The Broccoli Report
Friday, December 2, 2022
Time to read: 9 minutes, 44 seconds. Contains 1949 words.
A Drawer of One’s Own: What one lockable furniture brand reveals about the state of cannabis safety.
Among the flurry of brand emails filling my inbox before Black Friday, one stood out. Not for the generous discount but because this brand—Forti Goods, maker of lockable furniture—announced it was going offline for the rest of November and December. In the email, founder and CEO Sharon Celek Kevil explained this would be a time to redesign the tech within Forti’s products and that, as of that email, all of their furniture products would be marked out of stock until relaunch in early 2023.
Hitting pause when it’s time for serious, top-to-bottom streamlining makes sense, but at this time of year? That’s a big gamble. Many, if not most, small businesses rely on the holiday shopping frenzy to offset slower months, and cannabis businesses everywhere are cutting costs to weather a predicted spending slowdown in 2024.
So, I reached out to Kevil to learn more about this decision. I wanted to know why she chose to go dark during the busiest time of year and what I (and the rest of the cannabis industry) might be missing in consumers’ shifting mindsets around the safety of cannabis. Kevil’s insights answered those questions and illuminated a lot more. Keep scrolling (or subscribe) to read the whole interview.
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