Day one of Canadian cannabis legalization is officially in the rearview, and what might be seen as a very successful first day, was certainly not met without challenges. As expected, the demand for cannabis products was strong across the country, but several provincial websites and retail locations sold out of product completely. By mid-morning, 38,000 orders had been processed.
By noon, only one product was still listed on the Ontario Cannabis Store website – a 3.5 gram bottle of DNA Genetics branded flower called Lemon Skunk by Canopy Growth Corp., reports The Globe and Mail. “I’m happy that [the majority of our product] sold,” said Canopy Growth’s CEO Bruce Linton. “I’ll be happier when we ship more product.”
Canopy Growth said that 100,000 more units of its product will be sent to distributors across Canada within the next week. Concerns about supply shortages were raised earlier this morning with four provincial distributors warning there would be little variety and product available due to producers shipping fewer products than expected.
“We’ve had jurisdictions contacting us for additional product,” said Greg Engel, CEO of New Brunswick-based OrganiGram Inc. “We’re got [purchase orders] for delivery dates through now until December, and in a few cases, we’ve had provinces contact us … asking if we can move this one forward, can you accelerate this or when’s the earliest we can get this one?”
It could have been even worse had more brick-and-mortar shops opened for legalization but as there are still few retail locations and most orders being purchased online, the supply chain has not been strained excessively. British Columbia currently only has one storefront opening, Alberta has fewer than two dozen, Quebec will have 12 locations, and Ontario is without retail locations until 2019.
British Columbia’s online retail shop sold out of 48 of 97 available flower products by shortly after 9 a.m. Spokesperson for the BC Liquor Distribution Branch, Viviana Zanocco said that although the BC Cannabis Store was experiencing shortages, product was “constantly coming in.”
“We’re out of capsules online. I think we expected that, some of the LPs couldn’t get enough to us online. But we expect to receive more shortly,” said Zanocco.
The Healthy Vibe, a health and wellness store in Newfoundland, said that they had to turn hundreds of people away as most of their cannabis flower products sold out entirely. Owner of the store, Megan Kennedy also said that she never received any of the one-gram packages of flowers she previously ordered.
“It’s every business owner’s nightmare,” Ms. Kennedy said. “I’m hoping more will show up today or tomorrow. We got a big shipment coming on the 22nd.” Despite the chaos and in many cases being unable to meet the high demand of the first days of sales, it was interesting to see what the trends were in sales for the first day.
Shelley Girard, Vice President of Brand Strategy Development, Alcanna Inc., with five retail locations in Alberta said that “by and large we are predominantly selling flower both in the one gram and the 3.5 gram size range.”
She added that the people who came into the stores were less concerned with brand and more concerned with a particular experience or with THC and CBD products. People were also purchasing a lot of different varieties and building their own “trial pack.”
“We’re expecting at least the next few days or the next week or two to have this measure of excitement and energy behind it. So I think it will be a number of weeks, or into month one, before things feel like they’ve settled into a pattern of more normal.”
Gary Symons Director of communications Delta 9 Cannabis Inc. with one store in Winnipeg noted that they had a lot more older people coming into the store than expected, as well as many new users. He also commented that people were purchasing in larger quanities.
“In a normal environment we would expect people to come in and buy the 3.5 gram size, spend $40 to $60. But we were really seeing people coming in and buying $100, $200, even $400 worth of product…I think people were saying, ‘if [supply] is going to run out in a week, I don’t want to be out.”
“We had a big run on our supply today…It’s a great problem to have. But that said, if we keep on getting sales like that for the next three or four days, we’re going to have to move up orders. We’re putting in orders right now to get more supply, and it’s not even the end of the first day.”
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