Fire & Flower has had a busy 2019. The company refined its brand concept and hired a bevy of contractors, architects, and engineers to add more than twenty locations across Canada. Needless to say, challenges have been many. One of the biggest: By the date on which recreational sales became legal, many municipalities hadn’t finalized permitting requirements. Without clear guidance, stores struggled to stock the shelves—and even to design them. Packaging regulations remained up in the air as government-mandated opening dates approached, and determining what products local markets would embrace involved a considerable amount of guesswork.
Isaac Watson, Fire & Flower’s vice president of product
development and retail experience, applauds his team’s herculean effort to
bring everything together. “We see our staff as foundational to our business
model and to our current and future success,” he said. “We have an amazing team
whose expertise spans licensed production, legal, retailing, branding,
government relations, compliance, and training. We would not be where we are
without our stellar team, and our customers remind us of how valuable our
efforts are every single day.”
The company strives to appeal to a broad swath of consumers,
from the established cannabis community to first-time experimenters and those
returning to a pastime they indulged secretly in the past. Apparently, the
dispensary chain has found the formula. Between all shops combined, budtenders—which
Fire & Flower calls “cannistas”—assist several thousand customers daily.
Watson said traffic is highly dependent on the municipality and day of the
week, but each store has grown month-on-month.
While each shop has a distinct design, all are based on
foundations of art, urbanity, nature, and elegance. “This foundational
inspiration has become the perpetual springboard for an evolving vision to
satisfy an ever-broadening client base,” said Jacqueline Davis, director of
store design and development. “Although we are a rapidly growing company, there
is nothing ‘big box’ or cookie cutter reflected in our designs.” For each
location, she curated murals, paintings, and fine-art photography by local
artists. The metropolitan stores exhibit contemporary abstracts, while the
mountain locations and rural shops feature rustic pieces. Greenery, whimsical
elements, and intriguing furniture designs round out the effect. “These
additional layers of visual interest provide an engaging and unexpected
backdrop,” Davis said.
As she began researching materials to give a cohesive
impression to stores that are individually designed to fit disparate
communities, she realized—not for the first time—the Canadian climate can be
unforgiving to floors. Her go-to flooring is white or gray luxury vinyl, as it
is bright and easy to clean. However, for the Kingston, Ontario, location, she
selected wood plank laid in a herringbone pattern to match the building’s 1884
vintage. A forty-five-foot-long brick wall augments the historical integrity of
the space.
For the mountain locations, Davis selected dark, warm
finishes that comfort chilled-to-the-bone guests and hold up well under weather
than can be harsh. In contrast, the airy downtown Alberta store displays a riot
of colors: reds, oranges, purples, and greens. Open, industrial-inspired
ceilings present substantial impact and an ideal backdrop for layers of
lighting. Chandeliers vary by location, ranging from moose antlers in Canmor to
floral orbs in St. Albert and polished mod in Edmonton. “All stores’
chandeliers are complimented with sleek pendants and track lighting to
accentuate our showcase displays,” said Davis.
The showcases proved the biggest design challenge. Each
province has a unique set of regulations, including how product may be
displayed and whether customers may interact with merchandise. “There is a
balance,” she said. “We want to maximize the experience of our customers while
still maintaining our compliance.”
Davis chose to see the divergences as an advantage, generating
a unified merchandising vision and set of standards that could be modified as
necessary. “First impressions are key to our growing client base and, as a
designer, my first impressions upon initial site visits will typically spark an
imaginative whirlwind of ideas,” she said. “The creative catalyst begins with
familiarizing and appreciating the uniqueness of the surrounding community,
architectural details, and challenges within the location. Each [store] opening
is essentially a functional lesson.”
Most Fire & Flower shops contain movable floor cabinets
reminiscent of a high-end jewelry store, which provide space for promotional
vignettes. Cannabis accessories are displayed in full-height showcases, and
hexagonal cabinets allow customers to view merchandise from a variety of
angles. “This provides clarity to their anticipated purchase,” said Davis. To
compliment the displays, bespoke glass pop-ups at the cash desks house
necessities like rolling papers, lighters, and pipes. The overall look is “a combination
of functional merchandising and color stories to create the most visually
interesting, yet simple-to-shop, displays,” she said.
In addition to the cabinets and floor displays, stores
incorporate a “strain wall.” The wall is an eight-foot-long, glossy-white
pegboard hosting information cards for each strain in stock. The hexagonal
cards come in six bright colors and can be organized in many ways. “This is
effective at drawing attention to certain products and to evoke a level of
wonder when customers see it,” Davis said. Each shop reorganizes its wall
several times a week, keeping the atmosphere fresh.
While the stores are spacious, they’re also intimate. Each
contains no more than two or three point-of-sale terminals. “This makes our
shops feel welcoming during low-traffic times,” said Watson. “We deploy mobile
terminals to support the sales floor when traffic picks up so transaction times
don’t increase and we are able to maintain our customer service standards.”
In the end, the real trick was to have as many elements as
possible in every shop. Most locations have vestibules dominated by an
impressive 3D wall treatment and a glowing, copper Fire & Flower logo. The
cash desk with copper logo is another defining feature, as are the showcase
displays designed with copper doors. All stores incorporate community tables
bearing tablet computers offering real-time menus, interactive kiosks,
“budcation” boards, and supporting signage and literature.
Store exteriors also have purpose. After much debate, the team
agreed community-facing features represented an opportunity to spread brand
recognition. So, Davis chose channel lettering in a large, backlit, block font,
ensuring visibility regardless the time of day. Graphics and colored frosting
prevent window-shopping and reinforce additional branding elements.
More than just a place to sell cannabis, Fire
& Flower aspires to present a retail adventure that ignites the
imagination. “Our intent has been to create inviting and inclusive shops to
facilitate a stigma-free environment conducive to educational and impactful
client engagement,” Davis said.