BDS Analytics releases first Cannabis Retail Price Index

BOULDER — BDS Analytics, a leader in cannabis market intelligence, launched the first Cannabis Retail Price index, which will serve as a benchmark for retail pricing in the cannabis industry.

BDS Analytics also launched a Cannabis Consumer Sales Report that outlines monthly spending across five states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington.

The Cannabis Retail Price Index, or CPI, uses cannabis prices in January 2018 as its baseline. All subsequent months are reported as a percentage change from that month. The index currently has data up to October 2018 and will be updated on the second Tuesday of every month.

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The reports reflect more than a billion medical and recreational dispensary transactions across all categories, including flower, concentrate, edibles and other markets.

“Every business in the cannabis industry is making assumptions about the current and future retail prices of cannabis products,” said Roy Bingham, CEO and co-founder of BDS Analytics, in a prepared statement. “After years of capturing and processing this data, we have decided to remove all of the guesswork for both businesses and investors by providing them with a sound basis for planning and projections.”

The October 2018 CPI was 97.52, which was 2.5 percent lower than in January and 1 percent lower than in September. Its peak was in March, when it was 6 percent higher than in January.

The Consumer sales report shows that year-to-date consumer cannabis sales in the five tracked states were up 34.5 percent through October. It was led by 81.1 percent growth in the Vape category and 56 percent growth in Edibles. Total sales were nearly $5.2 billion year-to-date as of October. Flowers sales are still the largest market category, with nearly $1.9 billion in sales through October. The biggest growth month was August, which was a 44.9 percent growth over January and $580 million in sales.

“The CPI is unique in its ability to index pricing across all product categories,” Bingham said in his statement. “This will prove to be a significant insight as flower rapidly becomes a commodity product and growth in the U.S. cannabis market is largely driven by new product categories.”