If you’re thinking about starting an online headshop, there has never been a better time to give it a try. With nationwide legalization on the horizon (hopefully) and an increasing number of companies willing to work with cannabis-adjacent brands, dropshipping cannabis accessories online is one of many ways to build a successful e-commerce business without investing thousands of dollars upfront.

(This post contains affiliate links, so I might make a commission if you click a link and purchase something. A girl’s gotta eat.)

How to Start an Online Head Shop

The first decision you’ll need to make is where you’re going to sell your products. If you’re selling products you’re creating yourself such as glassblown pipes, Etsy is a great place to start but the products do have to be handmade. If you plan on stocking your shop with wholesale or dropshipped products that you source from other companies, you’ll want to go with Shopify instead. Both platforms are intuitive and simple to set up for beginners.

Open a Shopify store and get a 14-day free trial.

Open an Etsy shop and get 40 free listings.

This post has a full tutorial on how to open a Shopify store as an absolute beginner, so don’t let a lack of knowledge about the platform keep you from opening your shop.

Find a High-Risk Payment Gateway to Connect to Your Store

The one problem about selling cannabis-adjacent products online, even if you’re not selling actual weed or tobacco, is that payment processors still consider it a “high risk” industry. Paypal and Shopify Payments will not work with your shop, so you’ll have to find one willing to work with you and follow their instructions to sync it with your Shopify store. Here are some of the most common high-risk payment processors:

Green Birdy

Green Birdy specializes in high-risk payment processing specifically for cannabis and CBD companies. They also offer website plans and social media services if you’d like to outsource those parts of your business.

EMB

EMB specializes in working with high-risk merchants on the Shopify platform. Check out the E-Merchant Broker website for more information and to submit an application for your store.

Authorize.Net

Authorize.Net is another high-risk payment processor to consider for your headshop. View their terms, pricing, and account options on their website.

Tower Payments

Tower Payments specializes in high-risk payment processing for all sorts of industries, including adult content and cannabis companies. Read more about their company and start filling out your application on their website.

Decide What Kinds of Products You Want to Sell in Your Smoke Shop

Next you’ll want to determine what kinds of products you want to stock in your shop. There are many directions you can go with this, whether you want a wide variety or a small, highly curated collection. When choosing your products, it’s important to consider your ideal customer and what they might be looking for. If you want to cater to millennial women, your selection might look different than if you want to bro your shop out Cheech and Chong style. Take your aesthetic and brand vision into consideration when choosing products and brands to work with. Here are some of the many products to consider for your shop:

Glass pipes, bongs, ashtrays, etc.

Silicone pipes and bongs

Vaporizers

Smoking papers and blunt wraps

Smellproof containers

Grinders

Lighters

Cleaning supplies

CBD products

Growing supplies

T-shirts and merch

Find Suppliers for Your Headshop

Once you have an idea of what kinds of products you want to sell, it’s time to find some suppliers and browse their websites for quality products. Here are some places to start:

Smoke Drop

Smoke Drop is a dropshipper of smoke shop goods that syncs right with your Shopify store, so it’s by far the easiest to set up and manage if you use Shopify. They have a wide selection of brand name glassware, pipes, vaporizers, CBD products, and other accessories. If you already have a Shopify store, you can install Smoke Drop through the app section and add their products directly to your store.

Smoke Drop normally costs $99.99 a month to use, but if you enter in the code JANEDOPE you’ll get a 50% discount plus an extra 14-day free trial. Click here to join Smoke Drop and don’t forget to use the code JANEDOPE at checkout.

Windship Trading Co.

Windship Trading is a wholesale distributor of name brand smoking accessories. They offer dropshipping, wholesale, and private label options so you can stock your store with Grav glass as well as your own CBD product line. Check out their website for more information on the products they offer, their buyer’s guide, and to submit an account request.

Green Goddess Supply

Green Goddess Supply is most well known for their armoire that contains an entire inconspicuous grow setup. If you want to feature a growing section on your site, this would be a great product to feature as a high-end, stylish option. They have both a wholesale and a dropshipping option for sellers, plus an app in the Shopify store that allows you to automatically sync their products. Aside from the armoire, they also have some nice quality wood boxes and trays that you could add to your selection.

