For much of beginning history of the cannabis industry, cash was king: all sales and most business purchases had to be administered mostly or entirely in cash. However, new laws, new regulations, new payment platforms, and new products have opened the exchange of capital from buyer to seller, grower to distributor, and owner to vendor. Today, many pieces of cannabis business equipment are often financed rather than requiring cash upfront to be purchased.
Heating and Cooling
HVAC equipment remains particularly expensive, an issue that scales with the quantity of space that has to be climate controlled. A grow-op may have a whole acre of plants that has got to be kept at constant temperature and humidity, necessitating an oversized heating/cooling solution. Luckily, this major expense will be directly financed: manufacturers will often provide a financing solution for larger products, while lenders also are willing to place up the cash for a serious purchase and a repayment over time.
Lighting cannabis equipment
Just as plants must be grown at the right temperatures, they need to even be grown with the right quality and quantity of sunshine. In a very tight market, competing for patrons requires putting out the highest-quality product. Cannabis plants grown under a basic infrared lamp are nowhere near as appealing as those grown under specialty lights. Blacklights and UV lights are ready to get plants growing around the clock for faster production, higher quality, and greater density. These lights are often financed, luckily, since they’re often purchased in bulk—and most growers will need tons of bulbs for his or her crops.
Security Equipment
The appeal of quick cash makes cannabis dispensaries a juicy target for thieves: not only do they carry an enormous amount of money in their registers, but the products themselves can quickly be rotated and sold without ever leaving a trace. Not only is security equipment like locks, cameras, and alarms crucial for preventing crime, but owners got to make sure that their employees are following policies to the letter. Security equipment is financed more easily than most other cannabis industry equipment, as long as most security companies sell package deals as a one-time expense.
Testing Equipment
To be a contemporary cannabis consumer is to be a chemist in miniature. a person who steps into a dispensary to shop for a product wants to understand very specific data, like THC percentage. If you do not have this information, the purchasers will leave your shop for a competitor who can answer their questions on any particular product. Testing equipment is not just necessary for customer curiosity, however it is the law: most states that have legalized recreational cannabis have slapped on regulations about how potent the merchandise may be. Tests to work out everything from soil pH to rate of growth are necessary to understand what you’re selling and how good it is.
Packaging Equipment
The days of consumers purchasing cannabis in sandwich bags have long passed. Today’s customers want vacuum-sealed packaging that provides precise information on the product’s weight, strain, and potency. This makes cannabis packaging much more expensive than, say, garden seed packages—meaning that you simply ought to invest in your product’s appearance if you would like it to go out the door. Financing the packaging equipment is particularly necessary for bulk orders, and if a dispensary is selling dozens or maybe many grams of cannabis each day, bulk orders at large scale are the foremost cost-effective thanks to make sure the shelves remain stocked.
CO2 Extractor
For a small grower, all that’s needed to supply oils is to grind the plants and collect the residue. to induce much better oil (such as hash oil, THC oil, or CBD oils), however, an industrial grade CO2 extractor is important. this might legitimately be the most important equipment purchase of a dispensary’s lifespan, and with a five-figure tag, may even cost over the important estate the dispensary is built on. Even so, a CO2 extractor is crucial for expanding operational business and merchandise offerings, making it a key purchase. By considering a lease, you will be ready to give your cannabis business much greater flexibility and income.
The Takeaway: Financing Your Equipment
In a perfect world, a dispensary would have the cash available to get its equipment and never debate about it. Actually, income is unpredictable, and some months there’s not enough to take care of the basic expenses. Cannabis financing from Zena Financial can help to make sure the most important purchases are covered without requiring a serious upfront expense.