Hi, everyone. Welcome to Planet 13 Holdings 2021 fourth quarter and annual financial results conference call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded on March 28, 2021. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. Instructions will be provided at the time for research analysts to queue up for questions. If anyone has any difficulty hearing the conference, please press star followed by the zero for operator assistance at any time. I will now turn the call over to Mark Kuindersma, Head of Investor Relations for Planet 13 Holdings.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. Planet 13 Holdings fourth quarter and full year 2021 financial results were released today. The press release, the company's annual report on Form 10-K, including the MD&A financial statements, are available on the SEC's website, EDGAR and SEDAR, as well as on our website, planet13holdings.com. Before I pass the call over to management, we'd like to remind listeners that portions of today's discussion include forward-looking statements. There can be no assurances that such information will prove to be accurate, or that management's expectations or estimates of future developments, circumstances, or results will materialize. As a result of these risks and uncertainties, the results or events predicted in these forward-looking statements may differ materially from actual results or events.
Risk factors that could affect results are detailed in the company's public filings that are made available with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and on SEDAR, and we encourage listeners to read those statements in conjunction with today's call. The forward-looking statements in the conference call are made as of the date of this call. Planet 13 disclaims any intention or obligation to update, revise such information except as required by applicable law.
Let's not assume any liability for disclosure relating to any company mentioned herein. In addition, we will refer to both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. For information regarding our non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, please refer to today's press release posted on our website. Planet 13's financial statements are presented in U.S. dollars. The results discussed during this call are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated. On the call today we have Bob Groesbeck, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO, Larry Scheffler, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO, and Dennis Logan, CFO. I'll now pass the call over to Larry Scheffler, Co-Chairman and Co-CEO of Planet 13 Holdings.
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in our fourth quarter and full year call. Today I'm going to discuss the performance in Nevada and California, and have Bob provide an update on our other growth initiatives later on the call. As predicted, after a very strong October, traffic slowed in November, December, driven by a slower tourist traffic, increased concerns around COVID and the traditional seasonality. Overall, for the quarter, Nevada statewide sales were down 5% from Q3. Despite the slower macro market and significantly less tourist traffic, we were able to maintain market share north of 10% for the quarter. It's a testament to the strength of our team that even in a quarter with significantly fewer tourists, who are traditionally our main customers, we're able to maintain our market share.
In Q4 in Nevada, we generated $19.9 million from the SuperStore, $2.6 million from curbside delivery and delivery, and $2.9 million from Medizin, and $1.9 million from wholesale and other. Excuse me. For the full year, we generated $82.7 million from the SuperStore compared to $53 million in 2020. The increase was driven by the expanded floor area and points of sale along with higher tourist traffic. $12.1 million from curbside and delivery compared to $13.9 million. The lower curbside and delivery is consistent with our expectations, as many shoppers prefer the in-store experience. $12.7 million from Medizin and $7 million from wholesale and other compared to $0.7 million and $2.7 million respectively in 2020.
Both Medizin and wholesale were effectively new revenue streams for us in 2020. Examples of us executing our plan to diversify our revenue streams. Overall, we grew Nevada revenue by 62.4% in 2021. The typical trend in Las Vegas is for a slow January and February, with traffic picking up in March and into the summer, trailed by a slow November and December. Last year followed this pattern, and so far this year has also been shadowing that trend, if not more exaggerated due to Omicron and consumer fears. The good news is that we're starting to see a pickup in traffic as we get into spring and closer to the summer. With concerns around COVID subsiding, we expect many events and conferences to be returning in full this year, leading to a strong bounce back in customer traffic.
This isn't the first time we've had to deal with COVID-related slowdown in traffic, and what we proved last time is that as the market returns, Planet 13 will be there to capture the growth. Our owned brands performed exceptionally well during the quarter, growing 21% sequentially in Q4, with strength continuing into Q1, when we broke half a million dollars in wholesale revenue two months in a row. This is especially impressive since the market as a whole has slowed down during this time. According to research firm Headset, Trendi had 5% of the Nevada market for both the concentrate and vapor category in Q4. HaHa had 10% of the edibles and 5% of the beverages.
Turning to California, we saw month-over-month sales growth throughout Q4, with 7.2% sequential growth over Q3. This is despite continued construction-related obstacles that are constraining traffic. Sales have been slower during the start of Q1 2022, as California was hit particularly hard by Omicron in January, leading to staffing issues and slower sales. I'll let Bob add more detail to that. We closed the acquisition of Next Green Wave on March 2nd, which will allow us to bring our incredibly popular brands into California, increase vertical integration to improve margins and drive wholesale, increasing top-line revenue.
We've taken further steps during the quarter to improve the margin profile at the store and expect improvement in our California operations with the addition of Next Green Wave, both on a gross margin basis and an operating profit basis, and we're going to be able to achieve greater operating leverage. With that, I'll pass it over to Dennis to discuss our financials.
Thanks, Larry. Before I begin, I'll just remind everyone that all numbers discussed in today's call are stated in U.S. dollars unless specifically stated otherwise. Q4 2021 is the first quarter that we are reporting under U.S. GAAP, having transitioned to a U.S. domestic issuer status in February of this year. One of the main differences in our financial statements is the accounting for warrants. The company has adopted the U.S. dollar as its functional currency under U.S. GAAP, and since the warrants outstanding, other than the broker warrants, are priced in Canadian dollars, it means that they are treated as a derivative liability as opposed to equity. Any changes in the underlying warrant values are recognized through the income statement as opposed to the statement of changes in equity. One of the other main differences is the treatment of our cannabis under cultivation.
