E164 - Uber Eats weed burritos

[00:00:00] Welcome to the High Rise podcast presented by Headset, the leading data and analytics company for the cannabis industry.

[00:00:08] All right. Welcome back to the High Rise, a laid back, data back conversation where we talk all things cannabis from US MSOs to Canadian LPs, products and market analysis through the lens of data.

[00:00:19] My name is Si Scott with Headset and I am joined as always by Emily Paxia Poseidon.

[00:00:24] Hi, everyone. Welcome to the High Rise.

[00:00:26] Welcome back. Another week, another High Rise. It's good to be back, Emily.

[00:00:31] Great to be back and on the holiday week.

[00:00:33] On the holiday week, a short week. Yeah, here in the US, Thanksgiving week, also Green Wednesday week.

[00:00:42] So I thought we could talk a little bit about this week and this week's sales and maybe touch on some stuff we're seeing in the news today.

[00:00:49] Absolutely. And I'm interested to see this year as we continue to see the news unfolding about the challenges

[00:00:55] that the wine spirits and beer industry face with consumer trends shifting away from the category, especially with the younger folks, the younger adult aged folks.

[00:01:06] So I know you guys have been tracking holiday trends for years and years and I've always really enjoyed it.

[00:01:11] And I just think it's really fun to dig in to see how these trends elevate and also shift leading into the holidays.

[00:01:20] Yeah, definitely. And it does feel like when you're speaking of spirits, I mean, it's kind of that time of year, right?

[00:01:28] Well, I mean, so, you know, any time of year, but specifically, it feels like the holidays, right?

[00:01:34] You get a lot of that. So it'll be interesting to kind of cover some of that.

[00:01:37] But yeah, I don't know, Green Wednesday, this Thanksgiving week, it's pretty interesting.

[00:01:42] It don't really know the origin. I feel like it was kind of an organic type of thing that happened.

[00:01:50] Like sales just seemed to happen a bit more on the Wednesday of this week, the Wednesday before the Thanksgiving holiday.

[00:01:59] And, you know, I think we can make a lot of assumptions around, you know, why that might be the case.

[00:02:03] It's notably people probably going to spend a lot of time with family, people preparing for the long weekend stocking up.

[00:02:12] And I think it's been, you know, one of these situations that has kind of fed itself from there.

[00:02:18] You know, you recognize that there's more sales, more people are coming in.

[00:02:21] And then it starts to become like, let's promote more about, you know, Green Wednesday and drive even more people.

[00:02:28] Next thing you know, here we are, you know, many, many years later talking about it.

[00:02:32] So it's, you know, we're recording this on a Monday.

[00:02:35] Green Wednesday is only a handful of days away.

[00:02:37] So, yeah, talk about it.

[00:02:40] Yeah, but to your point, like I've already gotten a couple of emails from my favorite shops here in San Francisco,

[00:02:44] like Spark with my Green Wednesday promotional, you know, stock up emails.

[00:02:49] And I'll definitely be taking advantage of some of those, even if I'm not necessarily bringing things to other people's homes.

[00:02:56] I'll take advantage of it for myself.

[00:02:59] Yeah, definitely, definitely.

[00:03:01] You know, something interesting, I think, about this category in general, like discounting, it just seems so prevalent, like constantly discounts.

[00:03:11] And right.

[00:03:11] And we know certain markets are more notorious than others.

[00:03:14] Markets like Florida in particular, you know, very heavily discounted.

[00:03:18] I think mature markets.

[00:03:21] I think discounting starts to happen as people are looking to, you know, drive more sales.

[00:03:26] Emerging markets, maybe less so.

[00:03:28] You know, I think this year we'll probably start seeing more discounting in places like New York as those markets are, you know, stabilizing, growing, but not as green as they once were.

[00:03:41] Right.

[00:03:42] Right.

[00:03:42] Where, you know, just a handful of stores in Manhattan say it's come a long way.

[00:03:46] Places like Ohio, I'd imagine probably less on the discounting places like Michigan, probably heavily discounted.

[00:03:54] Yeah, I would anticipate you're right.

[00:03:55] I think I remember last year with Maryland just having opened in earlier that summer.

[00:04:00] They did show lighter promotional activity relative to other states that, to your point, had a longer tenure in the market.

[00:04:07] But I think it also comes down to, you know, they're still dealing with getting supply into the system and so making sure they're watching that carefully.

[00:04:17] So all around, I love this.

[00:04:20] It's a really fun thing to do.

[00:04:22] And I love, of course, consumer trends and how they shift throughout the year.

[00:04:26] So.

[00:04:27] Yeah.

[00:04:27] Yeah.

[00:04:27] Discounting.

[00:04:29] What's that?

[00:04:30] Data backed, too.

[00:04:31] Data backed.

[00:04:32] That's right.

[00:04:33] Discounting, I feel like, has been, as long as I've been exposed to the industry, you know, from way, way back when we were first spinning up Leafly, I remember discounting in California, you know, was a thing even back then where people were trying to drive new, you know, new patients, so to speak, into their dispensaries in a big way.

[00:04:59] And like by promoting discounts.

[00:05:01] So it's always been leveraged in this category.

[00:05:05] And it's, you know, I don't know if it's always leveraged in the most effective ways.

[00:05:12] You know, I think there's a lot of discounting that's kind of generic.

[00:05:16] You know, you see like, I was doing a little bit of research on Green Wednesday and I saw, you know, wax Wednesdays, right?

[00:05:26] And not related to Green Wednesday, but, you know, any sort of concentrate just on sale, like on some big promotion.

[00:05:33] Right.

