Cannabis NB Sold 100,000 Discount Pre-Rolls. Now Comes the Hard Part

Lori Stickles had an encouraging number to share in July: 100,000 pre-rolls sold through a new Tuesday promotion. The price was C$2. For the president and CEO of Cannabis NB, New Brunswick’s government cannabis retailer, the offer was a way to persuade people buying outside the regulated market to try a legal store. It arrived near the end of a quarter in which more transactions were producing less revenue. (S1, S2)

The till was busier, but the average purchase was smaller.

Cannabis NB recorded 433,000 transactions in the 13 weeks ended June 28, 2026, with an average ticket of C$53.67. A year earlier, it reported 411,000 transactions at C$58.77 per ticket. More visits to the register were meeting a tighter budget. (S2, S3)

Stickles expected the promotion to help the next quarter and draw customers into regulated retail. The first-quarter results supplied the promotional sales count, but no measurement of customers switching from unregulated sellers. A busy Tuesday was the start of the test. (S1)

Across Canadian cannabis retail, the same commercial question takes different forms. A public retailer can make affordability part of its mandate. A chain can build a membership program around discounts. A small independent can keep particular products in stock because a handful of regulars ask for them. Each approach offers a reason to visit. The hard part is making that reason pay. (S4, S5, S6)

Cannabis NB’s unaudited results show pressure below the sales line, too. Gross profit was C$12 million, down 3.9% from a year earlier. Net income fell much faster. There was still money left after expenses, but less of it. The financial summary makes the separation clear: gross profit deducts the cost of goods, while net income also absorbs costs such as salaries, depreciation and rent. (S3)

The business had already experienced a version of that squeeze. In the previous quarter, which ended March 29, 2026, product sales rose 3.8% year over year to C$23.1 million. Gross profit was flat at C$11.2 million and net income fell 20.2% to C$3.7 million. Two quarters with different sales directions produced the same uncomfortable result further down the income statement. (S7)

Merchandise was changing along with spending. Stickles attributed some lost margin to customers choosing convenience products over dried flower. The July release showed dried-flower sales down 4.7% from the comparable quarter and concentrates up 2.4%. That gives buyers two jobs at once: find products customers want and understand what the new mix does to earnings. A fuller transaction count cannot answer the second question on its own. (S1)

For a supplier, a promotion can move inventory quickly and put a product in front of new buyers. For the retailer, what happens around that sale matters just as much. Does the shopper add something else, return on Thursday or ask for the same brand next month? Those are the habits that can turn a discount into an investment in the store.

Price matters, but shoppers describe a broader calculation. In Health Canada’s 2024 Canadian Cannabis Survey, convenience was the most commonly reported influence on where consumers usually bought cannabis, at 30%. Price followed at 23%, then a safe supply at 22%. A cheaper product competes with the time and effort of reaching it, and with the buyer’s confidence in what is inside the package. (S8)

That survey also found 67% of past-year consumers said they always obtained cannabis from a legal or licensed source, while 10% said they mostly did. Those are national, self-reported responses, not a measurement of New Brunswick’s promotion. They nevertheless describe the market a discount enters: many customers already use legal sellers, so a low price can change where they shop within that market as well as attract someone from outside it. (S8)

Cannabis NB’s answer includes a wider network. Its private retail channel allows businesses to trade under their own names, while its farmgate program lets licensed New Brunswick producers sell their own products at their facilities. The agency describes both as ways to improve access. They also create different shopping experiences: a neighbourhood storefront and a visit to a producer can offer reasons to buy beyond the weekly promotion. (S4)

Chris Jones, owner of Cannabis Xpress, made the convenience argument when his Hampton location opened in 2024. He told StratCann that residents welcomed a more dependable local place to buy, and described Cannabis NB as supportive of expansion. By the first quarter of 2026-27, the provincial network had added a Cannabis Xpress store in Cap-Pelé. The partnership puts private operators inside the agency’s effort to bring legal retail closer to customers. (S9, S2)

Another route is to turn price into a continuing relationship. Raj Grover, founder and CEO of High Tide, has built Canna Cabana around a discount club. In its June 15 results, the company reported more than 2.65 million Canadian Cabana Club members and more than 178,000 members in its paid ELITE tier. Those counts describe an audience the retailer can serve repeatedly, rather than a single promotional event. (S5)

Even that model feels the pressure. High Tide reported a 1.2% year-over-year decline in same-store sales for its second fiscal quarter, ended April 30, 2026. Its larger corporate business grew, but existing stores did not escape softer sales. The contrast is useful for reading Cannabis NB’s results: expansion, membership growth and the performance of an established shop tell different parts of the story. (S5)

Grover’s business has a different scale and remit from Stickles’s. High Tide operates across several provinces and beyond Canadian retail; Cannabis NB runs a provincial network with a public mandate. Comparing their total margins would obscure those differences. Their customer propositions are easier to compare: an ongoing club relationship and a weekly offer designed to make legal retail more attractive. (S1, S5)

In Michigan, Higher Love promised in January to absorb the state’s new wholesale cannabis tax rather than pass it on to customers. Seven months later, it closed five of its nine Upper Peninsula stores. New Brunswick faces different taxes and market conditions, but that sequence shows the stakes of protecting a low price: the company still has to carry the costs behind it. (S10)

Rob Pranger has a less elaborate proposition in Matheson, Ontario. He and his wife, Anna Miller, own Peace by the Gram, a 600-square-foot shop that opened in February 2025. Miller runs it day to day. In an August 28 StratCann profile, Pranger described a business shaped by listening to customers and keeping costs low. He and Miller are not cannabis consumers themselves. (S6)

One result is a selection of more than a dozen varieties of hash, supported partly by a small group of repeat buyers. Pranger said some older customers welcomed products they remembered. The detail is a reminder that an apparently narrow preference can matter a great deal to an individual store. A province-wide product mix will never describe every local counter. (S6)

“It’s about listening and responding”

— Rob Pranger, co-owner, Peace by the Gram, speaking to StratCann (S6)

Owning the property beneath the shop helped, Pranger said. So did listening closely to a limited local audience. His account is one owner’s experience, and the property advantage is substantial. But the customer-service argument is plain enough: a shop that remembers what someone wants gives that person a reason to return. (S6)

A club makes the next visit part of the membership proposition. A small shop can have a favourite product waiting. A public network can bring a legal counter closer to home. The models compete over price, but they also compete over how much effort a customer has to make and how well the purchase fits what that person wanted. (S4, S5)

Cannabis NB’s own network creates room for that variety. Its farmgate program requires participating stores to sell products produced and packaged at the facility. Customers can connect a purchase to a local producer, while the private retail channel gives entrepreneurs room to establish their own names. Those features make the agency’s strategy broader than the C$2 price that draws attention. (S4)

A longer period of trading will make the promotion easier to judge. The next results can show what happened to sales, gross profit and the average ticket after more Tuesdays at the promotional price. Separating the offer’s effect from store openings and changes in merchandise will take more detail than a single total. The useful evidence will be repeat business, and what the retailer earns from it.

Stickles has a product that people bought at C$2. The larger prize is a customer who trusts the shop and returns when there is no special offer to discuss. Tuesday can open that conversation. The staff, shelves and service have to carry it through the rest of the week.

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