Sales blitz and speedbumps for Ontario Cannabis Store’s e-commerce site

The Ontario Cannabis Store, the government-sponsored online cannabis retailer – and, for now, the only Ontario outlet selling marijuana in Canada’s most-populated province – is experiencing a blitz of business but also some glitches.

The Ontario Cannabis Store has registered 38,000 sales since going live at midnight local time, said Ontario Premier Doug Ford, according to a tweet from Newstalk 1010 radio in Toronto.

But some consumers have reported that the site is already running out of strains and that the age verification system is glitchy.

One consumer reported that when he tried to go through the Ontario Cannabis Store’s “age gate,” he got a “Page Not Found” message.

A spokesman for Shopify, the technology firm that designed the Ontario Cannabis Store’s e-commerce website – as well as the marijuana shopping sites for British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island – referred questions to an OCS spokesman, who disputed claims about issues.

“OCS.ca is performing well with no issues to report,” Daffyd Roderick, director of communications for OCS, wrote in an email to Marijuana Business Daily. “Consumers are successfully visiting and completing transactions.

There are about 50 products listed on the site, with the cheapest being grams of flower starting at $8 a gram.