Sales are looking good at the Société québécoise du cannabis (SQDC), which despite everything is getting closer and closer to the good old dealer of jar of yesteryear.
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“We cannot make exponential growth each year in such a young industry”, pleads Jacques Farcy, the boss of the young state company which publishes its annual report on Monday.
For the year ending March 25, sales increased from $600.5 million to $601.9 million and from 106.4 tons to 106.5 tons. Profits jumped from $75.7 million to $94.9 million.
No growth at all in 2022-2023, therefore. The big news over the past 12 months is the implementation of 90-minute delivery outside the Montreal region, such as in Quebec City, Lévis, Sherbrooke, Shawinigan, Trois-Rivières, Gatineau and Saguenay.
“Fast delivery is a historical habit in this market, it seems to us the right lever to seduce customers”, recognizes the CEO with this nod to cannabis sellers from another era.
Photo archives, Pierre-Paul Poulin
Jacques Farcy, President and CEO of the Quebec Cannabis Society (SQDC)
In the greater Montreal area, delivery is made the same evening between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. if the order is placed before 4 p.m. The SQDC does not intend to implement 90-minute delivery there anytime soon.
Another project for the state corporation: its website and customer service. We have invested in particular so that customers can talk to a human and not to a robot when they consult sqdc.ca.
The wish is that customers have the best possible information in order to encourage them to spend the largest part of their cannabis budget at the SQDC.
Online sales, however, fell from 6% to 5.7% of the total in 2022-2023. “We have experienced enormous growth with COVID and it is coming back to normal. I know a lot of retail businesses that would kill to make 5.7% of their sales online,” says Mr. Farcy, however.
- Listen to the economic column with Yves Daoust, director of the Money section of the Journal de Montréal and the Journal de Québec at the microphone of Richard Martineau via QUB-radio :
$19.38 per hour
The year was also marked by the addition of 10 branches, which brings the account to 98. We no longer plan to open any new ones.
For more than 12 months, a strike has been raging in 24 of the 26 branches where employees are represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). Their hourly wage before the strike was $17.12 when hired.
The employees of 55 other branches are non-unionized while those of the remaining 17 are affiliated with the Federation of Public Service Employees. They signed an agreement last year which provides for an hourly wage of $19.38 upon hiring.
“These are good conditions for the retail trade. The proof, we have no trouble recruiting. Unfortunately, I have to see that they want to stay on strike,” said the boss about negotiations with employees affiliated with CUPE.
Jacques Farcy has been in the job for nearly two years and earned $359,603 last year. In total, the SQDC paid $1.4 million to its six highest-paid executives in 2022-2023.
Steal market share from organized crime
For the coming year, the goal is to exceed 106 tons of cannabis sold.
“Tonnage is a good indicator of captured market share. We want to resume growth, we want people to spend more at the SQDC and less on the street,” said the president of the state-owned company.
The SQDC currently estimates that it has captured 56% of the illegal market. It was 58% in 2022.