![]() Organize your closet, which I think a lot of people are doing now. If your outdoors and want to go for a hike. “It enhances sleep, it can be fun if you’re using it recreationally. “I feel cannabis in general enhances people’s lives,” she said. ![]() Wingard ― admittedly, not an unbiased observer ― believes the revolution is underway. Local and national sources both said they see the designation of weed shops as essential as a potential turning point in their mission to make the drug more mainstream. The question on the minds of a lot of cannabis executives is whether these new customers will remain loyal once the pandemic has eased up. Wingard believes there’s an additional explanation: new users, who often gravitate toward edibles because they are intimidated by smoking a pipe or rolling a joint. “I also think a lot of people like the ease of use of gummy and tincture, so people with a higher-density living arrangement are choosing that.” “I’ve definitely heard that people are a little concerned about inhaling with an upper respiratory disease going around,” Firestone said. More consumers are buying edibles and tinctures. “So I feel very safe when I’m out there.”Ĭannabis purveyors have noticed another recent industry trend. “There’s never anyone going into a customer’s house or apartment,” he said. Other customers, Virata said, will set up a small chair on the porch to serve as the drop spot, or point to a mailbox that contains the money. ![]() Virata, who makes deliveries for Farmhouse. “I remember one of my first deliveries early in coronavirus (pandemic), an elderly lady came out of her house with big barbecue tongs, with the money connected to the tongs in a Ziploc bag,” said R.J. That doesn’t fit well with anti-COVID protocols, where electronic transactions have become even more the norm. Because most financial services are wary to work with cannabis companies in light of the federal against legalization, it remains a largely cash-based system. But this is an industry with unique challenges. (The rest were “takeout” orders.) During the first two weeks in May, those numbers shifted to 77% in-store and 16% delivery.ĭispensaries have had to reconfigure their spaces to account for social distancing and repetitive sanitizing, like any business. During the first two weeks in March, according to BDSA, 85% of the dollar share at California cannabis shops came via in-store purchases, just 6% from deliveries. The pandemic hastened it, as it has for other dispensaries. It had always been part of their “roadmap,” Melrod said. So Solful adapted and added a delivery service. This transition was really tricky for us.” ![]() “You read the reviews, and they’re all about coming in. “Our model is really all about the in-store experience,” said Eli Melrod, the company’s co-founder and CEO. Its revenues fell in the immediate aftermath of the shutdown. That was not the case for Solful, a Sebastopol-based shop that wasn’t doing deliveries when stay-at-home order began. Mase’s order to shut down in-store shopping in March fit neatly into Farmhouse’s business model: the company’s trade is 100% delivery based. And that doesn’t includes states like Oregon and Arizona that have allowed dispensaries to stay open while not explicitly classifying them as essential.Īt least locally, though, not every cannabis company has been affected in the same way. Morgan Fox, a spokesperson for the National Cannabis Industry Association, notes that 26 states, plus Washington D.C., have declared the product essential. Sales appear to be strong throughout much of the United States. ![]() A graph of retail sales in California produced by BDSA, which tracks cannabis sales and analyzes industry trends nationwide, shows a noticeable climb when the coronavirus was officially declared a pandemic on March 11, a massive spike when Newsom announced the state’s stay-at-home order a week later and another bump when the federal government began sending stimulus checks in mid-April. That experience has been typical in the industry. Claire Firestone and James Clark own Farmhouse Artisan Market, a cannabis delivery business, in Petaluma.(CRISTINA PASCUAL/ PETALUMA ARGUS-COURIER)Ĭlaire Firestone, co-founder and CEO of Farmhouse Artisan Market, a Petaluma-based cannabis delivery service, said her business experienced an immediate surge just as shelter-in-place became a reality, and has remained consistently above pre-pandemic levels. ![]()
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