The majority of Canadians prefer to purchase cannabis at a store they regularly frequent, and fewer consumers are purchasing sublinguals or tinctures, according to new consumer data.
Cannabis Retailer commissioned Caddle to survey 8,544 Canadians on their cannabis purchasing habits and preferences in March 2024.
Shopping Preferences
Close to 50% of respondents prefer shopping at a store they regularly frequent when purchasing cannabis, while 35% go to one of a few stores they shop at, and 19% shop at a new store.
Male respondents were more likely to shop at a new store at 22.8% while only 14.3% of female respondents prefer that. In comparison, 50.3% of female respondents said they prefer to shop at a store they regularly frequent.
Greatest Gen was most likely to shop at a store they regularly frequent while Gen Z was the only age group to have more cannabis consumers select purchasing cannabis at one of a few stores they shop at versus a store they regularly frequent. Surprisingly, Greatest Gen and Gen Z had the highest number of respondents who said they would shop at a new store.
Cannabis Purchases
23% of respondents purchased cannabis in the past three months, a 5% increase from last month, after a notable drop in February.
19% of female respondents compared to 26% of male respondents purchased cannabis in the past three months.
Consistent with past survey results, the younger generations had the highest number of respondents that purchased cannabis in the past three months, while the older generations had the lowest number of respondents.
Cannabis Usage
The majority of respondents said their use of cannabis products has remained the same over the past 12 months, while equal amounts of respondents said it has increased or it has decreased.
Similar patterns were seen among male respondents. Comparatively, slightly more female respondents said their cannabis usage has remained the same (64.3%) and only 16% said their usage has increased over the past 12 months.
Responses varied more widely when broken down by age group. Most respondents in every age group said their use of cannabis products has remained the same in the past 12 months.
Gen Z and baby boomers had the highest number of respondents that said their use of cannabis products has decreased. Gen Z and millennials had the highest number of respondents that said their use has increased.
Preferred Consumption Method
Respondents preferred a variety of consumption methods when using cannabis products but edibles and other methods were the most popular, while beverages and dabs were the least popular.
Similar patterns were seen when broken down by gender.
Vape pens were slightly more popular among female respondents (9.8%) while pre-rolls were less popular (8.2%). With the exception of dabs and other, all other categories were slightly more popular among male respondents compared to the overall findings.
Some notable insights when broken down by age group include:
- Edibles seem equally popular among all age groups.
- Rolling their own joint was least popular among Greatest Gen and most popular among Gen X.
- Pre-rolls were most popular among Gen Z and the second highest preferred method of consumption for this age group next to edibles.
- Vape pens were most popular among Greatest Gen and the top preferred method of consumption of this age group followed by edibles.
There have been significant changes to responses since Caddle posed this same question to respondents in December 2022.
In 2022, only 9.4% of respondents said edibles were their preferred consumption format, compared to 25.1% in 2024. Other formats have also seen a notable jump with only 4% of respondents selecting this method in 2022 compared to 27.7% in 2024. Vape pens, pre-rolls, beverages, and vaporizers have also doubled in popularity.
Cannabis Product Formats
Over half of respondents have not purchased capsules, tinctures, sublinguals, or oral sprays in the past three months.
Similar patterns were seen when broken down by gender.
One notable distinction is 69.3% of female respondents said they have not purchased any of these cannabis formats in the past three months compared to 52.6% of male respondents.
When looking at the data by age group, capsules and tablets (46.4%) were most popular among Greatest Gen followed by millennials (21.0%) and Gen Z (20.4%). Sublinguals were also most popular among Greatest Gen (23.1%).
Caddle also posed this question to respondents in December 2022. All formats of cannabis have seen slight drops in popularity since 2022, with tinctures seeing the biggest drop (from 14.7% to 12.10%).
Photo courtesy of Tonik Cannabis