Whether you’re a new cannabis user or long-time connoisseur, it’s important to source your products from a reliable and trusted supplier. We know how daunting it can be to select the right online cannabis dispensary. Do you choose one with the best website and sleekest branding? A big name, a small local grower or a dispensary that offers you the best value with the highest quality product at the best price?
Here is our comparison of two reputable brands, GanjaExpress.ca and SereneFarms.ca
We reviewed GanjaExpress CA and Serene Farms in 5 different categories.
Who do you think comes out on top?
Website and Branding
GanjaExpress has a well-organized website with all the categories you need, especially when it comes to selecting flowers. Serene Farms website has a clean design and is easy to navigate. The one advantage GanjaExpress has is under their hover option on their “Shop Now” category, it offers a nice overview of all their categories and subcategories.
Customer Service and Delivery
GanjaExpress has good customer service and their delivery service is satisfactory. For a shipment to Calgary, Alberta for example, delivery took 5-7 business days. Not lightning fast but reasonable. The main issue was communication, there have been several times where email correspondence takes over 24 hrs on business days to hear back. Serene Farms deliveries have taken between 3-7 business days to arrive but it’s their communication that is top-notch, we’ve never waited for more than 3 hrs to hear back for email correspondence on a business day. Their flowers are extremely pungent so they take the time to double or triple wrap their flowers so your package remains discreet.
Selection and Inventory
GanjaExpress has a wonderfully varied selection of over 200 flowers, from hybrids to indicas to sativas and they even have a budget buds section. They have a decent offering of edibles and concentrates, a limited body care section and they even have a couple of pet products so you can pick up a treat for your furry friend. As for Serene Farms, their selection is smaller but you can tell that their offering is curated by an experienced team, a small but mighty selection. Their edibles section carries a few well-known brands like Mota, and Twisted Extracts but they let us know that they’re expanding their inventory to include more local Canadian edibles producers. They also carry vape pens and their own proprietary, lab-tested distillates that do not contain harmful solvents. Serene Farms doesn’t carry any pet products or body products at this time.
Sales and Promotions
GanjaExpress is known for their ongoing “Buy More, Save More” promotion which starts at 5% off maxes out at 20% off and applies to their flowers and concentrates. Great if you’re looking for a regular deal and you don’t want to wait for a sale. Serene Farms takes a different approach, they have regular sales and discount codes for their email subscribers, we’ve seen as high as 30% off anything in store in our email codes but the usual discount is between 10-20%. Worth signing up to catch a deal. Their Black Friday event is wild, 40% off everything in store. Make sure you’re one of the first, they sell out quite quickly for their sales especially for Black Friday.
Quality of Cannabis
GanjaExpress CA sources from a variety of growers in BC, this is the reason why they can offer 200+ different strains at any given time. GanjaExpress also grades their flowers from AA-AAAA which we found was an accurate grading comparable to most online dispensaries and their quality. GanjaExpress does have some great bud but the main issue is consistency. Sometimes it’s amazing and sometimes it’s mediocre, this is understandable as it’s difficult to maintain consistent quality when using a wide variety of growers.
Serene Farms does things differently, they don’t grade their flowers because they are all a minimum of AAA-AAAA meaning that you always get top quality, premium bud. What makes Serene Farms unique is that they grow all their cannabis in house, from seed to final product. They use only award winning genetics and further refine those strains through selective breeding creating the most pungent buds we’ve ever come across with a phenomenal potency. To sum it up, their tagline is “We cultivate. We Extract. We Produce. You Experience” and it shows.
Results
GanjaExpress wins when it comes to general website branding and design and the wide selection of cannabis flowers.
GanjaExpress and Serene Farms tie when it comes to sales and promotions, although their styles in this area differ greatly.
Serene Farms wins when it comes to customer service and quality of products.
When it comes to choosing an online dispensary, each shop has its own strengths and weaknesses, be sure to choose what’s most important to you. For us, it always comes down to quality, so in our books, Serene Farms wins this round!
Happy Cannabis Consumption!