our first stop, we posed as new consumers. We were greeted immediately and asked if we needed help. The budtender suggested lower-dose products, explained how to use them, mentioned available discounts, and even tried to upsell accessories. The budtender also described the loyalty program with real enthusiasm. The store was easy to navigate, and checkout was simple. Overall, a strong showing. Any customer would feel welcomed and well taken care of in this store.

At the next dispensary, we split roles, I played a value shopper, while Gluck acted as a regular consumer. Staff greeted us quickly and asked plenty of questions to guide us toward the right products. One issue stood out, though: the budtender didn’t explain how debit cards work for cannabis purchases. Experienced shoppers may understand the workaround, especially since Visa and Mastercard have publicly said their cards can’t be used for cannabis transactions. But new customers may not know this, and staff should always explain it. This store did not rely on large electronic menu tablets and made sure the budtenders interacted with the customers.

Our final stop was the most disappointing. The store itself was sleek and upscale, with the feel of a luxury retailer. But much like some high-end stores, no one approached us. We wandered the floor, tapped through product listings on large iPads, and almost comically acted confused about the menu. Still, we weren’t greeted. Eventually, we had to call out to the staff behind the counter to ask for help. When a budtender finally came over, he rushed through the iPad listings and seemed uninterested in the interaction. He even steered us away from one of the product lines. It wasn’t a great experience. Considering the store was on Fifth Avenue amongst designer retailers, the attitude seemed to fit the neighborhood.

That’s exactly where secret shopping proves its value. With this kind of feedback, the dispensary could easily make changes that improve how customers feel when they walk through the door. A little coaching from ownership or management could go a long way toward making shoppers feel welcomed, informed, and respected, rather than ignored or talked down to.

We also felt that some stores rely too heavily on the large menu tablets, which are impersonal. They are great for grab-and-go shoppers, but when placed in a way that all the store personnel are behind a checkout counter and the shopper’s main interaction is with a computer, it reduces a connection to the particular dispensary. Mainstream retailers mostly use tablets as a way to assist in checking out or to verify in-store inventory. Apple stores, though, heavily rely on their iPads to interact with customers, and it feels like cannabis dispensaries adopted tablet reliance as a way to feel current and on trend. Cannabis shoppers should have a budtender to talk to, rather than a computer screen, and it may take a secret shopper to get that message across.

Budtenders beware, your next customer may be a secret shopper. Give good customer service and steer your shopper to the best product in the store for them.