Smoke Cartel

Smoke Cartel is one of the most popular online head shops in the game, and they now offer a wholesale program so you can buy and resell the products in their catalog. Apply for a wholesale account here and make sure to also check out my interview with Smoke Cartel CEO Darby Cox in this post.

Highlife

Highlife offers dropshipping, wholesale, and private label services for cannabis companies. Their selection includes brands like My Bud Vase, Diamond Glass, and Ronin Glass, and everything is shipped out of their warehouse in New Jersey. They even offer same-day fulfillment options, which can be hard to find in the world of dropshipping. Find out more about what they do and sign up for an account on the Highlife website.

Expand Your Inventory With Print-On-Demand Merch

One simple way to grow your inventory is by adding printed merch to your store such as t-shirts and other apparel, mugs, and posters. This can be done by creating your own cannabis-themed graphic designs and printing them through a company like Printful, which does on-demand printing and shipping of more than 300 products. Use this process to make 420 party shirts and seasonal cannabis-themed merch that your customers would want to add to their order. You can even use this method to sell branded merch with your head shop’s logo on it.

Tips for Marketing Your Online Headshop

Marketing is one of the biggest struggles for many online smoke shops. However, I am of the opinion that it’s because a lot of people who come into this space would rather dump a bunch of money on ads than put any effort into an actual sustainable marketing strategy. When you’re selling cannabis-related products, you can’t pay for advertising on most social media platforms or search engines, which means you can’t just set an ad budget and call that your marketing strategy. Here are some of the things you should do to market your headshop and help your products stand out without paid ads:

Keywords and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are Absolutely Essential

If you want to stand out from every other head shop on the web, you have to know how to use keywords and SEO to attract the right customers. This is why it’s important o have an understanding of who your customer is and what keywords they’d type into Google to find the product you’re trying to sell them. This is how you bring customers to you instead of spending all your time searching for them. SEO is also crucial in expanding your reach on social media. The more keywords you have on each page of your website, the more likely it is that it will show up in search results all across the web.

This post has some basic information on SEO writing for e-commerce businesses. The main things you need to do for SEO:

Write detailed product titles using relevant keywords. If you’re selling an Empire Glassworks daffodil-shaped glass pipe, make sure all of those keywords are in your product title.
Write unique product descriptions instead of copying and pasting the manufacturer description. You can use the manufacturer product description as a baseline to make sure all the relevant details are included, but it will make a huge difference to Google if you add a unique descriptive sentence or two at the beginning that briefly describes your product using relevant keywords.
Customize your Shopify meta descriptions at the bottom of the page. Make sure your meta description of each product in your Shopify store is well-optimized and includes the most important keywords that describe your product.
Use Google Trends for keyword ideas based on actual search data.

Write Blog Posts on Your Store’s Website

Shopify has an option to add a blog to your site. This is another great way to add more keywords to your website and create content to share on social media. Use Google Trends to come up with content ideas based on common search terms or questions. You could also use it to write product reviews and make listicles like “the coolest pipes you have to try in 2022”.

Order Samples for Social Media Posts, Reviews, Giveaways, or Unique Product Images

Dropshipping is great because you can sell products without having to touch or store them, but it helps to order samples from each of your suppliers for several reasons. This will give you an idea of the product quality and how long it will take to ship to your customer, which is helpful information to know.

Product samples can also be used to take your own unique product photos that stand out from your competition, for social media content, or for giveaways. Creating more personal content that shows a real person behind your brand helps add trust and credibility to your brand.

Pin Your Products to Pinterest

Pinterest is a powerful yet often underrated tool for e-commerce, and there is a big cannabis community on there looking for products like yours. Create a Pinterest business account for your Shopify store and connect the accounts to create shoppable pins. Then, create some Pinterest boards in different categories or themes such as:

Glass Pipes

Silicone Pipes and Bongs

Best Smoking Accessories

Cannabis Memes

Moms Who Smoke Weed

420 Party

Etc.

Pin a combination of your own products to your boards as well as other related content on Pinterest. Your goal is to fill your boards with interesting products and content that will encourage others to engage, follow, click through to your products, and spread them around Pinterest. Check out Jane Dope’s Pinterest page for reference.

This post has more information about setting up a Pinterest business account and optimizing it for your store.