It's July 7th. A retailer texts your sales rep asking for 10 more units of live rosin before Thursday. Your rep has no idea what's actually sitting in the warehouse. They call the ops team. Ops pulls up a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is two days out of date. Meanwhile, the retailer needs an answer in 30 minutes or they're calling a competitor.
That's what being underprepared for 7/10 actually looks like in wholesale.
Dab Day isn't just a consumer holiday. For concentrate brands and distributors, it's a pressure test. Every year, July 10th drives a concentrated (pun intended) surge in retail demand for oils, wax, live resin, rosin, vape carts, and infused pre-rolls. The brands and wholesalers who plan ahead capture real revenue. The ones who don't scramble.
Here's how to make sure you're in the first group.
What Is 7/10, and Why Should Wholesale Operators Care?
If you've heard of 4/20 but not 7/10, here's the short version: flip "710" upside down on a calculator and it spells "OIL." That's the whole bit. July 10th has become the cannabis concentrate holiday, born out of a tight-knit community of extract enthusiasts and hashmakers that's grown steadily since the early 2010s. The first official 710 Cup was held in Denver in 2013, and the holiday has gained momentum every year since.
Today it's big business. U.S. concentrate sales grew from $1.9 billion in 2020 to $2.4 billion in 2022, with projections from Brightfield Group putting the market at $3.2 billion by 2024. Infused pre-rolls, which straddle the line between flower and concentrate, saw units sold double from 58.5 million to 110.6 million between April 2022 and April 2024, according to Custom Cones USA data reported by Greenway Magazine. Every year, July 10th is one of the biggest concentrate sales days on the retail calendar. The brands and distributors that supply that demand don't get there by accident.
That demand doesn't start at the dispensary counter. It starts upstream, with the brands and distributors who fill the shelves.
The Wholesale Ripple Effect Nobody Talks About
Here's the thing most 710 content ignores: it's written for retailers and consumers. The guides tell dispensaries to stock up, run promos, and hire extra staff. What they don't cover is what happens on the supply side when retail demand spikes hard and fast.
For wholesale operators, 7/10 creates a specific operational challenge. Retailers place larger-than-usual concentrate orders in the days leading up to July 10th. Some do it weeks in advance, locking in inventory from the brands they trust most. Others wait until the last minute and start firing off texts and emails to every distributor in their contact list.
If your wholesale operation isn't ready for that influx, a few things happen:
- Orders get promised that can't be fulfilled because nobody has real-time inventory visibility
- Metrc transfers get rushed, which is where compliance errors creep in
- Your best retail accounts get let down at a moment that matters to them, and they remember it
- Revenue slips to whoever has inventory available. Even if your product is better
The brands and distributors that consistently win 710 start planning in May and June, not the week before.
What Smart Wholesale Operators Are Doing Before July 10th
Audit your concentrate inventory now.
Before you think about promotions or outreach, know what you actually have. That means live resin, rosin, solventless hash, vape carts, and infused pre-rolls. Get down to the batch, the CoA, and the available quantity across every warehouse location. If your team has to make calls or pull spreadsheets to answer that question, that's your first problem to fix.
Lock in purchase orders from retailers early.
The brands and distributors that sell out on 710 aren't lucky. They started collecting POs weeks in advance. That means proactive outreach to your key retail accounts. Not waiting for inbound texts. Tell them what you have, what you're featuring for the holiday, and what quantities you can hold. If you're running a limited drop of a premium SKU (single-source rosin, rare terp blend, THCA diamonds), give your best accounts first access.
Plan your limited SKU drops strategically.
710 is a better holiday for premium concentrate SKUs than almost any other window of the year. Consumers are specifically looking for something special. Brands that release limited runs of high-end products like solventless rosin, live resin, and rare terpene blends use 710 to prompt trade-up behavior and position themselves as innovators. If you're distributing for multiple brands, coordinate with them on which SKUs to spotlight and when.
Align your pricing with your retailers' promo structure.
Retailers need margin room to run 710 deals. If your wholesale pricing doesn't give them that flexibility, they'll run promos on whatever brand does. Have a conversation with your key accounts about what they're planning and whether your pricing supports it. You don't have to discount your whole catalog. Targeted flexibility on the right SKUs goes a long way.
