Examining the impact of multi-packs on cannabis pre-roll sales

In today’s blog post we will be examining the Pre-Roll category in the US and impact of multi-packs.  Currently, Pre-Roll products account for approximately 8% of total cannabis sales in our Insights markets, which make them an important cannabis category to study. With multi-packs constituting more than a third of Pre-Roll sales in the US, we wanted to examine how multi-packs have grown and how their abundance varies by both state and Pre-Roll segment type.
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First and foremost, both Pre-Roll products in general and multi-pack Pre-Rolls have become increasingly more popular in the trailing twelve months. Broken up by quarter, this graph highlights the steady growth of Pre-Roll and multi-pack sales as well as the growing share of multi-pack sales. Over the trailing twelve months, multi-pack Pre-Roll sales jumped from just over $47M to over $85M. Similarly, total Pre-Roll sales jumped from $125M in Q2 2019 to approximately $223M in Q1 2020. The percentage of sales that multi-packs constitute has oscillated, remaining between 31% and 38%. It is worth noting that the decrease in Pre-Roll sales between Q4 and Q1 is due to the changing in category preferences away from inhalables due to the outbreak of COVID in the US.
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Moreover, multi-pack popularity percentages vary by state. Looking at states within the U.S., California has the highest percentage of multi-pack sales, with multi-packs accounting for over 45% of their Pre-Roll sales. Then comes Washington (36%), Oregon (32%), and Colorado/Nevada, both with less than 10% of Pre-Roll sales coming from multi-packs.
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There are similarly large disparities when we examine the percentages among the seven segments of Pre-Roll products. Mixed strain Pre-Rolls have the highest percentage of multi-pack sales (over 75%). This is likely due to product lines like Saints Multi-Strain Collection in Washington which offers 5 individual .5 gram joints each of a different strain. In other segments we see a lesser presence of multi-pack Pre-Rolls though the major segments of Hybrid, Sativa, and Indica all see over 30% of their total sales to multi-packs. Throughout the next year we expect to see sustained increases in market share for multi-pack Pre-Rolls as consumers look to decrease their trip frequency due to social distancing.  

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