[00:05:33] And that's probably independent of, you know, is that a fast moving product?

[00:05:38] Is that product going to sell on its own?

[00:05:39] Is that a high margin product, low margin product?

[00:05:42] It's just, yeah, everything that's, you know, wax is on sale Wednesday.

[00:05:48] And, you know, that's maybe not the best approach to discounting.

[00:05:54] Right.

[00:05:54] I think, you know, being more strategic in discounting is pretty important.

[00:05:57] I think that's something that, I don't know, maybe gets lost a little bit.

[00:06:02] Not to say that that's the case, you know, everywhere out there.

[00:06:05] But I do seem to see a lot of just kind of general, you know, 40% off the store or buy one, get one of anything.

[00:06:13] Yeah.

[00:06:14] And you just don't really see that in other categories.

[00:06:17] No, I think, you know, we still have a lot of maturing to do as an industry and evolving.

[00:06:23] I mean, to be fair, we do have a ton of limitations about how we can communicate with consumers.

[00:06:29] Like, for example, in Ohio, advertising is not allowed.

[00:06:33] And so there's a lot of constraints in a place like that.

[00:06:37] But I think, you know, when you look at other, I mean, I will say right now, every category in the entire world of the consumer landscape is just a blowout discount sale thing.

[00:06:51] Like Black Friday sales started for Thanksgiving on like televisions, clothing, everything last week.

[00:06:58] Yeah.

[00:06:58] So now we're just in the vortex of I don't even know how long Black Friday sales now last.

[00:07:03] Is it 10 days, seven days, whatever it is?

[00:07:05] It's pretty crazy.

[00:07:06] So I feel like in general, there's an acknowledgement the consumer is looking for a price break because of the cost of living being so extraordinary right now with inflation.

[00:07:16] Still, I don't care what I mean, people are feeling it.

[00:07:19] So here we are.

[00:07:21] But in terms of traditional retail and consumer goods, you know, we would love to see where we can as an industry evolve to other ways to leverage this data and the consumer experience.

[00:07:36] I know Krista, our good friend up in Canada, would want to talk about this too, which is like maybe you acknowledge that and we're going to talk about this, which categories tend to see an elevation leading into the holidays.

[00:07:49] And it's a good way to get consumers introduced to a product or a brand and try to do some potential bundling deals instead of just discount, discount, discount.

[00:07:59] There's like maybe a way to do bundling and some cart analysis or basket analysis that could lead to intelligent merchandising around, you know, levering up what's happening on these days, not just blowing inventory out, which may be what people are trying to do.

[00:08:15] But I think it's a missed opportunity to drive engagement across other categories and brands.

[00:08:21] So, you know, that's the kind of thing that I get really interested in and excited about around the holidays when it comes to taking advantage of holidays like Green Wednesday, where there is interest in the category as a whole of cannabis.

[00:09:04] Yeah, yeah.

[00:09:05] That trajectory, that trend pricing just getting cheaper over time as things get, you know, more competitive.

[00:09:12] And in some markets, that's more drastic than others.

[00:09:14] Like California continues, I think, on their downward slide on average item price.

[00:09:19] But I think it's not as steep of a slide as it's been in the past.

[00:09:25] Yeah.

[00:09:26] So, you know, you have that trend and then you've got great deals, like really insane deals all the time.

[00:09:30] So, with that, maybe we should take a look at some Green Wednesday data.

[00:09:35] Let me get my screen here.

[00:09:41] So, I pulled headset data from – we covered this – I think we've covered this for a number of years.

[00:09:51] But I just pulled 2021, 2022, and 2023.

[00:09:55] And one of the things we like to do at Headset is really looking at Green Wednesday.

[00:09:59] Well, actually, we look at, you know, the whole week and I'll talk about the whole week here.

[00:10:03] But we do look at Wednesday, Green Wednesday versus the previous like average for Wednesday.

[00:10:10] Like looking ahead or in the past for Wednesdays prior and just kind of averaging sales.

[00:10:14] Like what does an average Wednesday do compared to Green Wednesday?

[00:10:19] And, you know, looking about like a month prior every Wednesday.

[00:10:23] So, you have some recency, right?

[00:10:25] And it's kind of a similar timeframe.

[00:10:28] And it's pretty surprising.

[00:10:29] And I think this is why we talk about it so much is that the sales are – the dollar sales are significantly higher on a Wednesday.

[00:10:38] Not that Wednesday is a gangbuster sales day for cannabis anyways, right?

[00:10:42] Friday, Saturday often, you know, see the most sales.

[00:10:46] But when you look at a Green Wednesday versus an average Wednesday, last year up, you know, I think it was like 48% versus the prior Wednesdays.

[00:10:59] That's above where we were in 2022, which was, you know, also mid-40s.

[00:11:04] And then in 2021, you know, high 30 percentage points up on total dollar sales versus those previous Wednesdays.

[00:11:13] So, 30, 40, 50%, maybe we'll hit 50%, maybe 60%, you know, as it continues to grow and to gain in popularity.

[00:11:25] And this is driven by those behaviors, like the people going into the stores already.

[00:11:30] Maybe, again, they're traveling.

[00:11:32] They might be shopping already.

[00:11:33] People that are deal hunting that see this opportunity, they're going to come into the stores as well.

[00:11:38] But all in all, it's a pretty sizable day of sales.

[00:11:43] Now, discounts up by 40%.

[00:11:46] Discounts aren't at 40%.

[00:11:48] Discounts are more like 25%.

[00:11:52] And that's up from an average of like 18%, which is still very high.

