Retail Liquor and Cannabis Completely Different Businesses
Both Heavily Regulated by Government, but the Similarities End There – LPC
When Liquor Stores North America saw cannabis legalization on the horizon, they even changed their name to Alcanna – a combination of alcohol and cannabis. That was May 2018. The expectation was that retail liquor and cannabis would be similar enough to be a perfect fit together.
The Alberta-based company quickly found out that other than the fact both are heavily regulated by the government, retail liquor and cannabis are completely different businesses.
“There are some pretty good lessons that we learned,” said Marcie Kiziak, president of Nova Cannabis, the retail cannabis subsidiary of Alcanna. “We thought we knew what we were walking into, but we didn’t.”
Staffing is one major difference between retail liquor and cannabis. Customers at liquor stores usually know exactly what they are looking for, and can grab it themselves off the shelf. In cannabis stores, customers can’t even touch the product, making staff more hands on. Cannabis buyers also tend to have way more questions.
On the other hand, staff at cannabis stores tends to be more committed to the job than those working at liquor stores, said Mike McKee of Muse Cannabis stores in Vancouver.
“It’s tougher hiring for liquor than it is for cannabis at the moment,” he said.
Competition from Black Market Biggest Retail Liquor and Cannabis Difference – LPC
Perhaps the biggest difference between retail liquor and cannabis is the cannabis black market including the online cannabis black market. Illegal competition is a particular problem in BC, which has the lowest legal cannabis sales per capita. Reasons include quality complaints, lower price, and customer loyalty to their black market sources.
“That’s probably our number one challenge here in Vancouver specifically,” said Harrison Stoker of Hobo Cannabis in BC.
One advantage that Alcanna had going into the legal cannabis market was size. Despite the differences between retail liquor and cannabis, the company’s retail experience – especially management – and resources allowed it to do cannabis stores right.
“We built ourselves a workforce of trainers, which is a fantastic thing to do because it is much cheaper than having to hire trainers,” Kisiak said. The company was able to hire trusted managers from within the company for its first 23 cannabis stores.
Alcanna’s is an interesting story. Many people automatically associated retail cannabis stores with liquor stores and assumed the process would be the same. Obviously, those in the business thought so too. This is another reason why government should continually look at the industry. We should always evaluate what’s working (like security and safety), identify what’s not working as well (marketing regulations and the retail licensing process in some provinces), and tweak the system. It’s a brand new industry – we should all expect changes and improvements along the way.
This editorial content from the LPC News Team provides analysis, insight, and perspective on current news articles. To read the source article this commentary is based upon, please click on the link below.
