2026 South Jersey Cannabis Consumer Survey Methodology

Study Objective

The 2026 South Jersey Cannabis Consumer Survey is designed to collect firsthand feedback from adults who have personally visited licensed cannabis dispensaries across South Jersey.

The study evaluates common areas of the customer experience:

• Overall Experience
• Staff Knowledge & Helpfulness
• Product Selection
• Store Atmosphere
• Value
• Ease of Shopping
• Likelihood to Recommend
• Cannabis Consumption Area Experience, where applicable

The study may also report geographic findings where sufficient qualifying data exists.

Research Publisher

The study is conducted and published by My Daily Discount Research. Any material commercial, client, agency, ownership or sponsorship relationship between the research operator and Gynsyng or another business included in the study will be disclosed here before the survey opens to respondents. Any disclosed relationship does not give a participating business control over respondent answers, qualification rules, scoring methodology, minimum response requirements, exclusion rules or the published findings.

Methodology Version

Version: 1.0. This version is locked and archived internally before the first live survey response is accepted. Any later substantive change will be documented in the Methodology Version History section below.

Survey Period

The confirmed survey start and end dates will be published here once the study opens.

The initial field period should run for approximately 30 calendar days. If the predetermined sample requirements have not been met, fielding may be extended in 14-day increments based on response volume. The collection period must not be extended solely because a particular business is not leading a metric. Any extension will be disclosed with the final results.

Geographic Scope

For purposes of the 2026 South Jersey Cannabis Consumer Survey, South Jersey is defined as:

• Atlantic County
• Burlington County
• Camden County
• Cape May County
• Cumberland County
• Gloucester County
• Ocean County
• Salem County

This definition is fixed before fielding and is used consistently for business eligibility and geographic analysis. Other organizations may define South Jersey differently.

Respondent Eligibility

A respondent qualifies for the primary dispensary analysis only if the respondent:

1. Is 21 years of age or older.
2. Reports personally visiting a licensed New Jersey adult-use cannabis dispensary within the previous 12 months.
3. Identifies at least one qualifying dispensary within the study's frozen South Jersey comparison set that they personally visited.
4. Completes the required primary customer-experience questions for their assigned dispensary.

Respondents who do not satisfy these requirements are not included in the qualifying primary-analysis sample.

Participants may provide a home ZIP code or select “Prefer not to say.” ZIP code data may be used to understand participant geography, including relevant New Jersey and Philadelphia-area participation. The survey does not require respondents to provide a street address, full name or other unnecessary personally identifying information.

Businesses Evaluated

The businesses below form the current build (not yet frozen) eligible comparison set for this study. Inclusion reflects the study eligibility rules and does not indicate an endorsement, ranking or award.

Business Selection and Random Assignment

Respondents first identify all qualifying South Jersey dispensaries they personally visited within the previous 12 months.

If a respondent identifies one qualifying business, that business is used for the detailed customer-experience evaluation. If a respondent identifies two or more qualifying businesses, the survey randomly assigns one of the businesses selected by that respondent for detailed evaluation. The respondent does not manually choose which selected business receives the detailed rating.

This rule is intended to reduce the risk that respondents selectively rate only the business they liked most or disliked most. Each qualifying respondent contributes no more than one primary dispensary evaluation.

Primary Survey Questions

The assigned business is evaluated across seven predetermined metrics.

Rating Scale — the first six questions use 1–Very Poor, 2–Poor, 3–Fair, 4–Good, 5–Excellent. Likelihood to Recommend uses 1–Not at all likely, 2–Unlikely, 3–Neutral, 4–Likely, 5–Extremely likely. The rating scales are established before data collection and will not be changed after results are reviewed.

Direct Comparative Question — respondents who report personally visiting at least two qualifying dispensaries are additionally asked: “Of the South Jersey dispensaries you personally visited during the past 12 months, which provided the best overall experience?” Only the businesses that the respondent previously identified as personally visited are displayed. This question is analyzed separately from the 1–5 individual business ratings. For each qualifying business, its direct-comparison preference share is calculated using the number of eligible multi-dispensary respondents selecting that business as their best overall experience, divided by the number of eligible multi-dispensary respondents who reported visiting that business and therefore had an opportunity to select it. This avoids treating respondents who never visited a business as if they voted against that business.

