Boing Boing is proud to welcome Wikileaf.com as as sponsor.
When you want to book a flight or a hotel online, if you're bargain-conscious you probably don't go directly to each airline or hotel's direct website, but rather shop on price comparison websites to see who's offering the best rate for what you want. Wikileaf.com applies this same familiar concept to legal and medical cannabis.
Wikileaf is the first price comparison website of its kind, empowering marijuana consumers to name their preferred price for pot–then watch as recreational and/or medical dispensaries compete for their bud business.
The website operates as a "reverse auction" model for weed. You, the consumer, set the price you intend to spend. Dispensaries in your area offer their best deal (in grams) to match what you're willing to spend.
As cannabis laws and regulations ease throughout the U.S., exuberant ganja-preneurs are opening dispensaries faster than ever. All the competition may be good for the market, but it creates a lot of noise for cannabis connoisseurs who just want really high-quality herb at the best possible price.
Cruise along the urban streets of Denver, Seattle, Portland, and other weed-friendly American cities, and you'll notice dispensaries and cannabis shops popping up faster than Starbucks spots. There is fierce competition between dispensaries, and that incentive to compete for your business grows as more shops enter the market.
"The problem for the consumer is that there is no transparency in pricing," says Dan Nelson, CEO of Wikileaf.
"What you can get for $40 at one shop might get you nearly double that amount in another shop, depending on the dispensaries current inventory levels."
That the problem Wikileaf is trying to solve for savvy cannabis shoppers.
With Wikileaf, you can rise above the noise, and quickly find dispensaries offering the best deals and prices in your neighborhood.
In a highly anticipated update coming this spring, the price comparison model will also be applied to individual strains and products. So for example, if you're looking for the best deals on Blue Dream, you could quickly hop onto Wikileaf.com and find dispensaries currently stocking Blue Dream in your neighborhood–and then compare their offers, to see who's willing to sell this strain to you at the lowest price.
Check out WikiLeaf.com.