[00:11:57] You know, when you look at average discounting, average discounting is about 18% across the board.

[00:12:01] Well, it moves to 25%, which is about a 40% increase.

[00:12:05] So, you know, 40%, 40, 50% increase in sales, 40% increase in discounts, right?

[00:12:12] So, discounts are certainly driving, you know, some of this behavior.

[00:12:18] But, well, before we get into, I guess, the rest of the week, because it's more than Green Wednesday.

[00:12:24] These sales, like you mentioned, you know, they started long ago in many categories.

[00:12:29] I know in cannabis, they started before Wednesday.

[00:12:32] They will continue through Wednesday.

[00:12:34] But when we look at, you know, what sells top categories last year, edibles were up over 10%.

[00:12:40] So, edibles are the big winners here.

[00:12:43] And again, it's, you know, probably convenience.

[00:12:47] You know, you're going somewhere, you know, consuming convenience.

[00:12:51] You know, sharing convenience.

[00:12:53] You know, edibles are just a lot more convenient, right, than flour.

[00:12:58] The category that had the biggest hit was concentrates, down about 10%, you know, in the weeks prior.

[00:13:08] And then beverages, small percentage point growth, but also, you know, pretty big winner for Green Wednesday.

[00:13:16] Yeah.

[00:13:16] I mean, I think that this, yeah, it speaks to everything you just said.

[00:13:21] And I think there's some sharing that could be going on with gummies.

[00:13:24] There could be bringing some home for friends.

[00:13:26] You just never know.

[00:13:28] But beverages, I think it's interesting to see now for most of these holidays.

[00:13:34] Like, I remember when we talked about Fourth of July, we saw an uptick in beverage sales leading into that.

[00:13:40] So, it's a category to watch on these things.

[00:13:43] And I would be curious to see concurrently, like, what Total Wine is seeing on their cannabis beverages.

[00:13:52] Yeah, that would be interesting.

[00:13:54] I wonder if they're doing any sort of promotion.

[00:13:57] So, the other side of the coin here on Green Wednesday, and this is where I think it gets kind of interesting.

[00:14:03] Yep.

[00:14:05] No one is shopping on Thanksgiving.

[00:14:07] And, you know, I think if I have to guess at other categories, probably the same thing.

[00:14:13] A lot of places are closed on Thanksgiving.

[00:14:15] Yes.

[00:14:16] It's like Christmas, you know, just places are shut down.

[00:14:20] So, I'm sure it's a similar phenomenon.

[00:14:25] Hints Black Friday, right?

[00:14:27] Because everyone, you know, is supposed to start shopping right after Thanksgiving.

[00:14:32] We just get ahead of it in this category by starting on Wednesday.

[00:14:37] But then when you look at Thanksgiving Day last year, it was 70-ish percent down versus an average Thursday.

[00:14:46] So, you know, doesn't necessarily offset what you're seeing on Wednesday, right?

[00:14:54] Wednesday up 40-50 percent.

[00:14:56] Thursday down almost 70 percent.

[00:15:00] So, it's a bit tough.

[00:15:02] So, then going to Black Friday, another hangover.

[00:15:05] Not as bad as Thanksgiving.

[00:15:07] But when you look at Friday to Friday or Black Friday to the previous Fridays, it's down, you know, 5% to 3% versus an average Friday.

[00:15:16] And Friday is a big selling day.

[00:15:18] So, these are big numbers when you're talking about 5% on a Friday.

[00:15:22] That's significant because, you know, so much shopping is happening on a Friday anyways.

[00:15:28] So, the big takeaway, you know, I think with or for me with this stuff and what we've seen in total market is that Green Wednesday does not make up for the decline in sales for the entire week.

[00:15:42] When you look at Thursday and you look at Friday.

[00:15:44] Now, the reality is like I think any, probably any category is going to be struggling with this given that Thursday is like a non-selling day more or less.

[00:15:54] People are just tied up.

[00:15:55] So, you're down a day as it stands.

[00:15:58] But unfortunately, the Wednesday sales and promotions don't seem to be bringing up the numbers enough to compensate for Thursday.

[00:16:07] So, I think last year, like all in all, when we look at the full week versus the four weeks prior, an average of the four weeks prior, I think it was down about 8% total in total dollar sales.

[00:16:16] So, even though, you know, it's exciting, big sales day, lots going on, very busy.

[00:16:24] Ultimately, it's a poor performing week versus, you know, the four weeks prior to Green Wednesdays or to the Thanksgiving week.

[00:16:33] So, I think that's really important to remember, especially, you know, if you're an operator, you know, hearing this stuff.

[00:16:39] And, you know, if you're a retailer, you can probably see this in your own data.

[00:16:42] You know, if you're a supplier of some sort, you know, thinking about how you can, you know, work with retailers on promotions.

[00:16:51] And, you know, to that end, I think, you know, some pretty basic strategies, you know, you can think about that one might think about is really to think hard about Green Wednesday and focus on Green Wednesday and don't discount so much on Thursday and Friday.

[00:17:07] A lot of these deals that we're seeing are weekly deals, right?

[00:17:11] It's not just Green Wednesday, but they'll go like discounting last year, I think, was the highest on Friday, right?

[00:17:18] On Black Friday, right?

[00:17:19] And maybe it's because of Black Friday, but I think you're better off not discounting as much on Friday and getting more people in the door on Wednesday or the people that are already there buying more instead of trying to, you know, pull some behavior out of the consumer.

[00:17:35] And then, you know, fundamentally, I think it's just like about being smart about the promotions.

[00:17:40] And if you know you're going to be down 8%, you know, really think hard about what you're promoting, you know, promote things that are high margin.

