Eaze

This past weekend, our teams from Colorado, California, and Florida volunteered at #Pride events in Denver, Los Angeles, and St. Pete. It was heartwarming to see everyone come together, from corporate to retail, to support our local communities. Thank you Green Dragon and Eaze teams for bringing #cannabis and LGBTQ+ communities together and spreading the love. ❤️

Do you want to work in an exciting and great place to work? Come work for us at Eaze! If you have multi-unit experience and enjoy traveling to retail locations to partner with operations and our employees, then you should apply! We are seeking a Human Resources Business Partner to support our Florida retail locations. This is a great opportunity to become part of a growing operation in Florida, Colorado, California, and Michigan. We are on a mission to enhance safe access to legal #cannabis, educate people about cannabis as a tool for wellness, and drive smart cannabis policies. We want you to become part of our team to support our employees, patients, and growth! Apply now! https://lnkd.in/gwrpyyi9

Breaking Industry News 🚨 "The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has made a historic decision—agreeing with the top federal health agency and proposing to move #marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA)"! - Via Marijuana Moment Read the full article here: https://bit.ly/3WmZbFb 🚀👏

Tom Grebenstein, our Florida market leader for Green Dragon, had the opportunity to speak with News 4 in Jacksonville about our growing facility in Palatka. As you’ll see, we are nearing completion of the doubling of our cultivation capacity from 32K sq ft of canopy to 64K sq ft. With the progression of the adult use ballot initiative (Amendment #3), we expect to double again by mid-2025 to 128K sq ft. This expansion will add another 100 jobs in Palatka. Check out the video to see our facility in action! The product quality has come a long way since our first few harvests in 2023. Eaze #eaze #greendragon #cannabis #msos https://lnkd.in/gGtVvtwU

#BTS of our Engineering Department visiting the San Francisco depot! 🌉 Featured is our Regional Inventory Manager, Alex, showing the team the workflow through our inventory systems. Our CEO, Cory, also visited the Bay Area depot and went through discussing Eaze workflows.

Eaze is honored to announce that we will be partnering with Last Prisoner Project through their Stickers for Change Project. ⁠ Available at both Eaze locations in San Diego and Orange County, are now stickers where all proceeds will go directly back to Last Prisoner Project. ⁠ Learn more about the Last Prisoner Project mission on our blog: https://bit.ly/3OsoLE6

Eaze is honored to announce that we will be partnering with Last Prisoner Project through their Stickers for Change Project. ⁠ Available at both Eaze locations in San Diego and Orange County, are now stickers where all proceeds will go directly back to Last Prisoner Project. ⁠ Learn more about the Last Prisoner Project mission on our blog: https://bit.ly/3OsoLE6

You may have heard that Uber is shutting down Drizly, an Uber Company. Here are my thoughts on the move. What was Drizly's model and how does that portend for the future of Eaze? Drizly is similar to Eaze's original business model where it was purely a 'marketplace' connecting customers and licensed liquor retailers. Critically, Drizly (a) does not hold inventory and (b) does not employ the delivery drivers. Eaze does both. Drizly was "designed to be fully compliant with local regulations in more than 1,600 cities across 33 US states" and "worked with thousands of local retailers." Drizly had an app and provided fulfillment software to Liquor stores with two primary revenue sources: (1) delivery fees and a 'take rate' on sales via their app (assume 20%); and   (2) advertising Given Uber was already fully scaled on the consumer-side by 2020, Uber acquired Drizly to jump start the 'supply' side of their alcohol/beverage expansion and for the tech to deliver compliantly with State and local regulations. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said at the time, “alcohol remains a key driver of demand from consumers in the US. On the Uber Eats app searches for alcohol items have spiked by 200% in the last year alone.” Once the alcohol 'merchants' were onboarded to Uber/Eats along with any regulatory-tech implemented, then it's a pretty clear decision that there should not be a standalone Drizly app that needs to be separately marketed and supported. Its embedded in Uber/Eats apps. How will Uber approach Cannabis in the US?  There is regulatory differences in the US between alcohol and cannabis. Cannabis needs to be delivered by W2 employees of a licensed retailer, whereas alcohol deliveries can be completed by 1099 employees or 3rd party couriers. Uber will either need to once-again acquire a company to quickly scale into the category, or they will need to partner with a few select 'merchants.' How does Eaze consider the risk of Uber entering the space? The direct analog to Eaze would be Gopuff. GoPuff purchased BevMo! and both directly competes with Uber for on demand delivery of convenience items and partners with them. GoPuff holds inventory and has its own driver network. Both BevMo and GoPuff are in the Top 5 beverage/alcohol merchants on Uber/Eats in LA. Ultimately, when Uber enters the market Eaze will be very well positioned to be a leading merchant on the platform given: (1) Statewide footprint in California, Colorado and Florida (2) We can deliver for less cost and with better ETAs then other potential merchant partners due to our scaled operations (3) Purchasing data from $1B+ in cannabis sales and 10M+ deliveries Therefore, as the most-scaled delivery platform in cannabis, Eaze stands to be a beneficiary of Uber entering the market. We produce 40%+ margins per transaction and 20%+ at the store-level. Our 2M+ registered users will also continue to purchase directly. We look forward to the chance to partner Jessie Young :)

Uber is shutting down Drizly, an Uber Company after purchasing them 3 years ago for $1.1 billion. And as Cory Azzalino pointed out yesterday, it just makes sense considering Uber has now onboarded a majority of the alcohol retailers to their own platform. No need for redundant apps as the relationships (and some of the tech) were truly where the value was. On top of it, retailers derived little value from using Drizly because they did not own the user experience or any of the data associated with users or transactions -- Drizly and Uber did. Sure, Drizly may have been a savior for retailers peak covid and helped to drive online sales when in-store was shut down, but there was no long term value for retailers as they could not build their digital customer base with the Drizly platform. Why use a platform where you're just renting customer? A similar scenario may play out in cannabis over the next few years as large mainstream companies like Uber and DoorDash look to enter the cannabis market in the US and Canada. Right now the two companies most well positioned for a deal with Uber or DoorDash are Jane and Dutchie as they have 1) the marketplace + regulatory technology and 2) the retailer relationships. But as Cory (CEO of Eaze) also pointed out yesterday, very few retailers actually benefit materially from using platforms like Uber and DoorDash except for those who are positioned to do so with their own delivery team and focused business model. So while the goal will be to onboard as many retailers as possible, a company like Eaze who owns their own supply chain including retail licenses and has a delivery network themselves, will stand to benefit more than your average retailer from a company like Uber or DoorDash entering cannabis. All super interesting things to keep your on eye on in our industry. For your average retailer, the smartest thing you can do right now is continue to invest in technology you can OWN and building YOUR digital presence without the help of marketplaces.