Get your compliance documents in order ahead of time.
Every transfer needs a manifest. Every product needs a CoA attached. 710 isn't the week to be hunting for paperwork. Make sure your CoAs are current, accessible, and attached to the right inventory before order volume picks up.
The Part Nobody Warns You About: Operations Under Pressure
A 41% revenue spike at retail translates to a significant order volume increase on the wholesale side. Most cannabis operations tools aren't designed to help you handle that gracefully.
If you're managing inventory in spreadsheets, or in a system that doesn't sync live with Metrc, here's what happens when order volume spikes:
Your rep promises inventory that's already been sold. Or inventory that's in transit. Or inventory that's been quarantined pending a QC review. Then the scramble starts. You're manually checking multiple sources, calling the warehouse, checking Metrc directly. And in the background, your team is trying to generate transfer manifests for a rush of orders while making sure nothing gets miscounted.
That's where compliance errors happen. That's where customer relationships take damage.
Distru, a cannabis ERP platform built for licensed operators, is designed to prevent exactly this. Inventory syncs live with Metrc, pinging the system 100+ API calls per minute so what your sales reps see is what's actually available, not what was available yesterday. When an order gets placed, inventory is updated in real time. When a transfer gets created, the manifest is generated inside Distru without your team having to open a separate window in Metrc.
For concentrate brands and distributors specifically, DistruCommerce is two things at once: a live wholesale menu that auto-populates directly from your ERP inventory, and a marketplace with an active network of retail buyers already using the platform to discover and order from brands. That second part matters for 710. Retailers already in the DistruCommerce network can find your menu, browse your CoAs, and place orders without ever texting your rep. New buyers can find you too.
The AI Order Agent handles line-item entry on inbound orders, saving DistruCommerce customers 40+ hours per week on order processing. When 710 requests come in volume , and they will, your team isn't manually entering each one.
How to Use DistruCommerce to Get Ahead of Dab Day
If you're already on DistruCommerce, here's how to set yourself up before July 10th.
Update your wholesale menu now. Make sure your concentrate SKUs are featured prominently with current CoAs attached, accurate inventory counts, and product descriptions that actually help buyers make decisions. A live resin with no terpene profile listed is a harder sell than one with strain name, extraction method, and batch notes. Buyers in the marketplace are comparing menus. Give them a reason to order from yours.
Build a 710 collection. DistruCommerce lets you organize your menu with custom collections. Create a 7/10 Drops section featuring your headline SKUs. Give it a name that signals exclusivity. Retailers browsing the marketplace in early July should know immediately what you're featuring for the holiday.
Let buyers self-serve. Retailers in the DistruCommerce network can place orders directly without going through a rep. That's the point. During your highest-demand window, your reps should be working relationships and upsells. Not processing order entry one line item at a time.
Reach out to your accounts early. DistruCommerce menus are shareable. Send your menu link to key retail accounts in late June with a note about your 710 lineup. Let them browse and pre-order before the rush hits. The brands locking in purchase orders in the first week of July are the ones that sell out.
Not yet on DistruCommerce? Ask your CSM about getting set up before July 10th. If you're not a Distru customer yet, this is worth a look, especially if your team is still coordinating 710 orders over text and email.
710 Is Not 420. Don't Plan It Like 420
One last thing worth saying: 7/10 is a concentrate-specific holiday. That's actually an advantage.
The consumer who goes out of their way to celebrate 710 knows what they want. They're looking for premium SKUs, trusted brands, and product that matches their palate. They're willing to spend on quality. A 710 buyer picking up a $60 gram of live rosin is more engaged with your brand than someone grabbing a budget eighth on 4/20.
That means your 710 wholesale strategy shouldn't try to move volume on everything. It should push depth on your best concentrate SKUs. Give your retail accounts the inventory, the documentation, and the pricing flexibility to present those products well. And make sure your operations can handle the demand without friction.
The brands that nail 710 year over year aren't the ones with the flashiest promotions. They're the ones whose ops team never has to scramble.
Ready to get your wholesale operation dialed in before Dab Day? Schedule a demo with Distru and see how DistruCommerce can help your concentrate brand or distribution team manage inventory, simplify ordering, and show up for your retail accounts when it counts.