[00:17:48] You know, promote things that are not moving, you know, effectively on their own, like stuff that just wouldn't sell already.

[00:17:58] Maybe that's the thing you should promote stuff that, you know, stale inventory, things like that.

[00:18:02] You don't want to just promote everything, you know, a blanket across an entire brand's portfolio, unless it's an underperforming brand.

[00:18:10] You just want to be, you know, smart about it.

[00:18:12] So I think it just takes a little critical thinking on like how you run promotions and how you offset that.

[00:18:18] And I think knowing that at the end of the week, you're down about 8% versus an average week, which, you know, you take a day, you know, what's one out of seven?

[00:18:28] You take one selling day.

[00:18:31] That'd be like a, you know, if everything was closed on Thursday, you'd be down 14% over an average week, right?

[00:18:39] Because it's one out of seven days you can't sell.

[00:18:42] So it's not as bad as like, hey, you know, it's completely a loss on that Thursday.

[00:18:47] But it is such a big hit that I think it does warrant thinking about how you're dealing with Friday and what you're putting on promotion.

[00:18:57] So that's just some numbers.

[00:18:58] You know, we're going to have more, I am sure, this year.

[00:19:03] What I'm really interested in, even beyond just this week's sales, is just like discounting in general and how that's going.

[00:19:11] And, you know, is it particularly effective in certain areas?

[00:19:17] Is it just, you know, this whole thing is driven on discounting Green Wednesday in a big way.

[00:19:22] So we'd want to see that and that kind of overall impact.

[00:19:26] Yeah. I mean, I believe we've talked about this too on prior episodes where it's like the consumer is very easily conditioned to understand when discounts and promotional activity is coming.

[00:19:41] And if it happens too, too much, then the value of the product starts to decline.

[00:19:46] And you can look at case studies around this, like J.Crew went through the cycle.

[00:19:51] Banana Republic has gone through this cycle.

[00:19:52] Like people just know you put this product on the shelf day one, within 45 days, it's going to go down 20%.

[00:19:59] And then from there, it's going to keep dropping tens of percentages.

[00:20:02] And so then what is the value of the item you're putting on the shelf?

[00:20:05] And that's the real question, right?

[00:20:07] And I think we've been in an interesting time because we are an emerging market and there is increased competition as markets open.

[00:20:14] And people start to understand what the cost of each category should be in a normalized market condition.

[00:20:23] So we have been seeing this decline as we're kind of in search of what the real pricing of our products in this industry are to match the consumer demand.

[00:20:33] You can try to drive premiumization around a brand experience, a commitment to quality or an aesthetic.

[00:20:43] But it's also difficult when you're in a market where others are so heavily promoting their products.

[00:20:50] Now, I think an example of a company that seems to do a lot of promotional activity at the point of sale in their retail partners is Steezy.

[00:20:59] But then Steezy, I think, is probably leveraging that to continue to develop a mass reach of their brand across the entire, for example, state of California while they're opening their own Steezy retail location.

[00:21:10] So I'm just thinking of ways that you can use discounting and promotional activity to give access points to your brand.

[00:21:17] But then thinking about what does it mean to establish where the set point of that pricing will actually land is an interesting exercise I think our whole industry is probably endeavoring into.

[00:21:28] So, I mean, I think your point is a really, really strong one.

[00:21:31] And I think the other thing in traditional retail, what you would be doing at this time is, yes, people are bringing probably cannabis beverages, edibles to Thanksgiving.

[00:21:42] There's more children around.

[00:21:44] There's more people who potentially have a stigma with cannabis around.

[00:21:47] So consumption has to be potentially more discreet than people would ordinarily do if they were just sitting at home alone.

[00:21:53] So thinking about that, like what it's like to do this in a social setting of mixed company.

[00:21:58] Also, I mean, because we're not fully there.

[00:22:00] We haven't fully landed where everybody's on board with cannabis, let's be honest, even though we socialize drinking in front of children all the time.

[00:22:08] Not me.

[00:22:09] I'm whatever.

[00:22:10] But you know what I mean.

[00:22:11] And then there's the other side to this, which is that Thanksgiving week or specifically for the weekend following Thanksgiving is one of the highest travel weeks of the entire year for the American populace.

[00:22:24] It blows Christmas out of the water for obvious reasons because it's non-denominational.

[00:22:29] And it's also the holiday when family tends to get together.

[00:22:32] So I think as a retailer thinking about is my customer base even going to be here on Friday?

[00:22:40] Like a lot of the retailers I know are closed as a form of kind of respect to their employees for Thursday.

[00:22:48] But because even if you don't go home, it's nice to be with friends on that day.

[00:22:52] And so I think a lot of the retailers could be thinking differently about, OK, so are there more like in San Francisco, are there more tourists who potentially could be passing by on foot as they pass through these neighborhoods?

[00:23:04] Or in Sonoma or whatever, same thing is true in Vegas or wherever else people will be spending time.

[00:23:11] And then the other side to that is just that my core customer base, my regulars, may very well be out of town for that entire time as statistically shown from the U.S. populace just moving en masse around the country during that time.

[00:23:24] So just things to think about.

[00:23:27] It's, you know, as we mature and get more competitive as an industry, I think we have to get really, really savvy about what our consumer behaviors really are.

[00:23:35] Yeah, no kidding.

[00:23:37] So you mentioned STEEZY.

[00:23:39] I did an analysis.

[00:23:41] One of our products we at Headset were able to pull data, you know, from web sources, right?

[00:23:49] So one of those things are promotions and discounts.