Cannabis Consumption Area Module

Consumption-area analysis is separate from the primary dispensary analysis. At survey preparation on September 16, 2026, the South Jersey locations identified in current NJ-CRC records with consumption-area status were:

• High Rollers Dispensary — Atlantic City
• SunnyTien — Atlantic City
• Gynsyng — Merchantville

The list must be reverified immediately before fielding begins and then frozen for the study period. Only respondents who report personally using an eligible consumption area during the previous 12 months may contribute a consumption-area rating. If a respondent used more than one eligible consumption area and the survey allows multiple selections, one is randomly assigned for detailed evaluation.

The consumption-area question is: “How would you rate your overall experience at this cannabis consumption area?” using the same 1–5 Very Poor–Excellent scale.

Recruitment Method & Source Tracking

Survey responses may be recruited through channels including My Daily Discount, organic search, email, social media, direct traffic, referral traffic, Gynsyng-controlled channels, other participating-business channels, and other documented sources. The survey does not require that every participating business recruit respondents. Actual recruitment sources will be reported with the final methodology/results where relevant.

Where technically available, the survey captures referring source, UTM source, UTM medium, UTM campaign, and a direct/unknown classification. If Gynsyng or another participating business contributes a large share of responses, that fact must be considered and disclosed.

Business-Controlled Recruitment Sensitivity Rule — if more than 50% of a business's qualifying primary evaluations originate from that same business's controlled channels (such as its email, SMS or social-media audience), a sensitivity analysis must be performed before using the result for a promotional superlative claim. Those responses are not automatically deleted. Instead, the result is examined both with and without the business-controlled recruitment subset. If the promotional conclusion materially changes when those responses are removed, no “Best,” “#1,” “Top Rated” or equivalent superlative may be published based on that result. The recruitment concentration and sensitivity finding will be disclosed where relevant.

Minimum Sample Requirements

These rules are established before analysis.

Businesses receiving fewer than 30 qualifying evaluations are excluded from rankings/comparative designations, although the study may state that they received insufficient responses.

Calculation Rules

Primary Outcome: Overall Experience. For every business meeting the minimum sample requirement, the arithmetic mean of valid 1–5 Overall Experience ratings is calculated: Average Rating = Sum of Valid Ratings ÷ Number of Valid Ratings, reported to two decimal places, always alongside the number of qualifying evaluations. Median and rating distribution may additionally be published for transparency. These descriptive measures do not automatically establish statistical significance.

Secondary Outcomes: Staff Knowledge & Helpfulness, Product Selection, Store Atmosphere, Value, Ease of Shopping, Likelihood to Recommend, and Consumption Area Experience. No secondary category receives retroactive weighting to change the identity of the leading business, and no new weighted composite score will be created after seeing the data solely because doing so produces a preferred result.

The direct-comparison preference metric is calculated separately and must not be combined with the 1–5 ratings to create an undisclosed composite score.

Ties and Small Differences: if two or more businesses have the same highest reported average when rounded to two decimal places, the study reports a tie for that metric. A business is not described as statistically significantly better than another unless an appropriate statistical analysis has been predefined and performed, and a small numerical difference is not exaggerated into a stronger claim than the data supports.

Rules for “Highest Rated” and “Best,” “#1,” “Top Rated” or Similar Recognition

The phrase “highest average [metric] rating” may only be used when: (1) the business meets the applicable minimum sample requirement; (2) the relevant comparison population also meets its predetermined eligibility requirements; (3) the business has the highest calculated average for the specified metric; (4) the business is not tied for the highest reported value under the study's tie rule; and (5) the exact metric, geography and comparison population are disclosed. This should not automatically be shortened to “Best Dispensary.”

A “Best” designation requires stronger evidence than merely having the highest raw average on one 1–5 question. For “Best Overall Experience” to be considered, all of the following must be true: the business meets all applicable minimum response requirements; it has the highest qualifying average Overall Experience rating within the stated geography; it also has the highest qualifying direct-comparison preference share among businesses meeting the direct-comparison threshold; the result is not tied under the study's predetermined rules; the relevant multi-dispensary respondent requirement has been satisfied; recruitment-source analysis does not reveal a material issue that makes the superlative misleading; and the exact geography and comparison group are clearly stated. The same principle applies to #1, Top Rated, Highest Rated, Most Recommended, Winner, Award, Best Lounge, and Best Dispensary & Lounge. No such designation is guaranteed before analysis.

