GoBlue and I were chatting over the weekend about Aphria’s ($APHA) 1 gram Bingo 510 vape.

Aphria has a .5 gram Good Supply cart out for $40, and recently put a 1 gram Bingo branded one on the market……and priced it at $55. Commercially, that’s called an ‘aggressive strategy’.

The conversation turned to Canopy Growth Corporation ($WEED). GoBlue wasn’t sure that $WEED even had vapes on the OCS website. I checked. They do. They have one.

Sure, they have chocolates (remember that Hershey factory?) and edibles and beverages and pods and stuff. I don’t mean the products are not there, they exist. I mean, where are they for sale?

In-house at their own branded shops to be sure. I looked up and compared $WEED’s SKU listings across the three largest cannabis state-monopolies (Ontario, Alberta, and BC). Here’s what I saw.

Vape Products

There’s a 137 listings for 510 threaded vape products on the Ontario State Monopoly’s website. I can only find a single listing for Canopy products – a .42 gram Leafs by Snoop cart. In BC, 56 vape cart listings, 2 SKUs . In Alberta, of 171 listings for pre-filled vape carts, $WEED has 5 SKUs (comparatively, $XLY’s Dosecann has 24).

Beverages:

Quebec – of 32 listings for beverages, $WEED has some depth here with 8 SKUs. In Ontario, $WEED has 5 of 46 listings. Alberta, 9 of 46 listings. BC? 5 of 46.

Chocolates:

Alberta, 36 listings for chocolates, 3 SKUs for $WEED. Ontario? $WEED’s got 2 SKUs out of 40 listings. BC: 2 SKUs of 24 presented.

Aside from the grind of browsing State Monopoly websites, anecdotally, the listings suggest thin penetration of vape products. Now, $WEED is moving product, and a look at raw SKU numbers needs to be heavily qualified. Given that, to some this suggests that $WEED could be eschewing channels outside of ones they directly control – perhaps a measure for margin enhancement. That would be pretty bold given a general need for increased sales and marketshare.

Raw SKU counts also reveals a lack of visibility into retail cannabis – we only have partial data and rates of change in sales to look at. Retailers hold onto the information they generate tightly, monetizing it where they can. Both Fire & Flower ($FAF) and High Tide ($HITI) have been reporting increasing revenue from data sales.

With all of the drawbacks this does have, having a single vape cart for sale in Ontario’s Monopoly stands out. It’s also notable that in those same provinces, $WEED only has 8 SKUs out of a total 120 in chocolates. Seriously.

Perhaps they’re retrenching brands and changing product arrays. Perhaps they’ll be using a more amorphous supply chain go-forward. Perhaps they’ve simply got their hands full in a system-wide strategic review. Perhaps profitability is being worked on first. Perhaps they’re happy with what they’ve got.

I needed a break from calculating MSO optionality, and this was it. If I was a deep pocketed company being an industry leader (or aspiring to be), it’s an easy thing to believe $WEED’d have a far stronger presence on the online portals than they are currently presenting.

To me….most of all, it begs a question: What’s their plan?

The preceding is the opinion of the author, and is in no way intended to be a recommendation to buy or sell any security or derivative. The author holds position in $APHA & $HITI