Shopify sees demand for legal cannabis
Canadian websites had 100 orders per minute
TORONTO — The Canadian online cannabis stores powered by Shopify Inc.’s e-commerce software are collectively processing more than 100 orders per minute, the Ottawa-based company said, an indication of the high demand for newly-legal pot.
Since recreational cannabis was legalized in Canada at midnight, local time, the government-operated websites and private retailer portals powered by Shopify have processed “hundreds of thousands” of orders since cannabis was legalized at the stroke of midnight, said vicepresident Loren Padelford.
These online stores have seen “millions of visitors” from Canada and around the world in the hours since they went live at 12:01 a.m. local time.
Canadians of adult age are now able to purchase non-medical cannabis online or in physical outlets across the country for the first time — marking a massive shift in the country’s drug policy and the opening of what some are expecting to be a massive and lucrative market.
Most of those initial consumer purchases of legal adult use pot will be online, given that there are relatively few physical outlets open for business and they are not evenly spread across Canada’s vast geography. For example, while Newfoundland and Labrador has more than 20 outlets open for business, Ontarians can only buy recreational pot online until private retail shops open next year.
Demand was high for many government online stores including AlbertaCannabis.org, which needed to place customers in a virtual queue shortly after midnight to avoid an outage.