[00:23:51] So you can track promotions and discounts in general.

[00:23:54] So I pulled down the last 30 days of promotions just looking at California.

[00:24:00] We could look at any market, but chose California, the largest market.

[00:24:05] And I just took the name of the promotion.

[00:24:07] Basically, you know, what's in the title of the promotion, did a little analysis on it and a couple takeaways.

[00:24:15] And STEEZY's in here, given that they have a sizable footprint in California.

[00:24:22] Right.

[00:24:23] But on the discounts, the most common discount range in these big promotions or these name promotions was 30 to 35 percent, followed by 20 to 25 percent.

[00:24:33] And then, you know, many retailers, you know, had things like specific day promotions like Wax Wednesday.

[00:24:40] Another one on here was Munchie Monday.

[00:24:43] So as long as the category, you know, can fit with one of the days of the week, you're going to see it.

[00:24:51] Products wise, flower had the highest number of promotions, but obviously flower is also the biggest category.

[00:24:58] Vapes were the second most prevalent and then edibles after that.

[00:25:03] And then on the brand side, some brands that got mentioned quite often in the name promotion, Wild, Kana for edibles.

[00:25:12] And then, you know, STEEZY, Raw Garden, Heavy Hitters appear frequently in these promotions.

[00:25:17] And I think a lot of that is just distribution in a big way, too.

[00:25:22] You know, and I don't I don't know these brands promotional strategies if they're working with retailers on this stuff or retailers are doing it on their own.

[00:25:30] You know, and I know, like like you mentioned, STEEZY also has a retail footprint as well.

[00:25:36] I'm not really sure.

[00:25:37] But just from the data itself, you know, seeing seeing a fair amount of those those names showing up is pretty interesting, I think.

[00:25:47] There's tons of other stuff in here.

[00:25:48] But yeah.

[00:25:49] Yeah.

[00:25:50] Go ahead.

[00:25:50] No, that's really interesting.

[00:25:51] But also the brands you just named are from what I know from working with retailers in California, talking to the bud tenders.

[00:25:57] I mean, those three names, Kana, STEEZY, Wild, Kiva, too, for the Camino gummies.

[00:26:06] Like those are brands and products that people go into the store asking for.

[00:26:10] That's cool to hear.

[00:26:12] Yeah.

[00:26:12] Yeah.

[00:26:13] And if I'm but if I'm a retailer, I'm 100 percent and I have a promotion going on one of my top brands.

[00:26:18] I'm 100 percent going to put it in the name of the email to hook my people.

[00:26:24] Yeah.

[00:26:24] Yeah.

[00:26:25] Premium brands are what might be considered premium brands.

[00:26:27] Connected Alien Labs, you know, just seem to be they offer lower discount percentages.

[00:26:35] Right.

[00:26:35] So just not not as high, but they're still named, but you don't see as deep discounting on those.

[00:26:41] So, you know, I don't know.

[00:26:42] It's like we always talk, you know, are there are there brands emerging?

[00:26:45] Is there customer awareness?

[00:26:47] You know, and some of this stuff points to like, yeah.

[00:26:50] Yeah.

[00:26:50] Yeah, there is, you know, in a market like California with with those named brands and probably other markets as well.

[00:26:57] But just kind of interesting to see on the on the promotions.

[00:27:02] And then most of them buy one, get one daily deals, different discount levels for different brands.

[00:27:08] You know, that's kind of the big takeaway.

[00:27:11] And it just really was taking, you know, what the name of the promotion might be, you know, buy one, get one wild or whatever.

[00:27:17] You know, I'm just kind of making these up.

[00:27:19] But that's from 30 days of data, you know, any promotion that that was listed online.

[00:27:26] So, yeah.

[00:27:26] Yeah.

[00:27:27] I mean, and look, if you're at scale and like any one of the groups we've been talking about a little bit here, it's like you can know your own mark.

[00:27:35] You know, your own margins.

[00:27:36] Right.

[00:27:36] Like you were just talking about being careful about your margin and which products and all that.

[00:27:40] So if you know your margins and you're just trying to really build a reach into the consumer base and build a fan base and you're like, look, the illusion of discounting still makes people feel good about buying things.

[00:27:52] It's like, OK, so if I can if I can still discount this 20, 30 percent and still enjoy margins that work for my business enough so that it's worth it, then maybe that's that's a strategy just while you're doing an intense ground game to push for the first few years of being in a market.

[00:28:09] I mean, those are those are some interesting strategy.

[00:28:11] There's a lot of ways to slice this.

[00:28:13] And I'm just you know, I guess I get really excited thinking about all of the strategies you can employ to to go after a consumer base and develop, you know, kind of that emphatic follower base.

[00:28:24] It's pretty cool.

[00:28:25] We're going to have to open the high rise retail store and test some of this stuff out.

[00:28:29] I'm available for secret shopping experiences.

[00:28:32] I although, you know, I'm out there, but, you know, we can go incognito.

[00:28:39] I always wanted to be a secret shopper.

[00:28:41] I feel like I would give great feedback.

[00:28:43] Yeah, yeah, that's funny.

[00:28:45] That's funny.

[00:28:48] Well, so that's I mean, that's kind of Green Wednesday.

[00:28:51] Let's yeah, we'll see the data come in.

[00:28:53] I'm sure next week maybe we're doing podcasts.

[00:28:58] We'll have to figure it out with MJ Biz Week and all that.

[00:29:02] But we will certainly have the data next week.

[00:29:06] So if not in the high rise, I'm sure headset will be publishing on social channels and maybe a blog post, things like that.

