Cannabis Delivery App Development – A Comprehensive Guide

According to Marketsandmarkets.com, the legal cannabis market is expected to reach USD 90.4 billion by 2026 at a CAGR of 28%. 

Since the U.S. market has legalized cannabis consumption, many investors have found a great opportunity to start their cannabis businesses to make extreme profits. 

Creating apps for marijuana delivery businesses offers a great option to tap into this profitable market, as it is easy to create and launch.

However, it is essential to know the required app features and steps to simplify your cannabis delivery app development journey. 

But first, let us understand why to invest in a cannabis delivery app right now.

Why invest in making cannabis delivery apps?

Check why it is best to invest in building weed delivery apps.

1. Legal support from govt authorities

Proper legalization in any industry can help business owners avoid legal challenges while operating their businesses. 

The US Government has introduced many rules and regulations regarding the legalization of the cannabis delivery business. The legalities in the cannabis market help businesses to safely operate their stores and digital platforms to offer the best experience to their customers.

2. It’s easy to scale with mobile apps

Mobile apps offer businesses a great way to scale their businesses worldwide. With mobile apps, you can attract a large audience from different regions, which can easily help you expand your cannabis business. 

Moreover, having your mobile app will let you easily promote your business through social media channels and app distribution platforms. 

3. The fast-growing market of cannabis consumption 

According to Arcview Market Research, the legal sales of cannabis will touch $40.6B by 2024 at a CAGR of 24.5%. With the fast consumption of cannabis-based products, its market size is growing tremendously fast, which makes it profitable for investors to start their businesses. 

Also, you can check the infographic below to get a deep insight into the Marijuana market.

Now, understand the different business models of cannabis delivery apps.

Business models of cannabis delivery

Check the popular business models of cannabis delivery apps:

1. Dedicated

This is a complete cannabis delivery business model where you will entirely operate your business from managing inventory to offering a digital platform and even delivering cannabis to your customer’s doorstep. 

There will be no dependence on other businesses for deliveries or others. Retail stores that offer cannabis products can use this model to avoid paying commissions to other businesses for accessing their digital platforms, delivery services, etc.

 2. Aggregator

You can offer a digital platform for cannabis buyers and sellers. This model works similarly to popular e-commerce stores such as Amazon and eBay. Your business handles orders from stores and forwards them to your delivery partners.

3. Delivery-Specific

You can choose to become a delivery partner for different cannabis delivery apps. Your task will be taking order details or picking orders from marijuana businesses and delivering them to your customer’s doorstep.   

Understanding the working of cannabis delivery applications can help ease the process of creating your delivery app. Check the working of cannabis mobile apps in detail.

How does a cannabis mobile app work?

You can know the working of cannabis mobile apps by checking the following steps:

Working steps	Description
1. Onboarding	First, the user register or login to the app by submitting the required information. If the app has social media integration, the user can join the platform with one click.
2. Profile verification	When a user logs in to the app for the first time, the marijuana owner’s delivery verifies their identity to allow them to join their platform.
3. Placing orders	The users look for cannabis and relevant items on the platform and purchase them by placing an order and paying through the available payment options.
4. Making orders ready to deliver	Once, after confirming the user order, the app forwards the order details to inventory for packaging the order.
5. Notifying delivery partners	Once the product is ready to ship, the app notifies their delivery partners for pickup and delivery. After picking up the orders, the app forwards the shipment details to buyers.
6. Delivery and customer feedback	The last stage is when the item gets delivered to the customer’s address. A customer submits their feedback regarding their experience with the cannabis delivery platform.

It will be good for you to be familiar with the features included in cannabis delivery apps to ease your app development journey.

Must-have features in a cannabis delivery app

These are essential features you can add to your cannabis delivery app.

1. Maps and navigation

You can add multiple features regarding maps and navigation, such as live GPS tracking and GPS-enabled navigation for creating ideal delivery routes and points of interest based on coordinates.

2.  User authentication and verification 

You can add a special recognition card to verify your app users. The best approach is to integrate identity verification solutions like GetID.

In case you decide to sell marijuana for telemedicine consultations. In that case, you will also need physical identity verification.

3. Loyalty program 

It’s become challenging for businesses to retain their existing customers due to this competitive environment. Getting a loyalty program to your app will allow users to earn points for discounts and other offers. 

Another best way to retain your customers and increase their engagement on your platform is to introduce subscription-based services where you will offer exclusive perks to your club members.

4. Notifications

Help your app users stay updated with new flavors, discounts, and other events via push notifications. 

