Adam Jackson
Cannabis retailers are looking to a weekend of block parties and barbecues to be a profitable bright spot after one of the industry’s most sobering summers comes to an unofficial close.
If history is any indication, this weekend is expected to provide one of the largest boosts to cannabis sales this year, with Friday set to rake most of the coin.
Labor Day weekend was the fourth-highest grossing Friday in 2021, with more than $27 million in sales – 11% higher than the average gross sales for the previous four Fridays, according to marketing firm Springbig.
While Mondays are typically one of the slower days for cannabis sales, the Colorado market last year saw daily dollar sales tick up 10% versus the average daily dollar sales total for Mondays that following September, according to BDSA.
Stretching the horizon, average daily sales between Friday and the following Monday on Labor Day weekend rose 8.1% versus the previous four weekends in 2021, according to data firm Headset.
Sales increased across the board, though the capsules and tincture & sublinguals categories posted the smallest increases at 2.1% and 1.1%, respectively.
Wellness products don’t see the same attention as “stuff that are more associated with a holiday” such as flower and edibles, said Headset analyst Mitchell Laferla, who wrote the report.
Two categories boasted double-digit increases. Beverages saw a lift of 12.2%, while edibles rose 11.2%.
Other categories with significant increases include:
- Flower (8.5)%
- Pre-rolls (7.5%)
- Vapor pens (7%)
- Topicals (6.1%)
- Concentrates (5.9%)
Headset tracks data for California, Colorado, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state.
There was a slight rise in discounting over the entire holiday weekend last year, but with ever-falling prices in saturated mature markets and Croptober looming in near future, the average discount this weekend could widely vary depending on latitude.
“People are running the most promotions on Monday, though Friday is usually the biggest sales day,” Laferla told Green Market Report.
The average discount for the weekend in 2021 was 13.7%, up 12.1% over the previous four weekends, Laferla wrote. “While Friday, Sept. 3 was the highest sales day of the weekend, Labor Day itself (Monday, Sept. 6) had the highest average discounts of 14.6%, up 23% over the previous four Mondays.”
Dispensaries on Labor Day 2021 reported 336,000 visits, according to Springbig, the third-highest traffic levels of any Friday of the year, topped only by Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.
