Cannabis industry celebrates strong 4/20 – despite software challenges for some
Sales data revealed record performance across most of the US.
While social media has been awash with the technical difficulties and loss of sales experienced by many cannabis retailers who used Dutchie’s point-of-sale platform, most of the industry is celebrating a “record” April 20 sales day.
Sales data from Flowhub, Treez, and Jane Technologies indicated that 4/20 and the week leading up to it returned a solid performance for the U.S. marijuana industry.
“We executed a strong 4/20 yesterday and processed 2x the volume than 4/20 last year. Many Flowhub users texted me saying they broke sales records,” Flowhub CEO Kyle Sherman posted on social media on Sunday.
The Colorado-based company shared that its dispensary clients reported a total of $83.6 million in sales on Saturday across 22 states and Canada, with more than 6 million product units sold.
That made it “the biggest cannabis sales day in history,” according to a Flowhub memo shared with Green Market Report, with a 182% increase in sales over the average Saturday. Dispensaries using Flowhub’s software reported, on average, a 7% sales volume increase over 2023, which the memo noted was “impressive considering last year was also a record.”
In addition, discounts, which are common on the high holiday, weren’t as steep as in previous years according to the firm.
“While 76% of all 4/20 transactions included a discount, discounts as a percentage of the total cost per transaction were down 9% over the last 4/20. This means retailers managed to discount more products, while taking less off the total sale price,” the memo reported.
California-based Treez, which has clients in 11 states, also reported a “smooth” 4/20 sales day.
“While some point-of-sale (POS) providers encountered outages, the Treez system remained operational without any downtime,” the company said in a statement.
Treez added that while 4/20 itself was a major day for dispensaries – with sales up 120% over typical Saturdays – the week leading up to it also saw a surge in sales. On Friday, April 19, there was a 200% sales bump, Treez noted, while the overall week had sales up three times normal sales volume.
“While we anticipated 4/20 to be the pinnacle of sales, it came as a surprise that 4/19 brought in record-breaking sales. This indicated that customers were gearing up for the 4/20 celebrations by stocking up in advance,” Treez reported.
The firm also reported a shift in product demand for the week.
“Interestingly, for the first time, flower didn’t reign as the top-selling product on 4/20. This year, both flower and pre-rolls shared the spotlight, each constituting 25% of total sales, thereby collectively making up 50% of all sales,” Treez added.
Jane Technologies, another California-based cannabis e-commerce company, saw a similar trend.
Jane reported total sales volume on Saturday of $23.8 million in the 39 states where it has dispensary clients, which is actually an 8% year-over-year decrease from 2023. But when the company combined Friday and Saturday sales for a total of $45.7 million, it found that sales were up 14.3% from any previous two-day period the company has recorded.
“We saw record-breaking sales across the country this 4/20. At Jane, it was an extremely successful day with well over over half a million transactions completed on the platform this holiday weekend,” Soc Rosenfeld, CEO and co-founder of Jane Technologies, said in a statement.
