In Washington You Can Build the Menu. You Cannot Take the Order.
Online sales of cannabis are prohibited in Washington. Every transaction has to happen at the licensed premises, which means a Washington retailer's website can do everything except the one thing ecommerce normally exists to do. That does not make the site less important. It makes its job unusually clear.
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What Washington actually permits online
Under WAC 314-55-155, a licensed Washington retailer may operate a website that promotes the business. What it may not do is complete a sale. The rule requires all transactions to occur at the licensed premises, so no order is finalized on the internet in this state.
The permitted surface is still real, and it is worth stating plainly rather than hedging. A business website is allowed. Social media promotion is allowed, with attention paid to under-21 viewers. Search advertising is allowed. Blog posts and video are allowed. All of it remains subject to the general restrictions in the same rule, including the prohibition on content designed in any manner that would be especially appealing to children or other persons under twenty-one years of age. Washington sets no audience-composition percentage threshold; that appeal standard is the test instead.
There are also placement rules that shape where anything physical or bought can appear: not within 1,000 feet of schools, playgrounds, recreation centers, child care facilities, parks, libraries, or arcades with unrestricted admission; not on or in public or private transit vehicles or transit shelters; not on publicly owned or operated property; and not on vinyl-wrapped or logoed vehicles.
The physical surface
Two signs, 1,600 square inches each
WAC 314-55-155(1) caps a Washington retailer at two signs. Each is limited to 1,600 square inches. Each must be permanently affixed to the building. Each may identify only the business name, the location, and the nature of the business.
Picture that in the parking lot. Two panels roughly the size of a small tabletop, screwed to the wall, carrying a name and a category. No reader board, no window vinyl campaign, no A-frame at the curb, no wrapped van circling the neighborhood. For most retail categories the building itself is the largest advertisement the business owns. In Washington cannabis, the building is nearly silent.
That is the argument for the digital surface, and it is a Washington-specific one. When the physical footprint of your marketing is two permanently mounted panels, the pages you own become the only place where you get to explain what you carry, who you are, and why someone should drive to you rather than the store four minutes closer.
In plain language
The 1,600 square inch limit applies to the two permitted signs. It is not a rule about your website. But when your storefront signage is capped that hard, whatever you can say online carries more of the load — which is why your site's look and structure and what happens once someone is in the store end up doing the work signage does elsewhere.
Promotion without discounting
No coupons, no giveaways, no branded merch
WAC 314-55-155(4) bans coupons, giveaways, and the distribution of branded merchandise. Products also may not be sold below acquisition cost. Together those remove the promotional playbook most retailers reach for first.
A percent-off code, a first-time-customer offer, a free lighter in the bag, a sticker pack at the counter, a bundle priced under cost to clear aging stock — in Washington, that toolbox is closed. So the question stops being "what is the offer" and becomes "what is the reason." Selection someone cannot find elsewhere. Product information good enough to decide from. Staff picks and education. Hours and location that are correct everywhere a shopper checks. Reasons, not incentives.
We say this here because it changes what a platform is worth to you. Half of what a typical ecommerce vendor demos — promo engines, code generators, discount stacking — is not a Washington feature.
The thesis
So the website has exactly one job
Be the result someone finds. Give them enough to decide. Get them through the door. That is the whole funnel in this state, and every part of it happens before a transaction that legally has to occur at your counter.
Which means discovery is not a marketing line item in Washington, it is the product. If your inventory lives inside an embedded widget on someone else's domain, the pages a shopper could have found do not exist as pages at all. Nothing to rank, nothing to link to, nothing carrying live price and stock in structured data, and no category or brand pages for the specific things people search for.
Our cannabis SEO page covers the mechanics in detail, and cannabis ecommerce software walks through what to evaluate. In a state where you cannot take the order and cannot discount the product, those mechanics are not an upsell.
Stated directly
What Buddy does and does not do in Washington
We would rather lose a demo than surprise you in week two. Washington closes off a meaningful part of what Buddy sells everywhere else, and here is the honest split.
An open question worth architecting around
The prohibition we verified is on online sales. We have not verified what Washington permits around delivery, curbside, or picking up an order that started on a website, and we are not going to guess at it on a public page. If your operation depends on any of those, treat it as an unresolved question for your counsel and the LCB, and build the site so that the answer is a setting rather than a rebuild.
Works in Washington: your menu and product pages
Live catalog, pricing and stock from your POS, rendered as real pages on your own domain.