Adding push notifications is the best way to increase your customers’ engagement on your platform. You can constantly update them with new deals, discounts, and other events that are going on in your marijuana delivery app.

5. Catalog

The catalog is another important feature you shouldn’t ignore. You can add a product catalog for strides, accessories, smoking devices, and other products found in licensed cannabis delivery apps.

Also, you can add advanced features such as search filters, AI, and machine learning to help users find their desired products on your platform. 

So what steps do you need to follow to create your cannabis delivery app? You can check in detail.

Marijuana delivery app development steps

Follow the given development steps to create your marijuana delivery app: 

Step #1: Discover and strategize

The stage will include creating strategies for your marijuana delivery app

I. Understand the persona of cannabis buyers

Identifying your audience is essential to realize for whom you will create your app. Ask yourself whether you are looking to provide your marijuana delivery app for medical relief or the recreational group.

You can create a persona of your target audience, such as their age group, their requirement for cannabis, and other essential factors that can help you identify your target audience better.

Also, decide whether you are going to work as a single cannabis delivery store or will allow other businesses to set up their stores on your platform for selling marijuana.

The more you know customers, the more you can optimize your platform based on their preference for cannabis delivery apps, such as features, UI, functionality, and others.

II. You will need a platform other than a mobile app

Yes, You will need a dashboard from where you will handle your marijuana delivery business. There is a need to create separate apps for drivers to help them deliver cannabis products to your user’s address.

In the web admin panel, you can access multiple features for your business, such as

• Running notification campaigns,
• Managing orders and refunds,
• Tracking various performance metrics, 
• Keeping the app’s catalogs updated.
• Managing your cannabis buyers 
• List of cannabis stores working with your marijuana delivery business.
• Drivers list that is working for your business.

III. Strategize your cannabis delivery business

In this stage, you will decide all the features you need for your marijuana delivery app. Also, you need to focus on the list of tools and technologies that you will choose to create your app.

While creating your business plan, choose platforms where you will launch your mobile apps, such as iOS, Android, or both.

However, hiring skilled developers will let you create your apps for multiple platforms, such as Android, iOS, and the web, simultaneously with the help of hybrid app development.

Step #2: Meet all the compliance requirements

There are strict rules associated with the delivery business of cannabis. 

Make sure you have implemented all the rules, and your delivery partners are meeting all the required criteria that we have discussed below:

• The delivery boy must be at least 21 or above
• Your delivery partner carries all the necessary documentation regarding cannabis delivery, such as a driver’s license and employee ID badge
• The delivery partner must not carry products worth more than $3000
• Your business must have a robust dispatch system that efficiently manages delivery-based activities
• Active GPS tracking must be installed in every vehicle that is delivering cannabis

Step #3: Design the user interface  

It’s time to shape your cannabis app idea into a prototype instead of directly jumping into app development.

There may be a possibility that you have some ideas and sketches about your app, like how it should look when it gets developed. You can provide references to popular marijuana delivery apps and other apps from which you have taken inspiration for app design regarding your marijuana delivery app.

Check the following required steps for creating the design of your platform: 

I. Create app prototypes 

Based on your user’s journey, the UI designer will start drawing the interface for all the main screens of your app and will later turn them into app wireframes.

Later they will interconnect all the app screens using tools like InVision to produce a clickable prototype for your cannabis delivery app. Creating a prototype is the best way to validate your idea and share it with users to test their experience. 

Based on your user’s experience with your app prototype, they will submit feedback that can help you improve your app’s UI by doing design and screen modifications.

II. Experiment with designs rather than a final version of the app

Doing multiple modifications to your app prototype instead of modifying your fully functional app can help you reduce your development budget. 

Experimenting with app design is considerably less expensive than coding the same screen from scratch. You can test your app screen design by handing them to your users for feedback.

Based on your users’ feedback in their app journey, you can modify your app prototype multiple times until they don’t face any challenges while using your cannabis delivery app. 

Consider the following things while developing the UI of your cannabis delivery app.

You can verify your app design is up to the mark by checking the following criteria.

• Does the design of your app follow the best design principles of Apple and Google?
• Is the user interface of your app too hard to code?
• Can the design of your app be replaced with a default pattern without compromising the app’s quality? 
• Does your app easily list cannabis and all the relevant items
• Does your app have easy navigation so users can easily purchase cannabis online?

Step #4: Program your weed delivery app

This is the stage where the developer will start building your features and APIs for your cannabis delivery app. These apps include item listing, online payments, location sharing, and other required features. 

Also, it is advisable for you to first go for MVP of your cannabis delivery app, where there will be limited features later, you can add more based on users’ feedback.

