By Randy Gener

DENVER | More Americans smoked more weed during the Labor Day Weekend than any other U.S. holiday, according to a leading consulting company that tracks the cannabis market.

According to MJ Freeway Business Solutions, a Colorado-based consulting company that offers cannabis compliance software for the marijuana industry, Labor Day “marks one of the highest grossing sales days in the cannabis industry.”

Sales spikes began the Thursday before Labor Day with Friday being the highest grossing sales day.

That industry trend, based on the results of MJ Freeway’s software tracking system, ranks as high, if not higher (pun intended), than marijuana sales during the cannabis holiday on April 20 and the Fourth of July.

Founded in 2010, MJ Freeway developed the necessary systems to follow a grower’s inventory down to the milligram. The turning point for the founders of MJ Freeway — both women — was the start of marijuana legalization in Colorado. It has now emerged as a leader of the young market for pot-tracking database software.

Labor Day by the Numbers

  • In 2015, total cannabis retail sales exceeded $32M on Labor Day weekend (Sept 3-6, 2015), which represents a 43% daily increase from an average sales day. This also represents average daily retail sales growth of 23% in 2015 over average daily sales for Labor Day weekend 2014 (Sept 4-7, 2015).
  • In 2015, individual cannabis licensed retail locations* – dispensaries and delivery services – sold on average $5,694 in retail sales on September 3, $7,266 on September 4, $5,985 on September 5, and $5,100 on September 6 in 2015, the four days of Labor Day weekend.
  • *Note: One physical cannabis retail location may operate with two individual licenses – medical and recreational.
  • Same-store cannabis retail customer traffic increased by slightly more than 11% on Labor Day weekend 2015 compared to Labor Day weekend 2014. This year it’s expected to rise even more.
  • Customer traffic increased on average by 20% during Sept 3-6, 2015 as compared to a non-holiday sales day.
  • Individual customers spent on average $69.14 per trip Labor Day weekend 2015, a rise of 3% compared to customers visiting retail locations on an average day.

Until recently, the weakest link in the supply chain of marijuana has been the software designed to index and track licensed pot farmers’ plants to make sure none go missing on their way from grow room to blunt. That requires effectively tracking the bar codes or radio-signal tags affixed to the plants, as well as making sure the data can be exported to business software such as Excel and QuickBooks.

Amy Poinsett co-founded MJ Freeway Business with Jessica Billingsley. Their desire was to see burgeoning marijuana businesses expand and thrive with smart business solutions in place. They saw a need to fill a need for cannabis-specific retail software solutions. Since then, the company has expanded to include point of sale, inventory tracking, manufacturing and cultivation management software platforms, as well as consulting services and cannabis licensee application support.

“Cannabis is a young industry and it’s important to track trends early and often, which is why we’ve made it a priority to provide businesses with a full picture of high-volume sales days,” said Poinsett, CEO of MJ Freeway, in a prepared statement. “The more we understand about the industry as a whole, the better we are able to provide our clients with solutions that they need for smooth and efficient business practices.”

In fact, MJ Freeway gives advice for what retailers can do to prepare for higher foot traffic in advance of the Labor Day weekend. MJ Freeway’s retail data set, which accounts for 40% of the legal cannabis market and includes nearly $5 billion in retail sales transactions, helps businesses across the industry understand everything from sales cycles to inventory management and more.

The company serves 23 state and the District of Columbia, Canada, Europe, and Australia. —rg

For more information on state-specific retail sales data or for help spotting trends and opportunities using cannabis sales data, contact MJ Freeway Consulting Services at sales@mjfreeway.com or 888-932-6537 ext 2.  

Or join its upcoming webinar on Sept 15 on the evolving Oregon cannabis market. Register here.

About Admin

CultureofOneWorld.org is a NYC-based production, event and media project devoted to U.S. news, foreign diplomacy, cultural issues, innovative art projects and journalism in the public interest. Learn more about the proprietor at MediaKit.RandyGener.org

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.