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A look at Maryland’s first weeks of adult-use sales
Maryland's adult-use cannabis program launched on July 1st, 2023. While we have some interesting data about the first few days of recreational sales in the state, there were also some equally interesting trends during the final days of the medical-only market.
The last day of medical-only sales
Friday, June 30th was the last day of medical-only sales in Maryland and witnessed a massive sales jump compared to previous weeks. Specifically, the average Maryland medical dispensary brought in nearly $32,000 in retail sales on Friday, June 30th, showing a 55.6% increase from the average of the previous four Fridays. This sales spike was primarily caused by an overall increase in transaction volume (up 32.7%), but average transaction sizes (+17.3%), average items per transaction (+12.0%), and average item price (+4.8%) were all up as well. All these metrics seem to point to medical patients stocking up ahead of the coming onslaught of recreational customers.
The first day of adult-use sales
On July 1st, the first day of recreational sales, the Maryland cannabis retailers averaged nearly $50,000 in total sales. This is an increase of 252% over an average of the previous four Saturdays ($14,148, when the market was still medical-only). Overall transaction volume was even higher at 275% over that same time frame, indicating that the average size of a transaction dropped (decreasing by -6% from $88.11 to $82.74).
Changes to discounting
The average discount on cannabis products in Maryland was slashed in half at the outset of adult use sales, dropping from approximately 20% during the month of June to roughly 10% during the first ten days of July.
Category sales shift
Comparing the first two weekends in June (3-11) to the July (1-9), there has been a 129% increase in total sales. In the new adult-use landscape, Pre-Rolls, Flower, and Edibles have acquired significant market share at the expense of wellness products that obviously played a much larger role during medical only days.
Interestingly, Flower has made up half of all sales which is very high compared to the rest of the country. Vapor Pens are in second place with nearly a quarter of all sales. Compared to the national average, Edibles, Pre-Rolls, and Concentrates have a noticeably low representation so far, but we predict these numbers will increase over the coming weeks and months.