I. Go for Agile development

Agile development allows developers to change app features or adapt to different technologies. 

Moreover, Agile development will enable you to deeply involve your marijuana delivery app development as Agile development offers great transparency. 

With Agile methodology, you can reduce project failure risk and improve app quality and predictability, giving you a better output for your weed delivery app development.

So, when handling your cannabis delivery project to app developers, you can ask them to use an Agile methodology to create your app. 

II. Add location-based features

Location-based features are critical for your app since your business mainly involves delivery-based activities. 

However, to ensure you will handle more and more orders, you should go for developing or dynamic systems. A system where you can distribute orders automatically based on couriers’ proximity and combine multiple orders into a single dispatch.

Ensure you have added mapping services by integrating third-party services such as Google, Apple, Waze, and other popular services.

III. Add multiple payment options

Ensure to offer multiple payment options to help users to purchase marijuana and other listed items on your platform based on their payment reference. 

Along with credit cards, you can offer payment options by adding different payment gateways such as Paypal, Stripe, Razorpay, and other popular payments app in your targeted market.

However, for cannabis delivery apps, it is preferable only to offer prepaid payment options to enhance the security of delivery partners and avoid any payment fraud.

IV. Update your users with notifications

Increase the engagement rate of your platform by adding notifications to your weed delivery app. You can notify your app users about new offers, deals, discounts, and other important announcements through your app notifications.

Also, notifications will help you update your app users regarding the status of their weed delivery, estimated delivery time, etc. 

V. Add advanced features

You can be creative with your marijuana app development by adding the following features and functionalities:

• Super personalized product recommendations 
• A chatbot to tackle users’ basic questions 
• Advanced mobile OS features such as search, voice assistant, widgets, etc.

You can research your target market, customers, and the marijuana industry to develop a list of the best features to help you enhance your platform experience. 

Step #5: Launch your cannabis delivery app

Once your cannabis delivery app has been developed, you can upload it to your preferred app distribution platforms, such as Apple App Store or Google Play. 

However, if you choose hybrid app development, you can efficiently distribute your app across different app distribution platforms such as mobiles and websites.

Step #6: Upgrade with support and maintenance 

To help you offer the best platform experience to your cannabis buyers, you can maintain your app by constantly adding new features and eliminating all the challenges that users are facing while using your app.

Take constant feedback from app users, such as whether they face any issues when ordering cannabis from your app or whether there are any payment processing issues.

There are possibilities of many challenges that users can face while using your cannabis delivery app, and you can only know by taking their feedback. Not constantly maintaining your app can give advantages to your business competitor in the cannabis delivery businesses. Competitors can steal your customers by attracting them to their weed delivery platforms.

You can use app analytics tools such as Crashlytics to help you identify app screens where users face issues such as app crashes, nonresponsiveness, etc.

Tech stack needed for building a cannabis delivery app

Platforms	iOS, Android, Web application.
Front-end development	React, Java, HTML, CSS, Angular, Swift
Back-end development	Python, Node.js, Laravel
Payment processing	PayPal, Braintree SDK, Stripe API
Cloud environment	Google Cloud
Push notification and in-app messages	Batch
Database	MongoDB
Social media login	Google, Facebook, Twitter API
Location tracking	Google Maps SDK for Android, MapKit framework for iOS

Ready to build your cannabis delivery app?-Contact Idea Usher 

Outsourcing your cannabis delivery project to an app development company can help simplify your business’s app development journey. 

If you decide to proceed with creating your cannabis delivery app but need support from app developers, you can contact Idea Usher.

Idea Usher offers customized app development services, where you can add all your desired app features and UI functionality. Building customized apps can let you offer the extremely best experience to cannabis buyers and sellers on your platform.

If you are facing any doubts or challenges regarding your cannabis delivery app, you can schedule a free consultation call with our team. 

Contact Idea Usher 

Email:

[email protected]

Phone:

(+1)732 962 4560

(+91)859 140 7140

FAQ

1. How to make money with a cannabis mobile app?

You can make money from your cannabis delivery app in the following ways: 

• Platform commissions
• App subscription
• Affiliate marketing

2. How to build a cannabis delivery application?

Follow the given steps to create your cannabis delivery app:

• Create a cannabis app development strategy 
• Design the user interface of your platform 
• Build required weed delivery app features 
• Launch your app in the targeted market 
• Improve platform experience with support and maintenance

3. Which factors determine the cost of developing a cannabis app?

The following factors determine the cost of developing a cannabis delivery app:

• App distribution platform
• Development tenure
• App features 
• Third-party integration