The Impact of Cannabis Customer Perceptions on Its Sustainability in South Africa’s eThekwini Municipality

Abstract

Globally, there has been a new approach to the cannabis industry in that it is now viewed as a legal industry rather than an illegal one. South Africa has now formally joined the countries that use legal cannabis sales to create jobs and grow their local economies. The knowledge gap is in its sustainability due to past perceptions associated with illegality. The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of cannabis customer perceptions towards the sustainability of the legal cannabis SMMEs situated in South Africa's eThekwini municipality. This study follows a pragmatism research design and makes use of both quantitative and qualitative approaches to achieve the purpose of the study. Data is extracted from the Google online reviews (i.e those are the selected 30 stores in 20 suburbs that received 571 reviews) and literature reviews. Google maps capture provides data regarding customer reviews and store ratings. Data were analysed using Microsoft excel. Findings show positive cannabis perceptions from areas with racially diverse customers and signs of stigmatisation in black communities and thereby threatening the sustainability of the cannabis industry. It is recommended that the national and local regulators should adopt an approach that discounts stigmatisation and protect customers and cannabis SMMEs of all races to ensure the sustainability of the industry. The contribution of the article is in its use of Institutional Theory and Consumer behaviour theory to view the eThekwini cannabis customers ‘perceptions and suggest long-term sustainability measures.