“Dispensaries right now are like warehouses and banks for brands.”
— Danny Gold, COO of Happy Cabbage, on High Touch
Most cannabis retailers don’t think of their inventory as a marketing asset or a customer experience tool. They should.
On our recent episode of High Touch, Danny Gold — COO at Happy Cabbage and longtime cannabis product thinker — made a compelling case for why inventory strategy is experience design, plain and simple.
Whether you're stocking the wrong products, carrying too many SKUs, or holding old inventory that’s long past its peak, the result is the same: a worse experience for your customer, and a cash flow nightmare for you.
The 14-Day Rule: Inventory’s Golden KPI
At the heart of Danny’s perspective is a deceptively simple principle:
Good inventory turns every 14 days.
“Take your edibles, your pre-rolls, your flower, and your concentrates,” he said. “Move those products — turn them over every 14 days.”
This isn’t about artificially limiting choice or running lean just for the sake of it. It’s about:
- Avoiding cash that’s tied up in dead stock
- Keeping products fresh and potent
- Reducing decision fatigue for customers
- Increasing sell-through and margin recovery
If that 14-day number sounds aggressive, that’s the point. It’s the benchmark of modern retail — and dispensaries need to catch up.
Why Big Menus Can Be Bad for Business
“You are not your customer.”
— Danny Gold, High Touch
Too many buyers and operators over-index on their own preferences. They assume that more choice = better experience. But more often than not, an overstuffed menu just creates confusion.
Danny described the classic scenario: 72 brands on the shelf, but the top eight contribute 80% of your total profit.
Those extra 60+ brands? Many are sitting stale, not paying for themselves, and blocking newer products from getting a fair trial.
What’s the solution?
- Curate menus based on data, not personal preference
- Run small experiments when trying new products
- Track how quickly new items move — and why
- Turn inventory management into a conversation across buying, marketing, and budtending
From PM Thinking to Inventory Strategy
One of the most insightful moments in the episode was when Jake compared cannabis buyers to product managers. Danny ran with the metaphor:
“It’s human bias, right? And we all have it. But we work to offset that with data, with small bets, with tight feedback loops.”
Good buyers, like good PMs, don’t fall in love with their own ideas. They fall in love with measurable outcomes.
Danny recommends:
- Buying one case, not 10
- Measuring velocity against benchmark standards
- Talking to staff and customers to understand friction
- Knowing when to promote, retrain — or cut losses
This agile approach helps retailers avoid expensive mistakes and stay cash-flow healthy.
Inventory Management as Customer Experience
Let’s connect the dots:
Why should your customers care about your turnover rate?
Because:
- Older products = worse effects, degraded terpenes, stale flower
- Excess choice = decision fatigue and lower satisfaction
- Overstocked items = mismatched promotions and poor guidance from budtenders
“You walk in and you pay your money for that oldest product… and you don’t have a good experience — are you coming back to that store?” Danny asked.
“The stores that turn over faster have better products. They have fresher products. That’s a better consumer experience.”
That’s the flywheel:
Fresh product → better experience → more loyalty → faster turnover → stronger cash flow.
Retailers Must Track What Really Matters
Most point-of-sale systems don’t report on what Danny calls the most important number:
Total dollar profit per brand.
“That’s what payroll is,” he said. “That’s your marketing budget. That’s the cash in your bank.”
Danny and the Happy Cabbage team built tooling that shows retailers, at a glance, which brands are putting the most real dollars into the business — and which are dead weight.
Most buyers never see that breakdown. They don’t realize how much dead inventory is quietly dragging them down.
Final Thought: Fresh Inventory Builds Trust
At the end of the day, smart inventory isn’t just about making the next order more efficient — it’s about creating consistency, trust, and repeat customers.
You can’t build a great cannabis brand or dispensary experience if your shelves are filled with guesswork and expired bets. Curate tight, sell fresh, and put your data to work.
🎧 For the full conversation with Danny Gold, including insights on training, brand education, and consumer psychology, listen to the latest episode of High Touch. Streaming wherever you get your podcasts.
