OCS Cutting Cannabis Products

About 200 “Unsaleable” Cannabis Products Would Be Cut Today Under New Rules – LPC

The Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS) is cutting cannabis products from its inventory that either don’t meet weekly sales or are chronically unavailable. Ontario’s provincial cannabis retailer also announced on January 8 that it will introduce a craft designation for smaller licensed producers.

“To take another step towards maturing the Ontario cannabis marketplace, the OCS is establishing a core assortment of products,” said OCS senior director of communications Daffyd Roderick. He added that the move “will further drive the stability of supply for cannabis consumers.”

Canopy Growth CEO David Klein agreed with cutting cannabis products from OCS shelves.

“I’m used to dealing with large retailers in the US,” Klein said. “You getting listed and delisted – happens all the time. It’s incumbent upon the suppliers to create that partnership with our customers and create those products that have velocity coming off of their shelves.”

The OCS said during a webinar on January 8 that products could be delisted if:

• sales per store fall below 0.5 units of the product per week
• the product is consistently out stock in spite of having been on the market for more than six months

The OCS said right now that’s about 200 products. It’s not entirely clear from the BNN article (please see link below), but it seems the target date for the OCS to start cutting cannabis products is March.

Is Cutting Cannabis Products Fair If Cannabis Companies Can’t Advertise?

Strict marketing laws for cannabis mean that legal companies still cannot promote their products. The laws are to the point that Seth Rogen cannot even be at his cannabis company Houseplant’s cannabis-related events in Canada.

This is a debate that should be revisited now that OCS is cutting cannabis products. Marketing restrictions like keeping cannabis edibles out of the hands of children make sense. But how can companies compete on anything but price if their product names are unknown to consumers?

Click here to view full story at www.bnnbloomberg.ca

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