Akerna Flash Report

In Q1 2020 Women Outspent Men on Cannabis

Flower is the Top Purchase for Women with Vape a Close Second

DENVER, April 03, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Business intelligence from Akerna (Nasdaq: KERN), a leading compliance technology provider and developer of the cannabis industry’s first seed-to-sale enterprise resource planning (ERP) software technology (MJ Platform) shows women, across all age groups 18-55+ drove cannabis sales in the first quarter, 2020. The average amount spent by women increased by 50% in March.

*The Numbers, Q1 2020 :

Total cannabis sales increased in Q1 2020 by 16% over Q4 2019. The top products purchased in Q1 in each category:

• Concentrates:         8% of purchases for women and  12% of purchases for men
• Edibles:                 12% of purchases for women and 8% of purchases for men
• Flower:                  40% of purchases for women and 45% of purchases for men
• Vape:                     39% of purchases for women and 35% of purchases for men

“March saw huge changes in the market, sometimes even day to day, breaking the regular cycles.  Repeat buyers are consistently spending much more per visit, with the size of women’s shopping carts growing even more than men,” said Aryeh Primus, vice president of analytics, Akerna. “In March, the average basket size for women hit an all time high above $105, while for men basket size was below that for March 2019.”

Since the height of the vape issue in 2019, Akerna’s business intelligence team has been evaluating vape sales and consumer preference related to the category. In general, vape sales have remained steady nationwide. Data shows:

• Vape sales in August 2019, at the height of the issue, had 31% of market share based on total sales, today, vape has 36% of the market share based on total sales.
• In Sept. 2019, our data shows, vape sales declined 7%. However, in September, sales across the industry dipped. By October, vape sales were up over 9% and sustained steady growth for the balance of the year.
• Overall, vape sales have continued to slowly gain market share by a couple of percentage points each month since October 2019.
• As Pertains to COVID-19: vape sales were up, even during the pandemic, over 9%.

“The sustained trend in vape sales is interesting. It seems once consumers realized the products with the potential to threaten their health were those purchased on the illicit market, sales of legal products resumed an upward trend,” said Primus.