When I was handling procurement for a cannabis shop, I signed a lot of vendor invoices. What I almost never knew was whether the price on them was fair. Was the store across town paying the same for that case of gummies? Less? I had no way to tell, and no time to find out.
Most Washington retailers are in the same spot. Here’s why it happens, why it matters more than it looks, and a free way to find out where you stand.
Why wholesale prices drift
- Reorders creep. A price goes up a little on a reorder and nobody notices, because the order looks the same as last time.
- Menus change constantly. Vendor menus update weekly. Keeping track of what you paid last month versus this month is a job on its own.
- The stores that ask, get. Buyers who push back with numbers tend to get better pricing. Buyers who don’t have the numbers can’t push back.
- Nobody has time. Checking every line of every invoice against the market is exactly the kind of work that gets skipped in a busy week.
Why a few percent matters
Small gaps add up fast. As an example: a store that buys $40,000 a month wholesale and pays 3% more than it needs to is leaving $1,200 a month on the table. That’s over $14,000 a year, straight out of margin, without selling a single extra unit.
Ask for fair, not special
Washington’s rules work in your favor here. The Liquor and Cannabis Board’s guidance on “money’s worth” (WAC 314-55-018 and WSLCB Bulletin 23-01) lists giving one retailer a discount over another as a prohibited practice for producers and processors. So the right ask isn’t a special deal. It’s simple: “I’d like the same price other stores are getting.” That’s a fair request, and it’s one a vendor can say yes to.
This isn’t legal advice. If you have questions about a specific arrangement, check with your WSLCB compliance consultant.
Let Connect check for you
Checking every line by hand takes hours, and you’d need to know what other stores are paying. That’s the part Connect handles. It compares your purchases against what other stores paid for the same products using TopShelfData, and shows you the gap by vendor and product.
Try asking: “Am I overpaying compared to my competitors?”
You can try it with a free Wholesale Overpay Audit on your last 90 days of purchases. You keep the report either way.
Nathan McKnight, founder of Connect
