Vaporizers, both cartridge-based and disposable, rocketed across 2016 in Colorado, Washington and Oregon, racking up $156.75 million in sales on 3.74 million vaporizers according to BDS Analytics GreenEdge data analytics service. Both the dollar sales and the volume were more than double 2016, when consumers spent $71.63 million on 1.7 million vaporizers.
Vaporizer pricing is wide-ranging.
Probing the data reveals interesting trends for cannabis entrepreneurs in different states. Let’s consider pricing. The average retail among all states during 2016 was $41.90. But in Colorado medical shops, the average price was $32.17, while in adult-use shops the average vaporizer price was $44.16 — a huge price disparity. Washington, which has just one sales channel (adult-use), had the highest average price, $48.61, but that is downright cheap compared to the average price in Washington during 2015 — $61.99! Meanwhile, prices in Oregon between the two channels are $33.77 in medical and $36.90 in recreational.
The average cartridge vs. disposable sales disguises disposables relative unpopularity in Oregon and Washington, where sales are only 2 percent of the market and 8 percent, respectively.
One other tidbit: disparities between sales of disposable and cartridge-based vaporizers. Consumers in Oregon are not receptive to disposable vaporizers: only 2 percent of sales were disposable. Washington consumers’ embrace of disposables is also fairly low, at 8 percent. But Colorado consumers buy them in relatively large numbers: 34 percent of adult-use and 30 percent of medical sales were disposables.