DoobDasher Best Alternative

In 2018, Canada became the second country, following Uruguay’s lead, to lift all bans on the use of marijuana. From the moment onward, Canadian citizens could use cannabis for medical purposes and pure recreation. This not only opened the floodgate for businesses, like DoobDasher, to spring into the limelight, a growing market of a medium annual spending per capita of over $1500, but for research and demographics. Canada became the leader in cannabis-related investigations. The drug was no longer regulated and as such studies could be performed on a massive scale using a willing populace. This was a major breakthrough and thanks to it, Canada managed, through grants and funding, to amass the biggest repository of statistical data on cannabis. Knowledge on users by age groups, sex, and providence. Knowledge of medical and non-medical trends. Knowledge on benefits related to cannabis. Knowledge of method of consumption (edible, mixed, concentrate, hashish, liquid, etc). Above all, business intelligence (BI) knowledge. This last one included key points on market trends, production, distribution, prices, retail tendencies. One of the most startling facts, recollected by the investigators, was the discovery that most Canadians purchase their cannabis products online via Doobdasher & ZenBliss.

Canadian Cannabis Purchase Trends

Global News, on March 27th, 2019, revealed that since Quebec legalized weed, a dozen cannabis stores opened up overnight. Not only online stores like DoobDasher and Zen Bliss but actual retail stores you could walk into. By the end of the first year, there was one store for every 700,000 people. They were all situated around major city centers. People could journey hundreds of miles, from outskirts providence, and purchase their weed in a brick and mortar store or they could order online while waltzing around the living room in their pajamas. 

Interestingly enough, most chose the harder path. More than 80% of revenue from those first months came from what the tangible retail store was selling. Across Canada, Global News reported the same pattern. Provinces that opened stores saw a larger number of stock being moved, more than provinces that relied solely on online sales. Many CEOs and venture capitalists saw no need to invest in e-commerce. They thought they could move more volume and get a better return on their investment if instead of funneling their funds towards website portals and mass-mail distribution, they'd focus on opening up retail stores. 

The general idea was that there was a clear preference by Canadians, most wanting to touch and feel their product and get the whole in-store experience. Most provinces had attractive, reasonably well-stocked online sites, but few consumers were actually using them. Experts were certain that the future of cannabis and CBD products in Canada would be linked to retail stores, not the internet. “Folks,” they said, “need to talk to humans, need information the site wasn’t producing, loved that in-person shopping could be done anonymously through cash, and finally wanted to see and smell the weed.”

Canadians buckled down and invested… Then 4 things happened and millions of nest eggs were cooked to a crisp and there was no salvaging them. Fortunes were lost.

The Turning Point

Four critical factors swept over the Canadian Cannabis landscape. Four defining factors that ended up trusting online sales as the masthead on the weed movement and manufacturing in the Great White North, and made stores like DoobDasher proliferate.

Online sales became private 

Although you still had to enter, in some sites, your credit card number and other personal data, privacy settings became an important issue for most traders. Portals began to encrypt data at an MI5 - James Bond level. Not only that, but some portals started to accept other types of payments, amongst them: the use of cryptocurrencies, anonymous direct deposits, and cash on delivery.

The trend was just that a TREND

It was a passing fad. Sales dropped once the craze and innovation wore off. It was a mode that people wanted to experience. This was the second nation in the world where people could walk up to a store, with a huge embossed hemp flower on the front door, and a picture of Bob Marley, in their Sunday best and not really bat an eye. They could go inside, spend their whole paycheck on Skywalker Kosh and not feel ashamed. Moreover, given how proud Canada was to be at the forefront of change, some even felt they were doing their patriotic duty by lighting a big fat one.

That was all well and good, up until that moment in time if you wanted to experience that level of freedom you’d need to spend hundreds of dollars and buy a ticket to Amsterdam. The thing is that after a while, it was no longer radical, innovative, or controversial. Everyone, including our neighbors down below, started legalizing marijuana. Not only that, but the craze - the adrenaline rush of going into a marijuana store - turned stale; there was nothing rebellious or recalcitrant about purchasing an item that now even your dear old grandma was passing out like candy during tea-time. The fad and the trend decreases, the minute soccer moms started bringing gummy edibles as snacks for the parents during a game.

There was no longer a stigma

Most people, at the beginning of Canada’s Cannabis free-for-all, were afraid. The truth of the matter is that aside from Uruguay, Canada was venturing into unknown territory. We were, to put it bluntly, the world’s lab rats. Under the watchful eye of every nation. We would either pass the cut and become an example or prove every moralist right by forgetting to get out of bed as a national because last night Nickelodeon had a SpongeBob marathon. Well, as a nation we sort of proved to the world that weed was just as intoxicating as alcohol, even less - once the studies were published. No one took a day off work, no one allowed the munchies to get the better of them. By the end of the first year, the stigma was lifted and people accepted the use of weed. “La Hierba Loca,” got the same level of stink-eye as a cold bottle of Corona.

COVID

COVID came and punched everyone’s lights out in late 2019 early 2020. COVID changed the way we as consumers interacted with our products and retail. In one fell swoop, we had no other choice but to order online from places like DoobDasher or start taking botany lessons. Most settled for the latter of those two options. During almost a whole year we had no other choice but to get our “dope” - as it were - from online stores. Our postman became our dealer. This led to a couple of things: supply chains became more efficient - they had to adapt to the growing demand. Delivery times were reduced. Stock was always available. Customer service became more personalized. We as consumers benefited from all that overnight optimization. Another thing that happened was that our mindset changed and we no longer saw the need to go “and feel” the product. If we didn’t like something, we could simply return it overnight.

These four tendencies broke, in part, the paradigm and shifted the focus from retail stores to online distribution.

Online Dispensary Sales Hit the Stratosphere.

Stores such as DoobDasher, Cheapweed and Zen Bliss started to awaken online, each bigger than the other, each with their own radioactive flair. Earning millions in the process. The general idea, and the reason why portals like Doob dasher became such hits, was that producers understood that it was important to create easy access to cannabis products all throughout Canada. As long as you managed to prove that you were over 19, and had a Canadian address, most stores would deliver their goods to your doorstep at flash-like speed. Dispensaries, like Zen Bliss, Doobdasher, and CheapWeed, started to create a commerce ecosystem based on zero barriers, privacy, easy navigation, and quality products. The main idea of most portals was to make flowers, edibles, and concentrates easy to order online by simplifying the whole process.

Zen Bliss, a great alternative to Doobdasher, took this whole paradigm and vision a step further by implementing homegrown, carefully selected prime ingredients.

Finally, despite the fact that the Cannabis products have only been fully legal since 2018, Zen Bliss has been at the forefront of the CBD movement for over 25 years. Not only as craft botanists but as figureheads in the movement that ultimately legalized of Marijuana in Canada. This is our passion, not just a business. So, the next time you want to place and order give Zen Bliss a shot and use code 'Doobdasher' and get 15% discount. You won’t regret it.