Exploring the Legality of California Cannabis Samples
For any industry that deals in consumer packaged goods marketing, product sampling is a go-to tactic. Give consumers a little nibble of your new cookie at the grocery store or a little folder with a sample of your latest perfume – it offers prospective customers the chance to try something new with no cost or risk. It can also be a means to lure prime retailers into providing a product prime shelf space. But as our Los Angeles cannabis lawyers can explain, this practice has always been legally problematic for pot shops.
Some of the legal barriers to California cannabis samples:
- Age restrictions
- Public consumption bans
- Legal licensing and distribution laws
These were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
But there is good reason for manufacturers to keep trying because we know that free samples can boost sales of a product by as much as 2,000 percent. More than one-third of customers who sample a product end up buying a full-size version during that same shopping trip. If you offer in-store samples, you have the potential to increase sales by more than 100 percent, even nearly a half a year after the samples were offered.
With this kind of incentive, cannabis company entrepreneurs have had to get creative – starting with CBD.
We should point out that federal law does not allow hemp companies to put CBD into topicals or foods. However, enforcement on this has been incredibly lax. Some companies have taken advantage of that, even going so far as to have brand ambassadors offering up drink samples outside their brick-and-mortar stores. As a result, sales went up. Similar successes were noted for CBD tonics as well. Continue reading