This marks the first time in four years that Green Wednesday has beat out Black Friday, which saw a 75% increase in sales.
Data from both Akerna (Nasdaq: KERN) and Headset agreed that Green Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving) sales in 2020 easily beat Black Friday sales for the first time. Cannabis consumers clearly wanted to make their purchases in advance of Thanksgiving and were less inclined to go shopping afterward.
Business intelligence from Akerna found that cannabis consumers spent approximately $238 million during the 2020 Thanksgiving weekend (11/25 – 11/28). Green Wednesday was the single biggest sales day of 2020 with an 80% increase in daily sales. The average basket size for medical consumers was $122.64, representing a 5% increase over the daily average. Adult-use consumers spent, on average, $78.14, which is an increase of approximately 12%.
This also marks the first time in four years that Green Wednesday has beat out Black Friday, which also saw a 75% increase in sales.
“Once again, Thanksgiving ranks in the top 5 cannabis sales days of the year,” said James Ahrendt, Business Intelligence Architect, Akerna. “As we have noted throughout the year, daily sales averages have increased over the last year as a result of COVID. Since average days show such notable year-over-year growth, the percentage of growth during the holidays doesn’t seem as large. However, this is because more people, in general, are purchasing cannabis.”
Additional Insights
Sales by Product Category
Flower – 46.8% Cartridge/Pens – 30.2% Concentrates – 13.9% Infused Edibles – 7.4% Other – 1.7%Sales by Age Group
Under 30 – 29.2% 30-40 –30.6% 50 – 19.3% 50-60 –11.9% Over 60 – 9%Sales by Gender
Female – 36.7% Male – 63.3%
Photo by IRINA KROLEVETC/Getty Images
Headset Green Wednesday
Here are the sales totals across all Headset Insights Premium Markets for Green Wednesday, Thanksgiving, and Black Friday 2020, plus the relative growth over last year’s totals for the same days:
Total Sales (CA, CO, NV, OR, WA)
| 2019 | 2020 | YoY Growth | |
| Green Wednesday | $29.4M | $33.2M | 12.9% |
| Thanksgiving | $9.7M | $11.2M | 15.2% |
| Black Friday | $31.4M | $31.1M | -0.9% |
Headset noted that that overall sales increased this year on Green Wednesday and Thanksgiving, but sales on Black Friday were actually slightly lower this year than last year. The company said, “This is big news because this would be the first time we’ve seen a year-over-year decrease in such an important retail holiday in cannabis.”
“Also very notable, this is the first time that total sales have been higher on Green Wednesday than on Black Friday. Headset fans may remember that data analyst Cooper Ashley predicted this in his recent interview on Cheddar TV. “
Sales Increase vs Previous 4 Weeks
| 2019 Sales Lift | 2020 Sales Lift | |
| Green Wednesday | 59.5% | 40.2% |
| Black Friday | 16.3% | -4.7% |
“Here we can see that this year both holidays had less of an increase in sales versus the previous four weeks. Green Wednesday’s relative increase dropped from around 60% last year to 40% this year, whereas Black Friday had 16% growth in 2019 and actually had about 5% fewer sales in 2020 versus the previous four Fridays. Both of these decreases could be related to the recent uptick in COVID-19 cases and increased lockdown measures in many recreational cannabis states.
And lastly, we can see that on both holidays average basket size was much larger in 2020 than in 2019, which is something we’ve seen throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Basket Size
| Date | 2019 | 2020 | Growth |
| Green Wednesday | $38.84 | $48.38 | 25% |
| Black Friday | $41.85 | $50.56 | 21% |