Legal since 2018 in Canada, recreational cannabis use opens up many economic opportunities, and it hasn’t fallen on deaf ears.
The home delivery giant is gradually adding strings to its bow, and it’s doing quite well for it.
An approach initiated at the time of confinement.
For several years, it has been possible to have alcohol delivered via Uber Eats, both in catering orders and when purchasing from retailers. In the same vein, the leaders of the company have never hidden their ambition to allow the delivery of cannabis where it is gradually decriminalized.
This is now a reality in Ontario. Although cannabis consumption has been legalized there for several years, it will still have been necessary to wait for the development of the sector, and the successive confinements, for the authorities and Uber Eats to begin to discuss the subject seriously. But, eventually, any cannabis retailer was able to register on the platform, just like any grocery store, after a somewhat more rigid acceptance process than normal.
Initially, however, customers had to pick up their order on site. It is only since last October that delivery is possible, not by usual delivery people or robots, but by people employed by the referenced stores. And for good reason, delivery requires several criteria.
While you must be of the minimum legal age to consume cannabis in Ontario, which is 19, orders cannot be less than $50 and customers must be sober.
A lucrative market
If the platform has not yet communicated on the results, customers are present, especially during the harsh Canadian winters. For Khalid Hussein, manager of a cannabis store, and quoted by France Infoit is quite logical: When the weather is really nice, people tend to come to the store, so we have a little less deliveries. But during the winter, if there is snow and bad weather, we have a lot more, it varies with the seasons. »
The delivery would also expand the customer base of these stores, as Hussein explains: This fills a gap, a need, especially for people who do not have access to stores, who are disabled. For Uber Eats and the authorities, it is also a good way to bypass the illegal market, which still exists, by greatly simplifying legal distribution.
And, the experience seems to pay off. Only available in Toronto in the first place, cannabis delivery is now expanding to several other cities in Ontario. In this province alone, the potential is significant, as specialty stores are springing up at a breakneck pace. At the beginning of 2022 alone, one was opening a day.
Next step for this novelty: delivery… with a SpaceX rocket?
Source : France Info
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