Case Study
Cali Blaze got its sales team out of order entry
How Blue Fox Brands turned wholesale ordering into a buyer-facing storefront, gave reps their day back, and launched the same model in a second state.
At a glance
- Time saved per rep
- 3+ hrs/day
- Buyer-generated orders
- 4 in 5
- More product variety
- 45%
- New-market launch
- <2 weeks
The Company
A lean wholesale team covering a lot of ground
Cali Blaze is a cannabis brand under Blue Fox Brands, a multi-state wholesale manufacturing and distribution company operating across Michigan and Massachusetts.
The team covers hundreds of retail accounts with a small sales force. Zak Mall, CEO of Cali Blaze and Blue Fox Brands, oversees the team, brand strategy, and key account relationships. Jayson Prochet is in the field daily, managing a large book of accounts across order facilitation, buyer education, and procurement.
Before Superbud Order, the sales motion looked familiar to anyone who has run cannabis wholesale: PDF menus, phone calls, text threads, screenshots, and manual order entry into the back-end system. It worked because the team made it work. That was the problem.
The Problem
The reps were processing orders instead of selling
A buyer would call or text. A rep would stop what they were doing, open the laptop, find the right products, key in the order, and hope the system kept up. Sometimes it lagged. Sometimes orders did not record cleanly. Always, the rep was doing admin work that should not have required a rep.
This is the kind of workflow that hides in plain sight. Nobody calls it broken because every team has learned to route around it. But if your sales team is spending half the day translating buyer interest into line items, your best people are not selling. They are clerking.
Cali Blaze did not need another menu. They needed the menu, ordering workflow, rep review step, and buyer experience to become one system.
That process before Superbud was very scattered. I had to stop, open up my laptop, make sure I'm refreshed on the screen, and then I'm plugging in an order. Sometimes the software would lag, it wouldn't record the orders.
Before and after
| Before Superbud | With Superbud |
|---|---|
| Reps manually entered orders from calls, texts, and PDF menus | Buyers browse a live storefront and submit their own carts |
| Order entry waited for a laptop | Reps review and move orders from the phone |
| Sales calls got dragged into order mechanics | Sales calls focus on SKUs, education, and account growth |
| Buyer onboarding felt like a separate workflow | A rep can invite a buyer and get them ordering almost immediately |
| New-market expansion meant rebuilding process by hand | The same storefront model launched in a second state |
The Change
The buyer started building the cart
Superbud Order changed the center of gravity. Instead of reps turning conversations into orders after the fact, buyers browse a visual storefront with current inventory, pricing, photos, and product details. They build the cart themselves. The rep reviews, confirms, and moves it forward.
That is a different job. The rep is no longer spending the call spelling out product names, checking availability, and translating preferences into line items. The rep can sell. Add SKUs. Talk through product education. Help the buyer understand what else belongs in the order.
It is not a prettier version of the old workflow. It is a cleaner division of labor.
Instead of having to discuss the order and the logistics and the fundamentals, the salesperson can make a sale and add SKUs and add revenue to the order versus dealing with all the semantics of ordering.
The Results
Three hours back, every day
3+ hours per rep per day
Zak estimates each rep gets back at least 3 hours per day. Across a five-person team, that is 75+ hours every week moved out of order entry and back into stores, budtender education, buyer conversations, and key accounts.
Four in five orders start with the buyer
In Michigan, roughly 4 in 5 active orders in the measured window were placed directly by buyers through the storefront. The order-entry side of the work moved away from the rep, which is exactly where the leverage came from.
45% more product variety
Self-serve orders carried about 45% more product variety than seller-entered orders. That makes sense. On a phone call, buyers ask for what they remember. In a visual storefront, they see the full catalog and find SKUs they would not have known to request.
Everything comes right over, and in just two clicks I have it ready for fulfillment. I get to now talk to more customers, visit more stores, and make sure every budtender knows the education behind our product.
See what happens when wholesale ordering stops eating the sales day.
Book a demoBuyer Experience
The grilled cheese test
Every platform claims it is easy to use. The real test is not the demo. It is what happens when a buyer with no patience for software tries to place an order from their phone.
Jayson got that test from an older dispensary owner. The buyer did not need a support call. He did not need a rep to walk him through every step. He opened the storefront, understood the menu, and placed the order.
That kind of adoption matters because wholesale platforms fail quietly. Buyers do not always complain. They just stop using the thing. In this case, the reaction went the other direction.
This thing is so easy. It's easier to do than making grilled cheese.
Expansion
Same model, second state
Cali Blaze expanded Superbud Order into Massachusetts after launching in Michigan. That is where the system proved it was not just a local workaround.
The new market went live with a full synced catalog, current inventory, and real buyer orders arriving in under two weeks. The first orders came in buyer-led, without forcing the team back into the old phone-call-and-reentry loop.
That is what good operational software should do. Not just solve the first market. Make the second one easier.
Field Sales
The phone became part of the sales workflow
The change was not just that buyers had a storefront. The reps became more mobile too.
Zak can send an invite from his phone, see the order come in, and move it forward while walking out of a meeting. Jayson can pull up the live menu mid-call, screenshot a product page, text it to a buyer, and keep the deal moving from the car.
That matters because cannabis wholesale does not happen from a desk. The platform has to fit the field.
Being able to send the invite on my phone and then see the order and move it within minutes is the difference between doing it while I'm walking from a meeting to my car versus having to open the computer.
Why It Stuck
What changed for Cali Blaze
The platform did not make the team work harder. It put the work in the right place.
Buyers can self-serve
The storefront gives buyers the current catalog, pricing, photos, and inventory in one place, so they can build carts without waiting on a rep.
- 4 in 5 active orders buyer-generated
- 45% more product variety
Reps get back to selling
Order entry no longer consumes the day. Reps spend more time on store visits, product education, account expansion, and buyer relationships.
- 3+ hours saved per rep per day
- 75+ hours recovered weekly
The model travels
The same setup launched in Massachusetts with a synced catalog and buyer-led orders arriving quickly.
- Repeatable launch model
- First buyer orders in under 2 weeks
Key takeaways
For wholesale sales teams
- Manual order entry is not sales work, even when reps have been forced to treat it that way
- A buyer-facing storefront turns rep time back into account coverage, education, and selling
- Mobile workflows matter because wholesale sales happens between meetings, store visits, and calls
For multi-state operators
- A repeatable ordering system makes new-market launches less dependent on manual process rebuilding
- Buyer self-service can work immediately when catalog, pricing, and inventory are reliable
- The strongest platform signal is not a demo, it is buyers placing orders without hand-holding
Source material came from interviews with Zak Mall and Jayson Prochet of Blue Fox Brands and Cali Blaze, plus Superbud Order performance analysis from the launch period.
Give your sales team the hours back.
Book a demo and we'll show you how Superbud Order fits your wholesale operation.