Name Game: How Bad Spelling Could Be Costing You Sales
Runtz X Biscotti Select Quantity
Doobiebird Daydream $50.00 Add
Other Sour Hype $33.37
Kk Kush Mints Thc 20.8% Cbd 0.1% $4.20 Each
Angel Breath $17.50 Alphapinene 1.10% Thc 21.48% Caryophyllene 3.30%
Dutch Blue Fusion Dream $1.29 Add N A
Without looking online, can you tell me what these products are? Most of you work with these products everyday and might be able to figure it out, but what about your customers?
I Scream, You Scream…
In most industries, naming a product is simple: there's a system, a standard, and everyone follows it. But in cannabis? It’s chaos.
Is “LR” live resin or live rosin? Is “UD” short for Underdawg or something else entirely? Are your gummies labeled by brand, flavor, or some Frankenstein combo that only makes sense to your inventory manager?
If you’ve ever scrolled a menu and wondered why three different listings are clearly the same product—or worse, couldn’t find what you were looking for—then you’ve already felt the impact of poor naming conventions.
The Industry Has a Naming Problem
Unlike traditional retail, cannabis has no universal standard for product naming. Dispensaries, producers, and even e-commerce platforms often use completely different formats. This lack of consistency leads to:
Consumer confusion
Menu integration issues
Inventory tracking errors
Missed sales opportunities
In a market already struggling with oversupply, price compression, and thin margins, the last thing you need is to lose a sale because someone couldn’t find “Cactus Jellies” because they were listed as “LE Gummies.”
The Role of Naming Conventions
Naming conventions are simply structured formats used to label products consistently in your inventory and POS systems. Think of it like a naming recipe:
Brand | Product Type/Line | Strain/Flavor | Extraction Type | Dominance | Net Weight
So instead of:
“Gary Payton 3.5g” or “Tubs Cookie GP ”
You’d use: Cookies Tub Gary Payton (H) 3.5g
- That small change makes a huge difference.
Why It Matters
Searchability & SEO
When products are listed consistently, customers can actually find them. This is especially important on third-party menu platforms like Weedmaps, Dutchie, or Leafly. If your product name is truncated, abbreviated, or spelled differently each time, it might as well not exist.Inventory Accuracy
Every product variation—whether due to naming differences or strain changes—creates a new SKU. Over time, this clutters your database, complicates ordering, and screws up sales reports. Worse, it increases the risk of compliance violations from mislabeling or misreporting.Brand Integrity
If your store abbreviates a brand’s name into something unrecognizable, you’re undercutting their visibility. That hurts the brand, and it hurts you when customers come in looking for something they saw on Instagram but can’t find on your shelf.
Standardization in Action
Think about how cars are sold when it comes to the details in the name,
Ford
Ford Mustang
Ford Mustang GT
Ford Mustang GT Convertible
Each version adds more detail, helping customers make faster, smarter decisions.
The same logic applies in cannabis:
Bloom
Bloom Vape
Bloom Vape Live Rosin
Bloom AIO Surf Live Rosin Blue Dream (S) 1g
It’s not overkill—it’s clarity; in this instance Bloom’s “Surf” is the disposable, or “All-In-One” line of vapes. So when your customer gets a box that says surf on it, they are now able to make the correlation and know what to ask for.
What Retailers and Brands Can Do
For Retailers:
Create and enforce standardized naming templates across all product categories.
Use clear phenotypes (I), (S), (H), (C) instead of spelling them out inconsistently.
Avoid abbreviating brand names.
Consider using “bucketed SKUs” for products with high turnover to simplify your backend while still allowing dynamic strain-level descriptions.
For Brands:
Submit products with full, clearly formatted names.
Include extraction method, strain, and net weight in product documentation.
Make your product line easy to plug into POS and e-commerce platforms without guesswork.
Ask Yourself: Does the Product Sell Itself?
This is the golden rule: If you ordered this product for your store, and didn’t explain it to a single budtender… could they figure it out on their own? Could they explain what it is, what it’s made from, and what it’s for—just by reading the name?
If not, you’ve got a problem.
Budtenders are the frontline. If your product name requires a story, a sales pitch, and a decoder ring to make sense of, then you're not setting them—or your product—up for success.
Conclusion
Poor naming conventions in cannabis are more than a minor annoyance—they’re a business liability. They confuse customers, disrupt menus, wreck inventory, and weaken brand recognition. But with a little structure, the chaos can be tamed.
A consistent naming system doesn’t just help you stay organized—it helps you move product, stay compliant, and look professional while doing it.
And in this industry, that goes a long way.
If your interested in learning about how to handle naming conventions, check out our free section in the Education Section
