Last week seemed tough for the Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS).
At the beginning of the week, the OCS released their most up-to-date Quarterly Review data and insights. There was good news for the sector in that report: Ontarians are buying lots more legal weed. But there was also bad news for the OCS in that report: Only 12% of cannabis was bought directly from ocs.ca – 88% sold was from the fast-growing number of private retailers.
At the end of the week, the OCS CEO stepped down – the third CEO in as many years.
Not that it rises to the same level, but in between those two events, Business of Cannabis Daily wrote about how, perhaps, OCS’s monopoly on e-comm and delivery was unnecessary.
The CEO Churn
We don’t think that our humble newsletter had anything to do with the departure of the current OCS CEO, but the sales numbers might have. And short tenures for OCS CEOs is now kind of a running gag in the industry – like the death of drummers in Spinal Tap.
What’s Next?
There is now a nationwide search for who will take over the OCS CEO-ship.
One has to wonder if the nationwide search is to find an e-comm genius or a wholesale and logistics genius. The choice of the next CEO will portend where the OCS is headed. Will the OCS of the future be a world class wholesaler or will the OCS continue to try and challenge private retailers through their e-comm monopoly?
For the sake of the 1,000+ soon-to-be-retailers in Ontario, we’ll hope for the former.
