Chain vs. Indy: Which Dispensaries Do People Prefer?

Chains reorder every two weeks and earn twice the discounts. Independents stock the same breadth of product and win on everything that isn’t a spreadsheet.

Dispensaries generally fall into one of two camps: part of a multi-state chain, or an independent operator. Those independents might own several stores within one state (a single-state operator), or they might be a classic “mom & pop” shop with a single location. Consumers have good reasons to shop at either, and sometimes it just comes down to location and convenience. However, when pressed, it seems renegade cannabis consumers prefer the indies.

Consistency and Pricing

One argument for chain dispensaries is consistency. Shoppers who travel between legal states may prefer a recognizable name — if they know a brand from their home state, they can trust the product selection will be reliable. These customers may worry about wasting a trip on a local independent store that doesn’t carry the brands they’re used to. Chains may also be able to secure better prices simply because they’re buying inventory at scale. According to Chain Store Age, 85% of respondents cited lower prices as their reason for shopping at a chain, while 71% cited greater product variety.

Better Pricing

“The economies-of-scale assumption holds,” said Mitch Barton, VP of Transformation at Sun Theory, which operates in the wholesale market described here. The company has collected recent data looking at wholesale orders across five states, broken down between independents and chains. Barton said chains earn roughly twice the discounts and credits that independents do — about 4% to 5% of sales versus 2%. Per unit, the edge is modest, but he said it’s consistent, and it favors scale.

He added, “One of the biggest takeaways from our wholesale data is that the difference between chains and independent dispensaries isn’t how much they buy at one time; it’s how often they buy. Across our five-state wholesale network, chain operators accounted for roughly 54% of active retail accounts but nearly 73% of wholesale volume, because they reordered about every two weeks, compared with roughly every 24 days for independent retailers. That consistency has a meaningful impact on inventory planning, forecasting, and the entire supply chain.”

	Chains	Independents
Discounts and credits	4% to 5% of sales	About 2%
Reorder cadence	Every ~2 weeks	Every ~24 days
Share of active retail accounts	~54%	~46%
Share of wholesale volume	~73%	~27%
SKUs per order	~8	~8

Variety

Another reason shoppers may end up at a chain versus an indy store is better selection. That variety is likely a function of size. Research on retail generally, not cannabis specifically, published in The Review of Economic Studies found that chain stores are two to five times larger in square footage than independent shops, and on average generate forty times the revenue and twenty-five times the profit of their independent counterparts. Bigger footprints also tend to mean more parking — a real convenience, since nobody likes circling the block or hiking in from a far-off spot.

Sun Theory’s data, however, doesn’t bear that pattern out in the cannabis industry. “Independents are often described as carrying a narrower or more curated selection,” Barton said. “Here, both buyer types stock the same breadth of the line, around eight SKUs per order across a comparable catalog. The character shows up in how they sell, not in how much of the line they carry.”

“The character shows up in how they sell, not in how much of the line they carry.”

Mitch Barton, VP of Transformation, Sun Theory

Character

The argument for independent stores usually comes down to character. Without a corporate parent dictating consistency and brand standards, owners are free to give their stores whatever personality they want. It could be a zen theme with a living plant wall and fountain, or a muscle-cars-and-fire aesthetic. Edgy or laid-back, there’s plenty of room for creativity.

Indy stores can also feel more in tune with local flavor. Owners are usually from the area and know what resonates with their customers. They may also be more inclined to work with small local producers who get overlooked by larger chains because they can’t supply at the scale big stores demand — reinforcing that homegrown connection.

Adolphus A. Busch V, CEO of Teal Cannabis, whose company opened the independent dispensary Current Cannabis in the St. Louis area, said, “As a local operator, we are part of the community. We live here, work here, and build relationships here. That gives us a firsthand understanding of our customers’ preferences, interests, and values.”

Scale

While chains are perceived as offering lower prices, they also carry larger overhead. Pricier real estate and the cost of supporting a bigger operation don’t always translate into savings for the customer. Smaller, more nimble businesses with lower overhead can often pass those savings along to shoppers.

“Nimbleness is the independent’s superpower,” said Shavon Sullivan Wright, CEO and founder of The Grass Cab. “A larger operator is still routing a deal through procurement in another state while I’ve already shaken the grower’s hand, texted my regulars, and probably fed everyone lunch. We move at the speed of relationships; they move at the speed of spreadsheets.”

“We move at the speed of relationships; they move at the speed of spreadsheets.”

Shavon Sullivan Wright, CEO and founder, The Grass Cab

Adam Stettner of cannabis lender FundCanna said, “Chains and operators with multiple locations have real purchasing power, but that’s not the same as running a smarter business. The challenge that operators with multiple locations face is that consumer behavior shifts county to county, even neighborhood to neighborhood. If they’re running on their own data plus a source like Headset or BDSA, they can still buy for local demand. It’s a question of scale and efficiency, not whether one model is inherently smarter than the other.”

Freedom of Choice

“Here’s the part people get wrong: independent and multi-state aren’t opposing teams,” said Wright. “Someone once told me, ‘If you don’t like multi-state operators, build your own’ — and that stuck. My goal isn’t to stay small forever; it’s to grow without losing the character that makes an independent worth driving across town for. Because people don’t go out of their way for ‘fine.’ They show up because a place feels like theirs. The real question for this industry isn’t chain versus indy — it’s whether you can scale and still keep a soul.”

Luckily for consumers, they have the freedom to choose between an independent store and a chain outlet. There are roughly the same number of stores in each category across legalized states. However, some states have regulations that favor independents — Vermont, for example, limits operators to one license — while others are more comfortable with larger operators.

A small, unscientific poll I ran on X asked my followers which type of store they preferred. Sixty percent chose indies.

“People do not typically drive past three dispensaries just because one has the lowest price on a product,” added Busch. “They go where they trust the recommendations, where they feel welcomed, where the staff knows them, and where they can discover products they may not find everywhere else.”

<p>The post Chain vs. Indy: Which Dispensaries Do People Prefer? first appeared on High Times.</p>