Bundles, Discounts & Coupons

Most companies (55%) offer bundles of some sort. These can be very useful when you are trying to decide if you want to use oils, tinctures, topicals, gummies or vapes. They can also be useful if you are looking to find the best taste or if you are buying for more than one person. In one household, for example, you may have one person who is trying to achieve better sleep while another is looking for help with anxiety and stress while a third is looking to relieve pain.

Bundles can also be a useful and cost-effective way to buy, for example, if you buy 3 sets of tinctures, you may be able to save a significant amount of money.

The average bundle price (which includes a variety of bundle components) is $197.50. The average discount for the bundle as compared to buying each component separately is 20% a pretty reasonable discount that works out to be $51.

49% of companies offer discount coupons which average to be a 14% discount.

Half of these companies offer free shipping if the total purchase is above, on average, $73.

Conclusions

It can naturally be very difficult for consumers to make informed decisions.

The market for CBD’s rapid growth is coupled with a major lack of regulation, making it a wild, wild west in terms of products’ potencies and especially pricing.

Let’s weigh the different factors that may affect the pricing and spur volatility in the market.

Variables that can affect the final price

Achieving certified organic status is neither easy nor cheap. It can be an expensive, years-long process. Some companies, like Charlotte’s Web, have been farming organically for years while others are completely new to the organic world. In some states, there is no provision for certifying industrial hemp as organic. Lazarus Natural’s in Oregon, for instance, grows their products organically, follows the rules of the Oregon Farm Bureau, but still doesn’t provide organic certification.

Not all extraction methods cost the same. Most companies rely on either a traditional ethanol extraction or the newer and more expensive CO2 extraction method. Some companies use a combination of both.

To ensure quality, some companies utilize 3rd party testing. While this gives consumers the ability to know what they are getting, it can ultimately be an expensive addition.

Potencies for the different product families (ie. tincture, gummies, capsules, pet care, topicals, isolates, vapes, and bundles) vary. This is partly due to just how much CBD manufacturers can “pack” into a particular product family based on the chemistry and physical properties.

We are just at the beginning of getting real data for these values, as opposed to anecdotal reports of “what worked for my cousin Jane or my brother Joe.” Once more of that data is available, you will likely see more uniformity across the market.

But overall, there does not seem to be a concrete explanation for the wide disparity of prices of CBD per mg in any one family of products.

So, what are some potential factors for the major discrepancies we found?

Weed Greed. We hate to list this first, but this is just about the simplest explanation. What else can explain huge price disparities when you normalize for all the other variables? Some companies may have a glitzy website with bells, whistles and beautiful pictures while another has a long list of blog articles, but can that really explain a 10-fold difference? It’s hard to imagine.

Without regulations, the market will charge what it can get. The FDA is just getting around to determining if CBD should be labeled a drug, a supplement or something else, so perhaps there are people who figure they should take advantage while they can.

The DEA says it is illegal, the 2018 Farm Bill says it’s not, and the FDA is … well, thinking about it. It’s likely that some entrepreneurs are simply asking themselves “why not?”

Farming methods and costs may differ from region to region. As previously mentioned, some farms are going through the costly process of attaining organic certification. Some can’t or aren’t interested.

Hemp farming can be labor intensive and time consuming if they are trying to cross-breed or clone more plants. If some farms have decided to use climate-controlled grow domes instead of growing their plants the old-fashioned way, this could very well increase the costs.

And, of course, security may be a concern on some farms, which poses yet additional costs.

Staff/Employee costs may make a difference for some companies. Do they have an extensive scientific staff to develop new strains, new formulations or new purification methods? Do they have extensive customer service staff? Do they have brick-and-mortar stores or are all sales online? All of these factors can influence prices.

Do they have an extensive scientific staff to develop new strains, new formulations or new purification methods? Do they have extensive customer service staff? Do they have brick-and-mortar stores or are all sales online? All of these factors can influence prices. Many companies are young and they may need to have a high cash-flow. When you need to pay back investors or repay loans taken out to cover start-up costs, it’s not surprising to imagine that some companies are taking steps to maximize cash on hand.

Any combination of these may be at play. Eventually, the CBD market will likely stabilize somewhere in between the extremes, but until then, we gathered a list of the most affordable (but quality) CBD oil products including tinctures, gummies, pet products, capsules and softgels, vapes and e-liquids so can easily find the best affordable brand to buy from.

Infographic

Below you can find an infographic that summarize all the highlights from our research. If you wish to use it on your site or your social media you can download it and additional images here for your convenience.

For additional information regarding this report please contact us at info@leafreport.com