Retailers struggle to meet demand across Canada
Retail pot in short supply in Sask.
TORONTO Cannabis was “flying off the shelves” in retail outlets and online stores across the country as Canadians looked to make their first-ever legal purchase of recreational pot and participate in the historic cultural moment.
Less than 24 hours after Canada became one of the few countries around the world to legalize cannabis for adult use, some private retailers were either sold out of supply or were tending to long lineups and expected to run out by the end of the day.
Newfoundland and Labrador cannabis retailer Thomas Clarke said he sold out of his cannabis supply late in the afternoon on Wednesday, and he doesn’t anticipate receiving more products until next week.
He opened his store, Thomas H. Clarke’s Distribution, at midnight in Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s, N.L., but was turning away customers by the afternoon.
“Most of my friends and people who were gonna come today were going to come after work and now I gotta let down thousands of people, which is really bad for business and for my nerves,” said Clarke.
He said he sold out of the 100 prerolled joint packages 30 minutes after midnight. Canopy Growth Inc. and Aurora Cannabis were the only two suppliers in the province with products available for the first day of sales, he added.
Wednesday marked the opening of what’s expected to be a massive market for legal sales in Canada — as much as $4 billion in the first year, according to a report from consultancy Deloitte.
Still, Canadian investors were less enthusiastic than consumers, as many of the industry’s biggest players saw their stock prices fall on Wednesday.
Canadians eager to make their first legal purchase of recreational cannabis were met with long lineups at retail stores, technical glitches online and a relatively limited product selection.
Jimmy’s Cannabis in Martensville, Sask., had a lineup of more than 100 people at one point and had processed more than 200 orders by mid-afternoon, said co-owner David Thomas.
“We ran out of one strain, so we still have plenty, but it will go fast here,” he said, noting his supply might run out if demand continued at the same pace.
Meanwhile, the Natural Vibe on Water Street in St. John’s was only selling ingestible cannabis oils, after selling out of all other cannabis products at around 11:30 a.m.
Most Canadians’ first purchase of legal adult-use pot will likely be online, as there were relatively few retail stores ready on Wednesday. What’s more, the stores are unevenly spread across Canada’s vast geography. While Newfoundland and Labrador and New Brunswick had around 20 stores open in each province, some of the most populous provinces, such as British Columbia, had just one location ready. Ontario won’t have any physical stores until next year.
Shopify Inc., whose e-commerce software had been chosen by provinces including Ontario and several private retailers, said Canadian cannabis websites were processing roughly 100 orders per minute. The websites powered by Shopify also processed “hundreds of thousands of orders” in less than half a day, added company vicepresident Loren Padelford.
Alberta’s cannabis sales portal saw a wave of traffic after it went live at 12:01 a.m., prompting the Alberta, Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis commission to put online customers into a virtual queue to avoid an outage.
“While the site had been rigorously tested, the surge of users quite simply exceeded our expectations,” said a spokeswoman for the commission. By 12:50 a.m., the queue had cleared and by 11 a.m. it had processed more than 5,000 orders.
The Ontario government’s website OCS.ca — currently the only way to buy cannabis legally in Ontario — was running smoothly, but drawing mixed early reviews on social media. While there was product available, the number of dried cannabis items listed online continually shrunk throughout the day.
In the legislature on Wednesday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said the website handled over 38,000 orders after it launched.
Meanwhile in Winnipeg, a private cannabis store was struggling to keep up with online demand as well.
Gary Symons, with Delta 9, said 100 orders were processed in the first minute or so when the company’s website went live at midnight and the online store was sold out by 4 a.m.
“Our product is literally flying off the shelves. I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “If demand keeps up like this, there is some thought that we could run out of some of these products.”
Industry players and watchers had warned to expect product shortages at the outset. Licensed producers and retailers have said it has been a compressed timeline for such a complicated endeavour.
Think-tank C.D. Howe warned in a report last week that current supplies of cannabis in the fourth quarter would only meet between 30 and 60 per cent of total demand, but it said the shortages would be “short-lived” as more producers are licensed and production capacities expand over time.
These supply issues were “widely expected” as it is a “brand new marketplace,” said Allan Rewak, the executive director of the Cannabis Council of Canada, which represents licensed medical marijuana producers.
“Over the coming weeks and months we’ll see more variation in products available through the various Crown options and private options . ... And it’s simply a result of a brand new stream coming online.”
EDMONTON Albertans lined up outside stores and waited at home in online queues to make their first legal purchases of marijuana.
The Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis commission says more than 11,000 people tried to place orders at its online store in the first hour after it opened just after 12 a.m.
Its first shipments went out to consumers just before noon.
Of the 17 retail shops given interim licences for the first day, six opened their doors in Edmonton.
About 200 people lined up outside Fire & Flower Cannabis in a strip mall in the city’s northeast.
Curtis Hrdlicka of Beaumont, Alta., decided to go into work late so he could be part of the historic day and was the first customer to walk out with a purchase.
“The store’s beautiful. It’s a mix of a pharmacy and a jewelry store,” he said while holding a shop tote bag containing two 3 1/2-gram packs of Glacier Freeze cannabis.
“I looked at the qualities of it. It’s light, citrusy. It was exactly what we wanted to try.”
Another customer, 19-year old Cody Chapman, said it was important for him to buy marijuana on the first day he could do so legally. He’s glad things will be different when he has his own family.
“It’s going to be wild that my kids are going to grow up in a generation where they don’t have to worry about the cops,” he said.
Three stores opened in Medicine Hat, including Green Exchange. Co-owner Jay Hearn said many customers travelled from out of town.
“We’ve had people from Red Deer come, people from Maple Creek, Lethbridge, Brooks, Taber. It’s just been overwhelming.”
People looking to buy cannabis from a retail store in Saskatchewan on the first day of legalization had very few options.
Only seven of 51 businesses that were granted retail permits from the Saskatchewan government were open on Wednesday.
Cierra Sieben-Chuback, owner of Living Skies Cannabis Ltd. in Saskatoon, said she couldn’t open due to a pot shortage.
“The demand is just crazy,” she said. “It makes me really sad that I can’t open.”
Gene Makowsky, minister responsible for the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority, said SiebenChuback isn’t the only one in the province with that issue.
Saskatchewan has one wholesale cannabis provider and 17 federally licensed producers selling to retailers.
“I don’t think it’s a huge surprise that there’s some supply issues when a new system is turned on overnight,” Makowsky said.
Two cannabis stores in North Battleford were open on Wednesday along with stores in Esterhazy, Martensville, Moose Jaw, Edenwold and Yorkton.
Sieben-Chuback predicted her store’s opening will be delayed until the end of the month or early November.
Landyn Uhersky, co-owner of Wiid Boutique Inc. in Regina, said he’s waiting for a city building permit and hopes to open in the next few weeks.