[00:29:14] So more to come.

[00:29:15] But honestly, I think it's going to look very similar.

[00:29:17] You know, oh, edibles are up.

[00:29:21] We're seeing 40 percent increase, 50 percent increase in total sales versus an average.

[00:29:27] It will be interesting that I think that metric will be interesting now that we have three years of data.

[00:29:32] And again, this is just looking at averages.

[00:29:34] It's not looking at total, total market.

[00:29:37] You know, when you do total market, it's of course it's up right because you have new adult use markets.

[00:29:42] Right.

[00:29:43] So you're just going to have more sales.

[00:29:45] It's like not a non headline to me.

[00:29:47] You know, it's like, you know, sold more.

[00:29:49] It's like, OK, great.

[00:29:50] Well, there's more markets now.

[00:29:51] So whatever.

[00:29:52] Right.

[00:29:52] You don't you don't need to track any data to just guess that.

[00:29:56] But what I think is interesting is, you know, compared to an average week, our sales up or down.

[00:30:02] Right.

[00:30:02] And compared to an average Wednesday, are they up or down?

[00:30:04] And then I think will show the strength of the category or lack of.

[00:30:08] So we'll see what it looks like come next week.

[00:30:11] But speaking of new markets, a bit of news today.

[00:30:16] Minnesota is halting their planned lottery for social equity cannabis licenses.

[00:30:23] Surprise, not surprise, not surprise based on a lawsuit that that's come the state's way.

[00:30:32] I think this lawsuit was from people that got dropped in the lottery.

[00:30:39] So the lottery is going to narrow 1500 applicants down to 282.

[00:30:43] This lottery was criticized as rushed and unfair by the plaintiffs who argued that they faced significant harm due to their disqualification.

[00:30:53] Judge rules and ruled in their favor, halting the lottery and opening the door for the state to appeal.

[00:30:58] The OCM, the Office of Cannabis Management in Minnesota, defended the process.

[00:31:03] They emphasized that the legislature's intent for an efficient setup to support social equity applicants.

[00:31:08] However, critics pointed to issues like tight timelines and lack of transparency.

[00:31:11] And it's almost like we've seen this before, maybe in New York, you know, and these other markets where this stuff.

[00:31:20] It just gets completely frozen, you know, with with lawsuits.

[00:31:25] And so, yeah, that's that's the headline today.

[00:31:29] And I didn't know kind of where Minnesota was at.

[00:31:33] And it looks like retail sales for adult use cannabis in Minnesota is expected to begin the first quarter of 2025.

[00:31:41] Does that sound right?

[00:31:42] Does that sound like what you?

[00:31:44] Yeah, I think that or at least that's what we heard.

[00:31:47] Yeah.

[00:31:48] Yeah.

[00:31:48] So right around the corner, which is insane, but also crazy.

[00:31:53] You know, when this stuff starts happening, it's like don't hold your breath, you know, because, you know, if history shows, I mean, look how long it took New York with all the lawsuits that just kept coming to kind of get off the ground.

[00:32:07] Right.

[00:32:08] Minnesota is not New York.

[00:32:09] But when you start seeing this stuff happening, I don't know.

[00:32:13] It's just it's tough.

[00:32:15] And I don't know, like you think, you know, these markets would learn, you know, looking at a place like New York.

[00:32:21] What and not to keep picking on New York, but it's just top of mind how long and how difficult of a road that was and still is to get going.

[00:32:33] Yeah, it's tough.

[00:32:34] It's tough.

[00:32:34] And I don't know enough about the application.

[00:32:37] I don't know, you know, the framework or what they did define and didn't define.

[00:32:41] You know, I don't know how valid this stuff is, but just kind of frustrating, you know, to see this.

[00:32:48] It's, you know, it's a lot of work to get these markets off the ground.

[00:32:51] Right.

[00:32:51] It's a lot of work to get the voters to approve it.

[00:32:54] And then when they just get gummed up with this kind of stuff and, you know, the social equity applicant licenses, I'm sure for good reason.

[00:33:02] But it's like there's going to be no market for a long time, which is also going to hurt a lot of people, I think, disproportionately.

[00:33:10] Right.

[00:33:10] Those that might be ready to get going now can't.

[00:33:13] Yeah.

[00:33:14] Yeah.

[00:33:15] I mean, it is it's disappointing to see that the regulators can't seem to get it right on the on the equity piece of each and every market.

[00:33:26] I'm very, you know, I'm very supportive that each state is its own animal, but there is there is information.

[00:33:33] There's data.

[00:33:34] So we could learn and get it maybe more right.

[00:33:37] And it is just fraught with challenges, because if you're rushing these systems, if it's not transparent, as they were alleged to be, equity applicants are already trying to pull pull up from a position where something has happened that's not really necessary equitable.

[00:33:55] Hence the point of this.

[00:33:57] And so it may be more challenging.

[00:33:59] It's more challenging to get things in place for these applicants like banking relationships or real estate or loans.

[00:34:06] And so all of the things that are needed to get these businesses going.

[00:34:10] So I'm hoping they can resolve this.

[00:34:11] I think Minnesota is a neat market and and goodness knows the winter is coming.

[00:34:17] So a neat market and goodness knows sounds very Minnesota to me.

[00:34:23] Oh, for sure.

[00:34:24] You know, I am from Buffalo, which is I feel like a second cousin to Minnesota.

[00:34:28] We long cold winters.

[00:34:32] And, you know, we say things like pop instead of soda, except the way you say it in Buffalo is really pop.

[00:34:40] Hard oh, I guess.

[00:34:43] Anywho, here we are.

