Quebec cannabis stores to close 3 days a week due to product shortages

The Société québécoise du cannabis (SQDC) has announced that as of Monday, October 29, all of the Quebec cannabis stores across the province will work on reduced hours due to supply shortages.

SQDC outlets will no longer be open on Mondays, Tuesdays or Wednesdays.

The chronic shortages mean that the province’s 12 shops will be exclusively open from Thursday to Sunday until stock supplies are stabilized.

Nous croyons ainsi pouvoir servir nos clients de meilleure façon en concentrant nos heures d’ouverture sur quatre jours et leur éviter autant que possible de se déplacer inutilement.

— La_SQDC (@La_SQDC) October 26, 2018

“We are sincerely sorry for the inconvenience,” said the SQDC in a statement. “We believe that we can serve our customers better by concentrating our business hours over four days.”

Officials claim the reduced hours will prevent customers from lining up when the majority of products are out of stock.

Quebecers will also have trouble finding available stock through the website. As of Saturday evening, 55 of the 68 products listed on the SQDC’s website are out of stock.

SQDC

Earlier this week, Quebec’s government-run cannabis stores say there have been 53,300 online sales and 84,850 in-store transactions that total 138,150 for the first week of operation in all 12 outlets.

The SQDC continued to say that despite the first day, sales have been in line with their initial projects and problems with their producers have complicated their short-term cannabis stock, a problem they attributed to “limited offerings from suppliers and production cycle limits.”

The Societé québecoise du cannabis expects to have supply issues for several months as the provincial cannabis industry matures and grows to cope with customer demand.

The SQDC hasn’t said how long its stores will operate under reduced hours and said that no layoffs would occur due to the schedule changes. Employees will still work on days when the stores are closed to process product deliveries.

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