March and Ash

March and Ash streamlines operations and drives growth with LeafLink

March and Ash has eight retail cannabis eight locations in southern CA. Jon Saco, COO needed to ensure customer favorites were always in stock across March and Ash’s stores, and it was taking too much time to even just check products in and ensure every order was correct. With Retail Fulfillment, LeafLink stores the inventory until March and Ash’s retail stores are ready to stock up, saving warehousing space and allowing the company to free up cash flow and reinvest into business growth.

Company Overview

March and Ash is a retail cannabis dispensary business with eight medical and recreational locations in southern California. Started in 2016 by CEO and Founder Blake Marchand, the company prioritizes “customer education, safety, and satisfaction” at its dispensaries. March and Ash offers customers a wide selection of products including flower, concentrates, vapes, edibles, pre-rolls, clones, and CBD.

The Challenge

With eight stores spread across Southern California, March and Ash needed to stock up for a variety of customers at different times. Ensuring that the shelves across all of its stores were consistently stocked with customer favorites was difficult, and took up much of the team’s time.

For Jon Saco, COO at March and Ash, this included managing 120 brands from 50 distributors (with 50 different trucks) which
meant a lot of time was needed for checking products in, ensuring compliance, and actually stocking the shelves. Just checking in products and ensuring orders were correct would take his team roughly 600+ hours of labor each week across March and Ash’s eight storefronts.

“We used to spend roughly 80 hours a week sticking products per store which really adds up.” – Jon Saco | COO, March and Ash

In the past, March and Ash had to store the majority of inventory in each store as well in order to give customers what they wanted as often as possible. This was both a security risk and an impediment to growth. A store can only hold so much inventory, and having too much cash tied up in inventory made it hard for March and Ash to scale with speed. As a truly customer-focused retailer, the company needed to find a more efficient solution for purchasing especially with plans to scale into additional stores in the future.

The Solution

March and Ash was using the LeafLink Marketplace for roughly 20% of its orders, and discovered that LeafLink offered a new Logistics solution. LeafLink had designed a way to calibrate inventory management with technology that cuts costs and prevents stockouts. Two years ago, if I ordered something from a vendor and it didn’t come on the truck I’d have to wait two weeks to get that truck back down with the product. With LeafLink, I can press a button and get that product the next day. I’m able to fix these problems a lot easier now and our out of stocks are getting a lot better, Saco continued.

Here’s how it works. March and Ash purchases inventory, which is then stored at LeafLink s partner managed warehouse. The March and Ash team can view the company’s inventory in LeafLink at any time, and place a replenishment order when in store stock is low. LeafLink’s fulfillment partners deliver the order straight to the store, ensuring every order arrives in full compliance and on time.

“Being able to control my inventory per store is great. I can cut my inventory per store in half today, providing more cash flow for other parts of the business, Saco said. At the end of the day, it’s all about getting fresh product to the customer, and making sure my stores aren’t out of anything that’s going to sell.”

Thanks to LeafLink s new full platform pricing bundle, March and Ash also pays for all of the LeafLink solutions in one predictable monthly cost. This simplified the company s accounting, and also allowed the company to get the most possible value out of everything that LeafLink has to offer.

With Retail Fulfillment, March and Ash gained a turnkey fulfillment solution that allowed them to leverage volume discounts. LeafLink stores the inventory until March and Ash’s retail stores are ready to stock up, saving them warehousing space at the same time. By keeping more cash on hand instead of tied up in extra inventory, the company can reinvest into business growth.

“Everything is funneled through one system now, and the savings alone are massive. My distributors love it because they don’t have to go to eight shops, and I can just pay LeafLink to take care of everything. Our managers love not sending two to three people for a few hours to sticker stuff just to get it on the shelf.

With LeafLink, it’s almost instantly ready. Having all of our inventory in one place makes it a lot easier to see everything and where it needs to go too. All of our stores are different, with different demographics so it’s easy to control where our inventory is and to make sure it’s where it needs to be.”

– Jon Saco, Chief Operating Officer at March and Ash