[00:34:45] Oakley doakley neighbor.

[00:34:46] I love it.

[00:34:47] I love it.

[00:34:48] Well, you know, fingers crossed this stuff gets resolved fast.

[00:34:52] Fast.

[00:34:55] Yeah.

[00:34:55] In Minnesota, kind of the usual suspect.

[00:34:58] I pulled kind of what's going on with the market.

[00:35:00] What kind of expectations?

[00:35:02] It's tax on cannabis sales, 10 percent in addition to state and local sales taxes.

[00:35:08] Local governments will not collect additional cannabis specific tax.

[00:35:12] The tax revenue will be split 80 percent for the state's general fund, 20 percent to local government aid.

[00:35:17] And local governments can limit the number of cannabis retailers to one for every 12,500 residents.

[00:35:23] And I don't know.

[00:35:24] Is it like five million people in in Minnesota?

[00:35:28] Does that sound right?

[00:35:29] Yeah.

[00:35:30] Sounds right.

[00:35:31] Oh, yeah.

[00:35:32] How many hot dishes do you need to feed the population?

[00:35:35] Still got to try that.

[00:35:36] Still got to try that.

[00:35:37] We also have to go to Psycho Suzy's.

[00:35:39] All right.

[00:35:40] Yes.

[00:35:41] Well, let's hope they get this market off the ground sooner than later so we can do a little high rise.

[00:35:46] Tour.

[00:35:47] Yeah.

[00:35:47] Well, we should go to the Minneapolis Cider Company, too.

[00:35:50] I really want to go check that out.

[00:35:51] That's those guys are doing it right.

[00:35:54] So.

[00:35:54] Well, lots to do.

[00:35:56] We're in the wintertime.

[00:35:57] So now is the time to get the full Minnesota experience.

[00:36:00] Do a little ice fishing while we're there.

[00:36:02] Yeah.

[00:36:03] Oh, God.

[00:36:05] You can find me at Psycho Suzy's.

[00:36:07] We'll not be on the ice.

[00:36:10] All right.

[00:36:11] Another piece of news.

[00:36:13] The last one I have on the list.

[00:36:13] And I think our listeners will claim that we really buried the lead here.

[00:36:19] All this talk of Green Wednesday in Minnesota.

[00:36:21] But this is the real headline.

[00:36:24] Oh, my God.

[00:36:25] Hard-hitting news here.

[00:36:26] Hard-hitting news.

[00:36:28] This is the big one.

[00:36:29] An Uber Eats driver in Washington Township, New Jersey, discovered an unusual delivery disguised as a burrito while en route to Glassboro.

[00:36:39] The driver noticed a strong smell of marijuana coming from a delivery bag.

[00:36:43] Suspecting something was off, the driver called the police, of course, who unwrapped the foil to find an ounce of marijuana, a bottle of water, and a box of soup instead of food.

[00:36:54] What?

[00:36:56] I don't know where to start.

[00:36:59] Yeah.

[00:37:00] Yeah.

[00:37:01] So, like, a couple things.

[00:37:03] So, the Washington Township police posted about this incident on social media, which I think is why it's making waves, saying, quote, this wasn't the kind of rap anyone ordered, exclamation point, and is now in police evidence as they investigate the, quote, high-flying delivery.

[00:37:20] And, finally, they have asked for tips about the case.

[00:37:24] I will post the number in the show notes if you have a hot tip on this fake foil burrito incident, which happened to be some soup and a bag of weed.

[00:37:37] There is a number you can call to help the Washington Township police get to the bottom of this criminal act.

[00:37:45] Ah, why, I ought to.

[00:37:47] I feel like the police officers are, like, we're holding it for evidence.

[00:37:53] Okay.

[00:37:55] Sure, you are.

[00:37:56] That's right.

[00:37:57] That soup is long gone, you know, out of the evidence logger.

[00:38:01] But weed's still there.

[00:38:02] This is, like, on the level of, I don't know if you remember the Office episode where they tried to frame Toby for having drugs and it was, like, a caprese salad in a bag.

[00:38:12] That's right.

[00:38:13] Like, it's, like, this is this level of ridiculousness.

[00:38:18] I also just wonder if it was the Uber driver's stash.

[00:38:21] I know.

[00:38:22] Just, like, I'm going to do this so nobody can catch me.

[00:38:25] I don't understand it at all because, I mean, the fact that the driver called the police who then unwrapped the foil, like, was he too terrified?

[00:38:34] I have this thing.

[00:38:35] It smells strange.

[00:38:36] Doesn't smell like a burrito.

[00:38:38] Drives to the police station so that they can actually open it up.

[00:38:41] The whole thing is fishy.

[00:38:43] The whole thing is too much.

[00:38:44] I just thought maybe he got high preemptively and then forgot that he had the burrito of weed.

[00:38:51] I was like, what?

[00:38:53] I don't know.

[00:38:54] The whole thing is just too wild.

[00:38:55] But I just wondered, too, if they ordered the soup to try to cover up the scent of the marijuana.

[00:39:01] There's so many questions.

[00:39:02] There's so many questions.

[00:39:03] A box of soup and a bottle of water and weed.

[00:39:08] And there's photos.

[00:39:09] It was a box of soup.

[00:39:10] Yeah, I think it was a box of soup is what I had seen.

[00:39:15] This is insane.

[00:39:16] Yeah, totally insane.

[00:39:17] And there's a photo of it.

[00:39:19] And it looks really pathetic, like this little Ziploc baggie.

[00:39:22] So I thought, okay, well, I bet Glassboro or Washington Downship is a weed desert.

