House of Dank upgrades operating systems for efficiency and expansion with Flowhub

About House of Dank

House of Dank is a cannabis original in the heart of Detroit. The local, family-owned company has been part of Michigan’s cannabis industry since the beginning.

Their first location opened on the historic 8 Mile Road. After operating for several years with one store, they started rapid expansion in 2019, and have since opened — or are close to opening — four additional stores around Detroit.

House of Dank centers around the mission of “Welcome home.” This means patients feel comfortable and safe both while in the physical stores, but also with the products they purchase.

And it’s working; House of Dank is a high-volume provisioning center (as they are called in Michigan), processing an average of 350+ transactions per store per day. They are known for product quality and selection, but also for their community-centered customer experience.

Even in the competitive Detroit market, patients return to House of Dank because of the experience they provide. Mariana Toma, a budtender at the 8 Mile location explains, “When you come to House of Dank, we want you to leave happy. If you give a great patient experience, they’ll come back. We have patients that come in two, three times a day. They don't have to come to us.”

The Challenge

In mid-2019, the team at House of Dank was ready for quick expansion across Michigan.

“The industry has grown so much. We’ve been here since the beginning, so we’ve learned, we’ve tweaked, we’ve mastered what we do. We have the staff and we have the patients, so now it’s a lot easier [to grow],” expresses Lavia Yousif, COO at House of Dank.

But they didn’t feel confident with their existing point-of-sale system. “We were using an older software and it was very outdated,” says Yousif.

Yousif’s chief complaint of that software was that it didn’t do what she needed it to do. It allowed any employee to update SKUs and product quantities, creating a mess of inventory, which is a huge compliance issue. “It’s not supposed to work that way. There have to be rules. There have to be permissions. Being a licensed facility, you can’t allow just anybody to go in and access inventory and manipulate or change numbers when you’re that closely regulated,” she says.

Another issue was integrations. According to Yousif, staff were spending five hours per day just updating online menus.

Philpott’s chief complaint was the manual work to enter inventory, trying to match it with Metrc and making sure the titles were the same in Metrc and the POS.

“There wasn’t really a way to make sure the product we were importing into our old POS was the actual product in the computer,” Philpott says.

“The old system caused inventory problems because when we’d import from Metrc, it would import as .5 grams of wax, and be listed that way in inventory. But then budtenders could sell as .5 grams ‘each.’ You can’t do that. That messed up the inventory,” adds Yousif.

The entire team was also frustrated with the customer service of their old point-of-sale software. “We could never get somebody on the phone. That was a very big thing for me. I don’t want a ticket number, I need to talk to you now because I need to sell the product now. By the time you call me back, the product is probably gone, and probably done incorrectly,” says Yousif.

The Solution

With goals of expansion and concerns about their current software, Yousif started looking at new POS systems. “I looked at reviews, what people were saying, and what looked the best. And then when I did a demo [of Flowhub], it just looked so up-to-date,” she says, “I’m not going to lie, the most important thing for me was being up-to-date.”

But all the value-adds were what ultimately sealed the deal. Yousif explains, “There were so many more things that I needed to do as a manager. Permissions were amazing, categories were amazing, and switching from room to room was so easy. Even something as simple as labels.”

Philpott says there were many features she wasn’t expecting from a POS, “One of my favorite features of Flowhub is people are able to be held accountable for what they do in the POS.”

When it came time to make the switch to Flowhub, some team members were nervous. Philpott and Toma didn’t expect it to be so easy.

“It was such an easy, smooth transition. When we moved over to Flowhub, I couldn’t believe the numbers we pulled on the first day and the fact that the staff were that good,” says Yousif.

Six months in, the team is sold on Flowhub. Toma appreciates how the software helps her better serve patients and create a great experience. “Check in might be my favorite Flowhub feature. It’s such a quick process. It eliminates a lot of wait time and literally takes seconds,” she says.

Philpott focuses on reporting and inventory processes. “As a store manager, Flowhub makes it easy for me to know on average how much each patient spends, what they’re buying, but also if there’s any discrepancy in the drawers” she says. And all Yousif and Philpott’s old inventory issues are no longer a concern. Taking the time to set up a global product catalog during implementation means all inventory is correctly named, correctly accounted for, and correctly sold at all times.

“With Flowhub, you can pull a report and get anything from the time cards for the staff to what time of the day you had the most sales. And I can take that information and know how to do a schedule. I can take that information and know what to order. I can take that information and I can do way more things than I was ever able to do with the old software. Things like that make the world of a difference in how and why I chose to go with Flowhub. It’s grown the business and it really is a life saver,” says Yousif.

The staff aren’t just fans of the functionality of the software, they are fans of the customer support. “Any time we’ve ever had a problem, it’s easy to get in touch with someone at Flowhub. They are really good at understanding any problems we have and they really take their time in responding, calling us, emailing us. They go above and beyond to make sure we’re comfortable with the service that we’re giving our patients,” says Philpott.

Part of managing a growing brand is the ability to be mobile. Yousif no longer has time to visit each store. “With the amount of stores we’re opening and the amount of staff we have, we could not run this efficiently and this smoothly without Flowhub. And for me, as somebody who overlooks all of the stores, I can see the inventory and I can watch the stores, I can watch the numbers, I can watch the staff all from one location. I don’t have to go to all of them. That makes it a lot easier to expand,” she says.

As House of Dank continues to open new locations and create a “Welcome home” culture for its growing number of patients, the ability to modernize shopping experiences and streamline operations is top-of-mind.

One example is through integrations. Flowhub now integrates with Weedmaps, making it simple to update online menus. “With the new integration between Flowhub and Weedmaps, it’s so easy because before I would have to have one of my staff members sit there and update every picture, every item, delete, and it was like a five hour process every day. It’s a beautiful integration. And it saves us countless hours,” explains Yousif.

House of Dank also offers ecommerce and delivery options through Dutchie to continue to stay relevant as consumer preferences move to more seamless, contactless transactions.

Almost four new stores later, Lavia concludes that they wouldn’t be able to progress as a company without Flowhub, “Flowhub is a very big reason why we were able to expand. It has made our life a thousand times easier.”