Cannabis Delivery Done Right: A Guide to Growing Your Delivery Business

Delivery is table stakes in most legal markets now. It’s also where a lot of dispensaries lose money, because they treat it as a side project: a driver on a personal phone, a dispatcher working off a group chat, and a zone drawn as a circle on a map. This is what we’ve learned from stores that run delivery as a real channel, including a few that clear 200 orders a day at peak.

Size the zone by drive time, not distance

A 5-mile radius means something completely different in a suburb than in a city center. Draw your zone by how long it takes to drive there at the times you’re delivering, and start small. A core zone of about 4 miles, or roughly 15 minutes, lets you promise fast delivery and keep the promise. Expand once you’re consistently hitting your windows in the core. Stores that launch with a huge zone usually end up with long waits, unhappy customers, and drivers spending most of the shift on the road.

Route the shift, not the order

Sending each order out as it comes in is the most expensive way to run delivery. Batch orders by area, sequence them, and let the driver run a loop. Carrot’s dispatch does the sequencing and GPS tracking, which also gives you accurate ETAs to show customers instead of a guess.

Tell the customer what’s happening

Most delivery complaints are about silence, not speed. A customer who knows their order is 20 minutes out is fine. A customer who’s heard nothing for 40 minutes is calling the store. Automate the updates:

• Confirmation with a realistic window based on current drive times
• A message when the order is packed and another when the driver leaves
• Live tracking on your storefront so they can watch the car move
• A heads-up when the driver is a few minutes away

Give drivers real tools

A driver working from screenshots and a personal maps app will make mistakes: wrong address, missed ID check, no record of the handoff. Give them an app that shows the stop list in order, opens navigation with one tap, surfaces delivery notes and gate codes, and lets them mark each order complete. Dispatch should be able to message them inside the same tool.

Use delivery to build loyalty

Delivery customers are already your most convenience-minded shoppers, so lean into it:

• A delivery-only promotion, or bonus points on delivery orders
• A repeat-delivery reward after the third or fifth order
• A mission for lapsed delivery customers (“order delivery this week and earn 300 points”)
• Saved preferences so reorders take seconds

Compliance

Every market has its own rules on delivery: manifests, driver documentation, cash limits, ID checks at the door, what the vehicle can carry. Whatever software you use should record the chain of custody for each order, and your written procedures should match what the app enforces. Drivers need a clear safety protocol too, including what to do when a handoff feels wrong.

The numbers to watch

1. Average time from order to handoff
2. Orders per driver per hour
3. Share of deliveries completed inside the promised window
4. Cancellations and failed deliveries, with reasons

If orders per driver per hour is low, your zone is too big or your batching is off. If on-time share is dropping, you’ve expanded too fast.

Mistakes we see repeatedly

• Expanding the zone before the core runs well. Fix the 4-mile zone first.
• No customer updates. Nearly free to fix, and it removes most inbound calls.
• Inconsistent handoffs. Write the procedure down and put it in the driver app.
• Manual routing. A dispatcher eyeballing a map can’t beat software, and it doesn’t scale past a handful of drivers.

Getting started

Whether you’re doing 20 orders a day or 200, the same systems apply. The difference is how many drivers are on shift. Start with a tight zone, automate the customer communication, give drivers a proper app, and grow from there.

Carrot’s delivery software handles dispatch, routing, the driver app, tracking, and text updates, on the same platform as your menu and rewards. Book a demo to see it on a live store.