[00:39:29] Maybe it's just like, this is what happens when you don't allow retail.

[00:39:33] But no, there are retailers in both of those places.

[00:39:38] So that's not even an excuse, like, oh, you have to get this terrible cannabis and deliver it in this manner.

[00:39:45] So I don't know.

[00:39:46] It's just pretty sad.

[00:39:49] And I think it's like when you compare the photo, especially in the bag, compared to what you can buy at retail.

[00:39:56] Maybe New Jersey.

[00:39:58] I haven't seen New Jersey cannabis.

[00:40:00] Maybe the retail cannabis is not great because this looks terrible.

[00:40:05] So the whole thing is just bad.

[00:40:08] Brick weed.

[00:40:09] Yeah, yeah, right.

[00:40:11] I wonder, you know, I used to work in a restaurant.

[00:40:13] And I will say there's a lot of, there's an active marketplace for drugs in most kitchens.

[00:40:22] Not usually actually cannabis.

[00:40:24] It's usually a lot more high octane products.

[00:40:26] Yeah, more intense.

[00:40:27] Right, yeah.

[00:40:28] But it's almost like I wonder if someone was, like, hooking a buddy up and was like, order a Dorito and I'm sending you a care package.

[00:40:36] 100% what it is.

[00:40:37] This is so good.

[00:40:38] It's like the laziest dealer who's like, I'm so lazy.

[00:40:43] I work at this Mexican place that has Uber Eats.

[00:40:45] Order this and say, you know, no cilantro.

[00:40:50] And it comes with a bag of weed or something.

[00:40:53] I don't know.

[00:40:54] I don't know.

[00:40:55] I mean, kind of clever.

[00:40:56] Kind of clever.

[00:40:57] But yeah, yeah.

[00:40:59] It's like how people say, you know, the Postal Service is just full of weed.

[00:41:03] FedEx, yeah.

[00:41:04] And nobody knows, like, how many Ubers are rolling around with foil burritos of soup and weed that we don't know about, that we're not talking about.

[00:41:12] Could be everywhere.

[00:41:14] Yeah.

[00:41:15] Yeah.

[00:41:15] It reminded me of the Leafly announcement because I think Leafly did a deal with Uber.

[00:41:21] And I'm like, is this the deal?

[00:41:25] Secret weed burritos?

[00:41:27] Weed-a-ritos?

[00:41:29] You know what?

[00:41:30] Honestly, they should have done this.

[00:41:32] They should have done it, not like get it to the police, but done something goofy like this to drum up a lot of viral attention because, yeah, it's hilarious.

[00:41:42] I think the Leafly deal is just Canada, right?

[00:41:45] Federally legal.

[00:41:46] They can ship no problem store to a person.

[00:41:49] And that's the deal there.

[00:41:50] But yeah, this would have been much cooler if Leafly did this.

[00:41:54] It'd be a lot cooler if you did.

[00:41:58] Well, I think that'll do it for the high rise.

[00:42:01] Thanks for joining.

[00:42:03] Emily, have a great Green Wednesday.

[00:42:06] And I hope it's a good Thanksgiving.

[00:42:09] I think I'm going to actually go get some drinks.

[00:42:11] I'm going to try and move those numbers up a little bit.

[00:42:13] We're doing like a Friendsgiving at a neighbor's.

[00:42:17] So I thought that'd be fun to bring some low-dose drinks.

[00:42:21] And I'm going to bring, you know, wine and some cocktails too.

[00:42:25] So a nice mix.

[00:42:26] That's kind of my plans for shopping.

[00:42:28] You got anything?

[00:42:30] Yeah.

[00:42:30] Oh, I'm definitely going to take advantage of some of the sales because I do drink the cannabis beverages.

[00:42:34] And I do purchase them through the legal channels because I like to know what products I'm consuming.

[00:42:40] But, you know, so I'll take advantage of some of these deals.

[00:42:45] But the reality is I have a – there's, you know, Thanksgiving is kind of a bender for me with alcohol.

[00:42:51] So I feel like this week I'm going to try to take it easy and go with the cannabis beverages as the lead up to that.

[00:42:59] So it'll be good.

[00:43:01] I have some friends swinging through, some family swinging through.

[00:43:04] It's going to be kind of one of those open house kind of a days.

[00:43:07] But I already have some beverages in my fridge.

[00:43:10] So I'll be making those available.

[00:43:11] But I'm also going to be putting up some of my good friends' wine.

[00:43:15] I have a winemaker friend.

[00:43:17] And that's – it's good to have good friends in good places like that.

[00:43:21] It's tested wine if anybody needs a recommendation.

[00:43:24] It's pretty cool.

[00:43:25] So –

[00:43:27] That's a – yeah, that's a double-edged sword.

[00:43:30] I'm sure you're getting great – probably too much wine.

[00:43:33] Too much good stuff.

[00:43:34] And then you can't have the cheap stuff.

[00:43:36] Oh, I just believe in only drinking good stuff because life is very, very short.

[00:43:44] Right on.

[00:43:44] Well –

[00:43:45] But I hope you guys have a great Thanksgiving.

[00:43:46] I am grateful that we are getting the high-rise back on track here and that I have headset data to look at for these trends.

[00:43:55] Yeah, yeah.

[00:43:56] And I'm grateful to have a platform to share this stuff.

[00:43:58] And grateful for you all for joining us.

[00:44:01] Thanks for being here and listening.

[00:44:03] And we will see you next week.

[00:44:08] Thanks for listening to the High Rise Podcast presented by Headset.

[00:44:12] For more information on Headset, visit headset.io.