P2PI LIVE: Sound Bites from a Cannabis Retailer

Cresco Labs’ Cory Rothschild took the P2PI LIVE keynote stage on Oct. 20 in Chicago to share the origin of the company’s cannabis brands and retail business, as well as how they’re expanding their customer base and driving innovation at retail. His title is national retail president.

Cresco Labs currently operates 50 Sunnyside cannabis dispensaries, with plans to expand to 150 locations by 2023 — giving it the largest footprint in the industry.

Here are some sound bites from Rothschild’s discussion with Lori Pugh Marcum, events content director at the Path to Purchase Institute.

“My whole history has been in consumer brands, building consumer products. And so, as I had the opportunity to learn more about the cannabis space in 2018, I was fascinated by how significant the impact of cannabis would be, not just in the U.S. but in the world. … There's no consumer product category in the world that covers so many occasions in people's lives. … This will be one of the largest categories in the world by a mile.”

“I remember Q4 of 2018. We eked out … call it $16-17 million dollars [in sales]. Today, four years later, we're close to a billion dollars annually.”

“The idea that you can create a cannabis shop that could be great for those who are extremely sophisticated and knowledgeable, but also for those who have never used cannabis before, is still somewhat of a foreign thought. People ask me all the time, is it possible to do both of those things? My answer is, yes.”

“When I go to Sunnyside and you have a businesswoman in line, in front of a college student, in front of the construction worker, in front of … I mean. It’s the ultimate melting pot — all there for the same reason.”

“We get a lot of people coming on their way to or home from work, picking up what they need on a regular basis. If you know what you need and you know what you like, we need to create a fast, seamless experience. We also have a really sophisticated online order that’s higher than the majority in the industry. And we can transact with people really quickly when they order advance pickup in-store. That has to be differentiated from the journey of someone who wants to learn or have an educational experience — ‘I have no idea what I'm doing.’ We get plenty of those people.”

“We have the benefit of building a retailer. We're not trying to retrofit tens of thousands of locations. I feel very lucky to be building a new-age retailer from scratch at scale, quickly.”

“As we look to the next year, as we finish an important acquisition and merger that's happening with a company in 16 states, to be the most ubiquitous retailer … it'll start to feel really different. You can go to Boston or Chicago or New York or Jacksonville, some of the largest cities around the country, and have a similar experience using the same loyalty program.”

“That, combined with really investing in our people to make sure that we have the best experience. It's really those two pieces that should come together in a great way.”