CBD products are pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars in consumer sales each year, according to a 2017 Brightfield Group report.
By 2020, the CBD sector of the domestic cannabis industry may top $1 billion in sales. The U.S. Congress is more open than ever to fully legalize the hemp plant, and with that comes a wave of consumer intrigue and demand. SingleSeed, a subsidiary of the publicly-traded holding company SinglePoint, has taken notice.
SingleSeed began in 2014 by placing payment terminals in dispensaries. The payment platform allowed clients to accept mobile payments (even via text message) and to jump the hurdle of cash-only transactions in this the retail space.
Needing to keep pace with the cannabis industry’s rapid evolution, SingleSeed “morphed” into an e-commerce platform, Ralston says. The new SingleSeed.com shop launched on April 6 without any marketing or advertising.
The hook? SingleSeed is selling U.S.-grown hemp-based CBD products. Lots of them.
After years spent observing the undulations of the cannabis market, Ralston and his company began this new endeavor by seeking out the most popular products that consumers are demanding. More and more, Ralston found, Google search trends and consumer data were pointing to hemp-based extractions. CBD product sales are skyrocketing, after all.
The relaunch of SingleSeed brought a variety of products to its platform: Amp’d Up Energy Shots, BioActive CBD capsules, CBD distillate, CBD crumble and more.
“Our goal is to be driving the message of high-quality, locally sourced CBD—and helping with the naturopathic [solution to] what some people might feel like they have,” Ralston says. “Whether that’s anxiety or stress or headaches, we’re trying to just supply an all-natural product that can help lead to that.”
The timing of SingleSeed’s relaunch coincided by happenstance with U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell introducing a hemp cultivation bill that will legalize the entirety of the hemp plant.
“More news like this—McConnell coming out saying what he said—it enables not only the general public but also banks and other large entities to say that there is a difference between hemp and cannabis,” Ralston says. “They’re two different markets, right? Two different plants.”
With little in the way of formal public outreach programs, though, broad swaths of the American public are left without a way to navigate the intricacies of those plants. From state to state, of course, public policy differs. Dozens of states allow the use of medical marijuana, but 15 states limit that access to CBD products only. Ralston sees a market in those states, but he’s looking to the rest of the American consumer base, as well.
“I think that you’ll see a lot of traction in those areas where people can’t get cannabis,” Ralston says. “But I think there are also people in states that are legal—they don’t want to have the impression that they are going to smoke or ingest a byproduct of cannabis. Hemp-based CBD can kind of solve both of those areas.”
These days, if it seems like SinglePoint is launching something every week, that’s not far from the truth.
The company is developing a cryptocurrency exchange and wallet, a blockchain platform, a cannabis delivery tracking system and—ultimately—its own line of CBD capsules, with a goal to complement its own e-commerce platform by selling through Amazon.
And SingleSeed itself, as a sales platform, is just getting started. Ralston says he foresees a fruitful 2018 with more acquisitions in the e-commerce space. “A big portion of our revenue this year and leading into next, I believe, is going to come from e-commerce CBD sites,” he says. “Even though we have our own, we’re still looking to buy others. Acquisition is a big thing in public companies, so we’re always interested.”
Top photo courtesy of Adobe Stock
