Co-Marketing Promotions

How Cannabis Dispensary Co-Op Promotions Work

Co-op promotions are joint marketing agreements between a cannabis dispensary and a vendor. The vendor agrees to share the cost of a discount — typically a percentage off retail price — in exchange for increased shelf visibility and sales velocity. You and the vendor agree on the terms; the platform then tracks performance, applies the agreed split, and generates the credit.

This is part of our credit recovery system. When a co-op promotion runs, the platform tracks the discounted sales and generates a co-marketing credit memo against the vendor's account. The credit is then applied to the vendor's next settlement or payment. Both sides agree to the terms before the promotion starts, so there are no surprises.

Who Can Propose

Either party can initiate a co-op promotion:

• Retailers propose through their ShelfSpace dashboard when they want a vendor to co-fund a discount event
• Vendors propose through their vendor portal or through ShelfiQ when they want to drive sales velocity at a specific store

When a proposal is submitted, the other party receives a notification and can approve the terms or decline. The in-portal response is approve or decline — finer back-and-forth on the numbers can happen over email or through ShelfiQ before a proposal is sent. See Creating a Promotion for the step-by-step process.

Promotion Terms

Every co-op promotion includes:

• Discount percentage — the retail discount offered to customers (e.g., 20% off)
• Co-marketing split — how much of the discount the vendor covers vs. the retailer
• Start and end dates — the promotion window
• Scope — all products from the vendor, or specific SKUs
• Budget cap — optional maximum dollar amount the vendor will cover

Credit Generation

Co-marketing credits are calculated during the monthly credit-recovery cycle, not the moment a promotion ends. Below-keystone promotional sales that fall within the promotion window are classified into the pre-approved co-marketing bucket using actual POS sales data, and the vendor's share becomes a co-marketing credit memo. That memo goes through the standard approval process — the vendor reviews it in their portal and confirms the amount before it is applied.

Co-marketing credits appear in the co-marketing credits section of the credit recovery dashboard, with full detail on which products were sold at what discount during the promotion period.

Tracking Promotion Impact

The platform measures each promotion against your POS sales data — units sold, discount given, and budget usage against any cap — so both sides can see how the promotion is delivering. When the monthly credit run computes budget usage, it stops accruing further credit once the cap is reached and the promotion shows a Budget Reached indicator.