Cannabis financial technology firms reported strong sales at retail dispensaries for the 4/20 weed high holiday over the weekend, although one company experienced a POS outage that halted transactions at businesses in several states on the industry’s busiest day of the year.
April 20 has become the biggest event of the year for the cannabis community thanks to a band of 1970s California teens who used the number 420 as a code word for smoking pot. After becoming famous with the help of marijuana icons including the Grateful Dead and High Times magazine, 4/20 is now marked with celebrations and demonstrations held in cities around the globe. The day is also the biggest day of the year for the regulated marijuana industry, with brands and retailers routinely offering discounts and other promotions to mark the occasion. This year, President Joseph Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris marked the day with separate 4/20 tweets calling for continued progress on cannabis policy reform.
Cannabis tech firms reported strong sales at dispensaries for the 420 marijuana holiday on April 20, ... [+]
Forbes’ Cannabis 42.0 honoree for 2023 and 2024 Jane Technologies, an e-commerce and POS platform serving more than 2,500 dispensaries and brands across 39 U.S. states as well as Canada, reported record sales in some markets. Leading the pack was Illinois, with total sales at retailers utilizing Jane’s technology totaling $4,494,973.86. Total transactions for this year came in at 245,926, representing a 1.67% increase over the 2023 figures of 241,877 and a 13.74% increase over total transactions on April 19 of 216,208, the company reported on Monday.
“We saw record-breaking sales across the country this 420,” Jane Technologies CEO and co-founder Soc Rosenfeld said in a statement on Monday. “At Jane, it was an extremely successful day with well over half a million transactions completed on the platform this holiday weekend. Thanks to our team’s preparedness and experience with high-volume sales days, the Jane platform ran smoothly on Saturday and our partners were able to provide a seamless shopping experience for their customers during the biggest shopping day of the year.”
Jane reported that the top five cannabis brands on April 20 were RYTHM, &Shine, STIIIZY, Savvy and Float. Cannabis flower led as the top product type with nearly $9.4 million in sales, followed by weed vapes with more than $6.2 million. Pot edibles rounded out the top three product types, with more than $3.2 million in 4/20 sales.
Cannabis POS platform Treez, which operates in 11 states and serves over 600 dispensaries, also reported impressive results. In addition to strong sales on the 4/20 holiday itself, dispensaries serviced by the company also saw notable gains on April 19. On April 20, Treez retailers experienced a significant surge, with a 120% increase in customers, products sold and gross sales compared to 2023. The day before, however, dispensaries saw an even more substantial surge, with a 200% increase in customers, products and gross sales compared to last year.
The 420 holiday celebrated on April 20 has become the biggest day of the year for the cannabis ... [+]
This year also marked the first year that cannabis flower did not sit alone at the top spot for 4/20 sales processed by Treez. In 2024, cannabis flower and pre-rolled joints tied for first place rankings, according to data shared by the company, with each product type generating 25% of total sales, or a commanding 50% of the total market between them.
To attract customers on the cannabis industry’s busiest day of the year, most if not all dispensaries ran promotions for the 4/20 weekend. Promotional pricing outpaced last year, with retailers discounting an average of 37% in 2024, according to Treez data, compared to 32% in 2023. John Yang, co-founder and CEO of Treez, says that retailers that were strategic with their discounting saw the most success with their 4/20 promotions.
“As cannabis becomes increasingly accessible and mainstream, 420 consistently records high sales, boosted by the entry of new customers and states,” Yang writes in an emailed statement. “This year, customer turnout at dispensaries using Treez on 420 doubled as people sought to capitalize on significant discounts. Retailers that collaborated with brands to offer targeted discounts performed better than those that applied broad, undifferentiated price cuts.”
Dutchie Haunted By Another Outage On 4/20
While both Treez and Jane Technologies reported smooth operations over the 4/20 weekend, cannabis tech firm Dutchie reported POS outages on Saturday in some markets that shut down sales for hours. The outage affected dispensaries in Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and New Mexico, according to Green Market Report, a cannabis news outlet that noted Dutchie has had technology issues on April 20 for three years in a row. Despite the outage, however, Dutchie also reported strong sales on 4/20 that eclipsed last year’s totals.
“This year’s 4/20 was a record setting day for the majority of Dutchie powered dispensaries. Our systems powered over 2 million transactions, representing $165 Million dollars in retail commerce – a 50% increase from 2023 4/20,” Dutchie chief technology officer Chris Ostrowski said in a statement to Talking Joints Memo.
“While Dutchie and our partners prepared extensively for this year’s 4/20, a group of customers local to a specific instance of our POS system experienced serious issues that impacted their ability to transact. Dutchie is committed to stability and will be continuing to invest heavily to provide a reliable platform for all customers,” Ostrowski said.
Wendy Bronfein cofounder, chief brand officer and director of public policy at multistate operator Curio Wellness, reported that there were lines out the door of multiple dispensaries in Maryland and other parts of the country because of the Dutchie system outage, saying the situation illustrates the need to pass legislation that would ease access to common banking services for licensed cannabis companies.
“This outage is yet another indicator that the industry is in major need of reform. For dispensaries across the nation to experience a major outage with our payment system on the busiest day of the year for cannabis is equivalent to Walmart's systems being down on Black Friday, or Amazon experiencing payment issues on Prime Day,” Bronfein wrote in an emailed statement. “This reaffirms our need for more accessible methods of payment and SAFER Banking, to ensure we don't lose essential sales and that our consumers have access to safe, legal cannabis, as is their right in many states across the U.S.”
