What’s Ahead for CBD Sales?
What’s Ahead for CBD Sales?
Cannabis was the leading human herbal medicine for 4,000 years and CBD is the primary cannabinoid associated with wellness and anxiety/stress relief.
With this level of history, you may think that CBD would be a well-accepted remedy today; however, in 1970 cannabis was erroneously classified as a Schedule 1 drug and that prevented consumers from experiencing the benefits of CBD.
Not until the 2018 Farm Bill was passed, just over a year ago, legalizing CBD from hemp for over-the-counter use, did consumers begin to receive news of the potential benefits of CBD. Consumers quickly responded to this news and made CBD one of the fastest growing new consumer products.
Since the passing of the Farm Bill in December 2018, Management Science Associates has been tracking Google CBD search trends and has found the search level peaked around mid-year 2019 – and has shown a rather significant decline since that time.
Vape Crisis
As consumers often search prior to purchasing, this suggests a possible very recent decline in CBD consumer purchase intent, and we believe the THC vaping crisis could be to blame. It appears that the negative publicity generated by the incomplete and misleading information on the THC vaping crisis has caused consumers to become cautious on the purchase of new, unfamiliar products. This has significantly affected sales of CBD vaping items, but seems to have also cast a negative sales effect across the entire CBD product line, as shown later in this column.
Not surprisingly, MSA’s Consumer Research Around Cannabis data shows that consumer attitudes toward cannabis and CBD are positive, with nearly 67% of the 83,000 adults responding to this research showing they would approve of either medicinal or recreational use.
Further analysis shows the target audience for a CBD item tends to be younger consumers of both genders with above average income levels. Interestingly, the research also indicated that CBD users are two- to three-times more likely to use tobacco than the general population. This is highly encouraging news for retailers that currently have the tobacco consumer as a shopper, such as the convenience class of trade.
C-Stores Have a Foothold
Today, convenience stores are the fourth most popular place to purchase CBD, with 22% of consumers stating they choose to purchase at their local convenience store. The most popular choice for purchase is online, where 29% of consumers not only find the products in which they are interested, but also get the detailed information they may want on these new items.
This is similar to how the vapor category grew, with consumers initially choosing to purchase online, when the product category was in its infancy, and then progressing to brick-and-mortar purchases as the category and their product knowledge and experience developed.
The best-selling CBD item in a convenience store today is the gummie, holding a 27% dollar share of total CBD convenience sales. This is closely followed by tinctures, liquids typically placed under the tongue for quick absorption, with a 22% dollar share.
Read more at: --> https://cstoredecisions.com/2020/01/17/whats-ahead-for-cbd-sales/
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