Cannabis vendor diligence — when to fire a vendor, when to keep them

Price is one signal among six. A vendor who’s 8% cheaper but a 65% fill-rate is more expensive than the 8%-higher vendor at 95% fill, because the gap between ‘ordered’ and ‘received’ is what the operator pays for in stockouts.

1. 1**Reference check 3 active operators.** Not the vendor’s suggested ones — operators YOU pick from the WSLCB / OLCC public licensee list. Ask: fill rate over the last 12 weeks? COA timing? Last 3 stockouts — communication on each? Recall in the last 12 months — how did they handle it?
2. 2**Their last recall.** If they’ve been in business >3 years, they’ve had at least one recall. If they say ‘no, never’ — either they’re lying or they’re a brand-new operator. Either way, dig.
3. 3**Their COA process.** Who’s the lab? How long between harvest and lab? Do they retain the COA URL on the manifest, or hand-attach to email? Ask for a sample COA from their most recent lot.
4. 4**Their account-rep tenure.** ‘How long has my rep been with you?’ If the answer is <6 months, expect rep-churn pain in the first 12 months of the relationship.
5. 5**Their wholesale-portal demo.** Have them walk you through the buyer-side portal as if you were placing an order. The sophistication of the portal is the floor of how organized they are operationally.
6. 6**Their cancellation terms.** If you need to fire them in 60 days, what does that actually look like? Is there a contract minimum? Are there carry-over invoice obligations? Get this in writing before the first PO.

1. 1**Fill rate < 80% for 4 consecutive weeks.** Not one-off shorts (those happen). Sustained miss = systemic issue, not seasonal. Vendor either fixes the cause or you fire.
2. 2**Recall handled badly.** Operator finds out from WSLCB before the vendor calls. Lot list arrives 48+ hours after the recall starts. Disposal documentation incomplete. Per /guides/cannabis-recall-handling-first-four-hours: the recall response IS the diligence test. Failing it is a fire-on-spot.
3. 3**Lab-fail re-test pattern.** Vendor’s product fails post-shipment lab re-test (yours or downstream). One failure is bad luck; two in 6 months is a process problem at the vendor. Three is a fire.
4. 4**Account-rep churn + replacement quality drop.** New rep doesn’t know your account, doesn’t answer in 24h, mis-bills the wrong store. The vendor’s back-office is signaling. Often this is the early warning before the vendor itself shuts down or gets bought.

• **Document the trigger.** Activity log with dates, fill-rate numbers, recall-response timestamps. WSLCB doesn’t care about vendor disputes but a documented audit trail protects you in any downstream claim.
• **Settle outstanding invoices first.** Don’t fire mid-payment-cycle. Pay what you owe; clean break. Cannabis B2B is a small community + the next vendor will hear about an unpaid balance.
• **Phone call + email confirmation.** Phone first (relationship). Email same day with the cancellation in writing (legal). Cite the trigger but don’t litigate it — ‘The relationship isn’t a fit for our shop’ is enough.
• **Pull from menu within 48 hours.** Out-of-relationship product on the floor is a customer-experience risk if there’s any unresolved quality concern. Sell-through OR consign back to the vendor; don’t hold past the cancellation date.
• **Update vendor-portal SSO + revoke access.** Per /guides/cannabis-data-discipline-cybersecurity, terminate the vendor-portal credential the same day. Vendor reps should not have ongoing read access to your data after the relationship ends.