Akerna (NASDAQ:KERN) predicts that U.S. cannabis shoppers will spend nearly $130 million on legal cannabis on April 20th, known as "420", an unofficial but widely celebrated cannabis consumption holiday, which according to them would become the largest sales day in legal cannabis history.
Compared to last year's 420, which according to the company brought in nearly $112 million and became the industry's largest sales day to date, this year's 420 would be a 16% growth over last year's sales.
With 420 landing on a Wednesday this year, Akerna expects traffic to start increasing on April 15th, the Friday ahead of 420. In total, the Friday to Wednesday period is expected to see cannabis sales figures above the $400 million range.
To put that into perspective, the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division recently reported the state's largest year of liquor sales ever – which surpassed $400 million for the first time. This means that the U.S. cannabis retail industry is predicted to bring in more sales in just six days than Iowa did for liquor sales in a record-breaking year.
"We are approaching the biggest day for our industry, making it critical for dispensaries to plan promotions, staff, and space for these large upticks in traffic," stated James Ahrendt, business intelligence architect at Akerna. "To help alleviate some of the traffic, cannabis retailers using Akerna's MJ Retail POS solution can leverage the platform's kiosk mode. In kiosk mode, the budtender gives the MJ Retail tablet to the customer, who can then shop the store's offerings on the device, similar to how they would in an online order, allowing stores to serve more customers and ultimately complete more sales per hour."
Photo: Courtesy of Akerna
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