The Shelf Doesn't Lie

One of my favorite parts of making deliveries has nothing to do with making the delivery.

After we wheel the order into the shop, there's usually a few minutes where the staff are checking over the invoice, counting products, and filling out the trip tickets. While they're doing that, I almost always wander over to the edible shelves.

I've been doing it for years.

Most people walk into a dispensary looking for a specific product and never give the shelves a second thought. I can't help myself. Every store tells a story if you know what you're looking for.

Some brands seem to have the exact same inventory every time I visit. Others have obviously sold through and are waiting on another order. Sometimes I'll notice a new product that's been given a great spot on the shelf. Other times I'll see that a retailer has expanded a section for a brand that's been performing well.

You start to notice patterns after a while.

Retail shelves have a funny way of cutting through marketing.

They don't care about flashy packaging, clever slogans, or how many followers a company has on social media. Eventually, every product has to answer the same question.

Did people come back and buy it again?

That was on my mind this week while I was delivering to one of our newer retail partners.

Like I usually do, I wandered over to the edible section while the staff finished checking in the order.

Every major edible brand in Maine was represented. Some of the biggest names in the state had shelves that were completely full.

Then I looked at ours.

There wasn't much left.

The owner noticed me staring and laughed.

"You guys have a cult."

I laughed too.

Then he said something that stuck with me the rest of the drive home.

"When people come in looking for MOJO, they want MOJO. If we're out, they ask when you're coming back."

As business owners, Angela and I hear compliments from time to time, but that one meant something different.

When we started MOJO, we weren't trying to build a company people bought once because the packaging looked cool or because it happened to be on sale that week.

We wanted to build something people trusted.

We hoped that if we obsessed over recipes, consistency, and making products that actually delivered on their promise, people would remember us. More importantly, we hoped they'd come back.

That's a much harder thing to build than simply getting onto a shelf.

There are plenty of ways to get products into stores. You can offer aggressive discounts. You can extend generous payment terms. You can pack shelves with inventory and hope it moves.

There's nothing inherently wrong with any of those approaches. Every company has to decide how they want to grow.

We've just always believed we'd rather earn the next order than fight for the first one.

Because the first order is really just the beginning.

The second, fifth, and twentieth orders tell you whether you're actually creating value for the retailer.

If products sit on the shelf, nobody wins. The retailer has money tied up in inventory that isn't moving. The manufacturer doesn't get another order. Most importantly, patients aren't finding something they love enough to come back for.

When products consistently sell through, everyone benefits.

The retailer reorders because they need to, not because a salesperson convinced them to.

Patients know they can count on finding something they enjoy.

The manufacturer gets another opportunity to prove they deserve that shelf space.

Over the years, I've realized that's one of the biggest advantages of still making many of our own deliveries.

I get to see what happens after the sale.

I hear what budtenders are recommending.

I hear which flavors people ask for.

I hear when a retailer wishes they'd ordered more because something sold faster than expected.

I also hear when something doesn't perform the way anyone hoped it would.

Those conversations are invaluable.

You can't get that perspective by staring at spreadsheets all day.

The numbers tell you what happened.

Walking into stores and talking with the people behind the counter usually tells you why.

That's shaped a lot of the decisions we've made over the years.

It's why we'll spend hours tweaking a recipe that most people would probably say is already good enough.

It's why we'll redesign packaging until it feels right.

It's why we care so much about consistency from batch to batch.

None of those things are particularly exciting on their own, but together they create something that's incredibly difficult to manufacture overnight.

Trust.

That was really what the shop owner was talking about when he joked that MOJO has a cult.

He wasn't talking about hype.

He was talking about customers who know what they like.

People who've tried enough products to have a favorite.

People who walk into a dispensary looking for MOJO instead of simply asking what's new.

As a small company, that's about the biggest compliment we could ask for.

We're still a husband-and-wife business from Maine.

We still make deliveries ourselves.

We still answer the phone.

We still spend an unhealthy amount of time talking about recipes, packaging, production schedules, and all the little details that most people will never notice.

Maybe that's exactly why hearing comments like that means so much.

Because they're reminders that all those little details add up.

If you've ever recommended MOJO to a friend, asked your local dispensary to bring us in, or waited for us to be back in stock instead of grabbing something else, thank you.

Every recommendation, every reorder, and every conversation has helped this little company grow into something we're incredibly proud of.

The shelf doesn't lie.

Thankfully, lately it's been telling us we're headed in the right direction.

Edibles that don't suck. 😎