B.C. cannabis shoppers will have another legal platform to get their weed starting Tuesday, when food-delivery giant Uber Eats adds cannabis to its menu.
The move was widely expected given that the branch of San Francisco-based Uber Technologies Inc. last year started offering cannabis sales through its app in Ontario.
Uber Eats drivers do not deliver the products — Uber Eats customers simply click a tab on the app to scroll through eligible cannabis retailers and connect to a cannabis marketplace site known as Leafly.
Individual retailers opt to be accessible on Leafly.
Customers can then click through to cannabis retailers on Leafly, place orders with the individual retailers and have the retailers’ staff deliver the products — the same system Uber Eats uses in Ontario. Age verification takes place at the door.
Retailers set to be involved in the program at the outset include:
• Sea to Sky in Vancouver
• Original Farm Cannabis in Vancouver and Victoria
• Leisure for Cannabis in Vancouver
• ARCannabis in Vancouver
• North Shore Cannabis in Vancouver
• Queensborough Cannabis in New Westminster.
The fees Uber Eats charges vary by retailer as different agreements are reached with each one, an Uber Eats representative told Business in Vancouver.
Industry insiders say the system might help some retailers sell products to customers that they would otherwise not find, but Uber Eats is likely to claim much of the profit margin.
“It’s no different than with restaurants that offer takeout,” said Inspired Cannabis co-founder and president Jesse Dhami.
“Restaurant owners have complained that it is not economical because DoorDash or Uber get the lion’s share of the benefit of the sale.”
The B.C. government placed a temporary 15 per cent cap on meal-delivery companies’ fees placed on entire orders, and then upped that to be a permanent 20 per cent cap at the start of this year.
DoorDash Inc. last spring launched a partnership with a Toronto cannabis retailer to offer cannabis delivery in that city. It does not yet facilitate cannabis deliveries in B.C.
Vancouver-based Dhami recently opened his 16th Inspired Cannabis store in Canada — a flagship location at 1032 Robson St. in Vancouver that includes a large showroom for a variety of cannabis brands. He operates six other stores in B.C., two in Saskatchewan and seven in Ontario.
Delivery sales currently generate a low single-digit percentage of his revenue, and his goal is to grow that business to be about seven per cent of his sales, he said.
“We’ll probably inquire with Uber for more information about what the deliveries, and the whole process, would look like.”
Retail Cannabis Council of B.C. executive director Jaclynn Pehota said she hopes the move does not encourage Uber Eats customers to search for the lowest-cost products that have the highest concentrations of THC.
