WM Tech Blog

By WM Product Marketing Team 

Reading reviews before purchasing a product has become an innate part of our lives. Not sure about a restaurant? Ask Yelp. Want to know if the hotel is decent? Seek out any of the numerous travel websites. But when it comes to cannabis, finding reviews you trust can be a bit more of a challenge. 

Now, thanks to a recent enhancement, Weedmaps consumers have the opportunity to review ALL cannabis products across the Weedmaps platform. Prior to this recent update, reviews were only enabled on Brand Verified products that were marked by a blue checkmark. Since this only accounted for a small portion of products across the marketplace, there was a clear need for reviews to be enabled on the majority of products created from scratch by our retailers.

“This enhancement is one we heard from customers as an important addition to our platform -- especially as adult-use cannabis has become legal in more states over the past several years,” said Tim Jones, Product Manager at Weedmaps. “Our hope is that Weedmaps consumers will come to the platform, leave their review, and help others better understand the products available to them in their area.”

The goal, Tim Jones added, is that Weedmaps becomes the place for consumer reviews of adult-use cannabis products. In turn, this will provide a database of information to educate other consumers who may be new to the legal market, or looking to understand the effects or taste of a certain product. 

Reviews are so important, in fact, that a 2021 consumer survey conducted by PowerReviews noted that, “ratings and reviews have become the most important factor impacting online purchase decisions.” The survey went on to note that ratings and reviews are so critical to consumer purchasing decisions, “that almost four in five consumers say they won’t shop on websites without user-generated Voice of the Customer testimonials about their product experiences.”

With most consumers preferring to browse and purchase products with reviews only, the enablement of reviews across 100% of products on Weedmaps aims to provide greater customer engagement and orders across the Weedmaps platform. 

“On Weedmaps, products with user reviews receive two times the number of engagements compared to products without user reviews,” Tim Jones said. “With these improvements to product reviews, we’re aiming to increase brand product awareness, drive more engagement with menu items, and help customers make more informed purchasing decisions.”

Note: Our robust monitoring policy will apply to reviews to help protect retailers from harmful reviews. Read more about this in our Weedmaps Review Guidelines.