Price is the top factor determining where consumers shop and Canadians are spending an average of less than $20 per month on cannabis according to new consumer data.
Cannabis Retailer commissioned Caddle to survey 9,462 Canadians in April 2024 on their cannabis purchasing habits, alcohol use, and opinions on cannabis consumption lounges.
Factors Impacting Where Consumers Shop
Price was the top factor determining where respondents purchase cannabis, followed by product quality and convenience. Security was one of the least important factors.
The same top three factors could be found among female and male respondents.
Price reigned supreme as the top determining factor among the different age groups but the second and third top factors varied widely.
For Greatest Gen, availability of products (28.0%) was the second most important factor while product quality and shopping experience (11.5% each) tied for third. For baby boomers, product quality (44.3%) was the second most important factor determining where respondents purchase cannabis, while availability of products (34.7%) was the third.
The results were more closely distributed among Gen X, but none of the above (28.7%) was the second top factor and product quality (28.3%) was the third.
Finally, product quality (34.6%) and availability of products (28.8%) were the second and third most important factors for millennials, while product quality (31.0%) and none of the above (27.2%) were the second and third top factors for Gen Z.
The importance of price and product quality have seemingly decreased over the past year. Caddle surveyed consumers on this same question in April 2023 and found slightly different results. A year ago, consumers said price (50.3%), product quality (43.0%), and availability (30.1%) were the three most important factors in determining where they purchase cannabis products. Convenience was not an option.
Average Spend
The majority of respondents spend an average of less than $20 per month on cannabis, while only 13.9% spend over $60 per month.
Similar data patterns were seen among male and female respondents when broken down by gender. However, responses varied widely when broken down by age group.
Greatest Gen had a strikingly high amount of respondents (90.0%) that spent $20-29 of cannabis on average per month compared to the other age groups.
Baby boomers and Gen X had the highest number of respondents that spent the most on cannabis per month, while the youngest generations had the highest number of respondents that spent the least. With the exception of Greatest Gen, the majority of respondents in all age groups spend less than $20 on cannabis on average in a month.
The number of consumers that spend less than $20 per month on cannabis has drastically increased since April 2023. No doubt this is due to price compression in the industry. When Caddle surveyed respondents on this same question a year ago, only 28.1% said their average spend on cannabis products in a month was less than $20.
Consumers spent more on cannabis in general a year ago. In April 2023, 21.7% said they spent more than $60, 15.5% said they spent $30-39, and 17.7% said they spent $20-29 in a month on average.
Cannabis Consumption Lounges
Respondents are split on cannabis consumption lounges opening. 27.4% don’t want lounges to open anywhere, while 24.8% want them to open in a cannabis store, and 21.1% want cannabis-only lounges.
Slightly more female respondents (30.2%) said they do not want cannabis consumption lounges to open anywhere, while 25.9% of male respondents said that.
Responses varied more widely when broken down by age group. The majority of baby boomers and Gen X respondents said they do not want cannabis consumption lounges to open anywhere. 39% of Greatest Gen want lounges open at special events, while the majority of millennials want them in cannabis stores and the majority of Gen Z want cannabis-only lounges.
Substituting Cannabis for Alcohol
39% of respondents said they sometimes substitute cannabis for alcohol, while 61% do not. 42% of male respondents said they substitute cannabis for alcohol compared to 36% of female respondents.
As respondents ages decreased, the number that substituted cannabis for alcohol increased. 44% of millennials and 45% of Gen Z respondents sometimes substitute cannabis for alcohol, compared to 31% of baby boomers and 34% of Gen X.
Cannabis Purchases
21% of cannabis consumers surveyed purchased cannabis in the past three months, a slight drop from last month.
24% of male respondents purchased cannabis in the past three months compared to 17% of female respondents.
Only 9% of Greatest Gen purchased cannabis, a notable drop from the reported 17% last month. There was no change in Gen X data from March 2024 but for once millennials surpassed Gen Z in the number of respondents that purchased cannabis in the past three months.