Works in Washington: discovery
Server-rendered category, brand and product pages, automatic structured data, and per-store local pages.
Works in Washington: site building and content
The page builder and theme controls, education content, and brand storytelling pages.
Works in Washington: store locator and in-store
A geocoded locator that routes shoppers to the right building, plus in-store screens and signage.
Does not apply: cart and checkout
Online sales are prohibited in this state, so Buddy does not provide online ordering or checkout here.
Does not apply: cart recovery and coupon tooling
With no online transaction, there is no abandoned cart to recover. Coupons, giveaways and branded merchandise are banned under WAC 314-55-155(4), so the discount engine is off the table too.
How the pages work
Getting found is the entire funnel
Every product, category and brand in your catalog becomes a server-rendered page on your own domain, so a crawler sees the full content in the HTML rather than an empty container waiting on a script. Structured data is generated from live inventory, not typed once and left to go stale, so price and availability in search reflect what the register says.
Each store gets its own page with its own hours, its own address details and its own per-page title and meta control, which matters in Washington because a shopper searching a specific Seattle or Spokane neighborhood should land on the store nearest them and not on a shared homepage. Multi-store operators keep those pages distinct instead of competing with themselves for the same result.
None of that requires a developer. Wording, headings and page structure are controlled from the platform, which is what makes a rule change survivable rather than a project.
Washington retailers on Buddy
More than 300 cannabis retail websites run on Buddy, rated 4.9 out of 5, with a typical storefront live in about 24 hours once the POS connection is in place. We are not publishing a Washington-specific store count or client names until those numbers and permissions are confirmed.
More on how this works: Buddy for retailers, cannabis ecommerce software, compliance, cannabis SEO and the page builder.
FAQ
Washington questions, answered.
Does Buddy support online ordering for a Washington dispensary?
No. Online sales of cannabis are prohibited in Washington under WAC 314-55-155, and every transaction must occur at the licensed premises. Buddy does not provide cart or checkout for Washington retailers. What Buddy does provide is the rest of the storefront: a live menu from your POS, real product and category pages on your own domain, search visibility, a store locator and content. If a vendor tells you they can sell online for you in Washington, ask them to point at the rule that allows it.
Can a Washington retailer advertise at all?
Yes, within limits. WAC 314-55-155 permits a business website, social media promotion made with under-21 viewers in mind, search advertising, blog posts and video. All of it is subject to the general restrictions in the rule, including the prohibition on content designed in any manner that would be especially appealing to children or other persons under twenty-one. Washington does not set an audience-composition percentage threshold the way some states do; that appeal standard applies instead.
How many signs can a Washington cannabis retailer have?
Two, under WAC 314-55-155(1). Each sign is limited to 1,600 square inches, must be permanently affixed to the building, and may identify only the business name, the location, and the nature of the business. That limit applies to the two permitted signs specifically. Practically, it means the physical marketing surface of a Washington store is very small, which is a large part of why the website carries so much of the discovery work.
Can I run a first-time-customer discount or a giveaway in Washington?
No. WAC 314-55-155(4) bans coupons, giveaways, and the distribution of branded merchandise, and products may not be sold below acquisition cost. Promotion in Washington has to come from selection, product information, education and service rather than from an offer. Buddy's coupon and promotion tooling is therefore not something a Washington retailer should plan around.
Where can cannabis advertising not be placed in Washington?
WAC 314-55-155 prohibits placement within 1,000 feet of schools, playgrounds, recreation centers, child care facilities, parks, libraries, or arcades with unrestricted admission. It also prohibits advertising on or in public or private transit vehicles and transit shelters, on publicly owned or operated property, and on vinyl-wrapped or logoed vehicles. Confirm any specific placement with your counsel before buying it.
What does Buddy actually change for a Washington store?
It changes who owns the pages a shopper finds. Your menu, categories, brands and per-store location pages render as real pages on your own domain with structured data generated from live POS inventory, instead of living inside an embedded widget on someone else's domain. Since a Washington shopper has to come to the building to buy, the measurable outcome is being the store they find and choose before they get in the car.
See what discovery looks like for your Washington stores.
Bring your POS and one store's current menu. We will show what your pages look like on your own domain, what search sees, and exactly which parts of the platform do and do not apply under Washington rules. This page is informational and is not legal advice; the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) is the regulator, and your counsel should confirm anything you act on.
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