Cannabis shoppers want rewards that are easy to find, easy to scan, and impossible to forget at home. Digital wallets—Apple Wallet on iPhone and Google Wallet on Android—deliver exactly that by storing loyalty credentials alongside payment cards, tickets, and IDs. For dispensaries, that proximity reduces friction at checkout and encourages repeat visits.
Wallet “passes” replace plastic cards and app logins with a single tap: Add to Apple Wallet / Add to Google Wallet. Modern passes can show a customer’s live point balance, tier status, and a scannable barcode that staff can redeem in seconds—no separate app required. Flowhub’s cannabis-specific passes are a clean example: customers add a pass to Apple or Google Wallet, see real-time points and tiering, and present a barcode for faster checkout. The pass carries store branding and updates automatically with new offers.
Google has steadily layered quality-of-life features that make redemption even smoother. “Nearby Passes” nudges the right loyalty card when customers approach a relevant location, and email ingestion can auto-add passes from Gmail so deals aren’t buried in an inbox. Under the hood, the Google Wallet API provides a standardized loyalty schema that keeps redemption reliable for staff. Together, these capabilities surface the right reward at the right time, right on the lock screen.
Payments tighten the loop. Because major card networks continue to restrict cannabis transactions—Mastercard told banks in July 2023 to stop allowing marijuana purchases on its debit rails—retailers have leaned into compliant bank-to-bank (ACH) options. Integrations such as Flowhub + Aeropay bring contactless ACH to more than 1,000 dispensary checkouts, while consumer apps like CanPay let shoppers pay directly from a linked bank account. When rewards and ACH payments sit side-by-side in a mobile flow, customers can “earn and burn” in a single motion without cash handling.
Specialized cannabis-loyalty stacks now bundle wallet functionality so members can see points, tap a barcode, and redeem an offer without hunting through texts. Alpine IQ’s Wallet Passes push brand updates, product drops, and targeted offers straight into Apple and Google Wallet—an owned channel that’s not subject to the filtering and deliverability risks that can affect SMS in regulated categories. Springbig’s customer wallet lets members view points, redeem offers, and even start an order directly from the wallet interface, tying loyalty to commerce with minimal friction.
For dispensaries planning a rollout, three practices keep it simple. First, place “Add to Wallet” everywhere: during account creation, on order confirmations, at kiosks, on receipts, and inside loyalty emails. The more entry points, the higher the attach rate. Second, map each reward to a barcode or code type your POS scans flawlessly; test the end-to-end path at different screen brightness levels and with worn camera lenses to mimic real life. Third, keep value obvious and glanceable: display current points, progress to next tier, expiration windows, and one-tap actions like “Redeem 100 points for $5 off.” Clear, predictable design prevents lines from stalling.
The payoff is tangible: less queue time, fewer forgotten cards, and higher redemption rates. Customers get a single, trusted home for cannabis rewards; staff get a consistent scan-and-go flow; and marketers gain an owned, updatable surface that triggers at the right place and time. In a payments landscape still shaped by federal constraints, digital wallets, ACH integrations, and standards-based loyalty passes are the practical bridge between “Do I have any rewards?” and “Yes—scan this.”