Incomplete, Duplicate & Excluded Responses

A response is incomplete for primary analysis if the participant does not complete the required eligibility questions or the required assigned-business rating questions. Incomplete responses do not count toward the 300-response study minimum or the 30-response business minimum, though they may be retained internally for quality-control reporting.

Reasonable safeguards — rate limiting, bot-protection signals, an anonymous response ID, timestamp, duplicate-submission indicators, completion status, UTM/referral source, and abnormal-pattern detection — are used to flag duplicate, automated or suspicious submissions. Flagged responses are not automatically deleted solely because they are flagged, and any exclusion uses consistent review criteria. A response is never excluded merely because it contains a negative rating or unfavorable opinion.

A response may be excluded from the analytical dataset only when objective review establishes that it fails eligibility, is materially incomplete, is a confirmed duplicate, is confirmed automated/bot activity, contains data that makes it impossible to interpret reliably, or meets another pre-established fraud/integrity exclusion criterion. The reason for any exclusion is retained internally, and the number of excluded submissions and principal exclusion reasons will be summarized with the final methodology where useful.

The system makes the following fields exportable for internal analysis: submission date/time, anonymous response ID, ZIP/geographic response, dispensaries personally visited, randomly assigned dispensary, rating for each primary category, direct comparative answer where applicable, consumption-area usage, randomly assigned consumption area where applicable, consumption-area rating, referral/source information, UTM information, completion status, duplicate/suspicious flag, and analytical inclusion/exclusion status. Unnecessary sensitive or personally identifying information is not collected.

Analysis Process & Publication

Before results are published: (1) respondent qualification requirements are applied; (2) incomplete responses are identified; (3) duplicate and suspicious-response flags are reviewed; (4) objective exclusions are documented; (5) recruitment-source concentrations are reviewed; (6) minimum business sample requirements are applied; (7) predetermined metric calculations are performed; (8) geographic comparison requirements are applied; (9) direct-comparison preference results are calculated independently; (10) any required recruitment sensitivity analysis is performed; (11) proposed recognition language is checked against the exact evidence; and (12) published findings are reviewed for consistency with this methodology. The methodology is not altered after seeing the results in order to create a preferred outcome.

Results are not published until the applicable predetermined minimum data requirements have been satisfied. A new category will not be invented after reviewing the results solely because it causes a particular business to rank first.

Study Limitations

The 2026 South Jersey Cannabis Consumer Survey is a voluntary consumer survey and is not a census of every cannabis consumer in South Jersey. Important limitations include:

• Participation is voluntary.
• Respondent visits and experiences are self-reported.
• Not every eligible dispensary may receive enough responses to qualify for comparative reporting.
• Recruitment sources may influence who participates.
• Geographic participation may not be evenly distributed.
• Different respondents may have visited different sets of businesses.
• Consumer experiences may vary by visit date, products purchased and individual expectations.
• Businesses that open after the study comparison set is frozen are not added during the same field period.
• The findings describe the qualifying survey sample and should not be generalized beyond the study's methodology, geographic scope and collection period without appropriate context.

Research Transparency

No participating business is guaranteed a favorable score, a ranking, an award, a “Best” designation, a #1 designation, or a positive press-release finding. Responses must not be fabricated, modified or selectively deleted to create a preferred result. Scoring rules must not be changed after reviewing results solely to improve a particular business's position. Any material relationship between the research operator and a business featured in the study will be disclosed.

Methodology Version History

Version 1.0 — Initial methodology established before data collection.

If any subsequent version becomes necessary, this section will document the version number, date, exact change, reason for change, and whether the change affected previously collected responses or analysis. Administrative typo corrections may be made without altering analytical rules, but substantive changes must be disclosed.

About My Daily Discount Research

My Daily Discount Research publishes consumer surveys, local market research and shopping insights using documented qualification, collection and analysis methods. Research findings are intended to reflect the evidence collected under the published methodology rather than a predetermined promotional result.

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