It's no longer subject to the fair value accounting under the IFRS biological asset standards, and the other change is to the treatment of leased assets. Leasing costs are expensed as opposed to being capitalized and amortized as they were under IFRS. The treatment of warrants as a derivative liability results in a large non-cash swing in value that flow through the income statement. An example of this is in our 2024 year results, where the large net loss was mainly driven by the change in the warrant valuation. As Larry mentioned, Q4 in the Nevada market was seasonally slow overall. However, we continued to maintain 10%+ statewide market share, which is our ongoing target. We believe that we have the ability to exceed our 10% market share target during the more tourist-heavy months of April through October.
In California, we saw growth at the Planet 13 Orange County store, where increased customer awareness and our near-perfect Google reviews translated into more customer traffic at the store. Overall, the company generated $29.9 million of revenue in Q4, a 48% increase over last year's quarter. Revenue for the full year was $119.5 million, representing a 70% increase over 2020. Over the course of the year, we saw strong growth in our core Nevada market at our Medizin and SuperStore locations, as well as growing contributions from wholesale sales in Nevada and the addition of California revenue from a Planet 13 Orange County store.
Looking at Q1 2022, as you've heard from most of our peers, we are seeing a softer market due to a mix of traditional seasonality, constrained consumer wallets, and COVID disruptions, leading to some lost revenue. We are starting to see the traditional pickup of tourists into Las Vegas in the back half of March, and if past years are any indication, summer should be an exciting time for Las Vegas and Planet 13. Gross margins in Q4 increased to 54.3%, up from 53.4% over Q3 2021. The increase in gross margin was primarily driven by a shift in the promotional mix of our products across our retail locations as we look to maximize gross profit dollars and profitability over revenue. Gross margin for the full year was 55.2% compared to 49.8% in 2020.
This was partially driven by the increase in our in-house brand as a share of sales, something we are continuing to focus on as a lever to increase our gross margins. Across our businesses, we continue to target gross margins in excess of 50% in the long term. Sales and marketing expense in Q4 was $1.8 million, down marginally from $1.9 million in Q3. We are working hard on maximizing profitability over top-line revenue and are focusing our marketing spend accordingly. Excluding share-based compensation, G&A expenses was higher than we would've liked for both the quarter and the year. The increase was based in part on significant cost increases related to our transition to U.S. GAAP and SEC registration.
Along with that, we are seeing some pricing pressure for labor, but remain focused on cost control and generating cash flow over the long term. As of December 31, 2021, the company had a cash balance of $61.8 million, no debt, and effectively fully paid up on our tax obligations. In a constrained capital market, one where you can't write off interest expense due to 280E, we continue to have one of the cleanest balance sheets in the industry to support our further growth. As Bob will discuss in his comments, the company is progressing with the rollout of its Florida roadmap, expanding our Nevada cultivation, and working on integrating the recently closed Next Green Wave acquisition. We will continue to update the market periodically on the build-out and CapEx requirements of each.
The plans we have in place focus our CapEx spend on the cultivation build-outs in Florida, the expansion of cultivation in Nevada, and each planned Florida retail location will be relatively inexpensive, an inexpensive neighborhood-style store until that market transitions to an adult use market. We have sufficient cash on hand to fund all of our current growth initiatives. With that, I'll pass the call over to Bob.
Thank you, Dennis, and good afternoon, everyone. We've been relatively quiet over the last few months, primarily because we've been focused on d riving future growth for Planet 13 and shareholders. Now, for instance, in Florida, we've got our expansion roadmap, which will take us to our six neighborhood-style dispensaries, which we expect to open in the first and second quarters of 2023, with 12 more to follow closely thereafter. All of these will be supported by cultivation production to bring our award-winning flower strains and product brands to the market.
We are planning to build our cultivation in Central Florida, a prime for efficient distribution across the entire state using modular and prefab building for indoor cultivation and basically the same specs as the Next Green Wave facility in California. This allows us to significantly speed up our time to market, reduce costs, and build in a modular fashion to meet our supply needs, all the while maintaining the quality Planet 13 and Next Green Wave have become known for.
Delivery of the building materials has already commenced at the selected site, with its targeted assembly by the end of Q4, allowing us to get plants in the ground and ready for sale as soon as the first quarter of 2023. This lines up well with our planned retail build-out of our first six neighborhood dispensaries. After a heavy due diligence period and looking at many locations across the state, we started announcing where some of these locations will be. This has been focused on major population and retail areas. This is a template that has led us to success for Medizin in Las Vegas, attracting the local customer, and that's what we anticipate replicating in Florida.
To put it simply, we are on track with the plan we had in place when we acquired the license to have cultivation and six retail stores up and running within a year. As was said earlier, we expect these six neighborhood stores to be followed by 12 more and then by two to three superstores as the Florida market gets closer to an adult use transition. Of course, we'll have the supply to support a wider variety of products at that time. Turning to California and our acquisition of Next Green Wave, this acquisition was one of the few adjusted EBITDA and after-tax cash flow positive cultivation and distributors in the state.
Their management team and cultivation staff have produced positive cash flows for over 18 consecutive months, and we look forward to having that efficiency and consistency not only implemented in our operations, but also our financial statements and resulting in enhanced cash position. We see multiple synergies with that acquisition. For instance, it gives us a chance to expand our popular brands in California, including Trendi and HaHa edibles and beverages, which Larry mentioned earlier, all of which are top five brands in their respective categories in Nevada, per an independent source Headset. Back to Florida with respect to that expansion, it'll allow us to utilize the Next Green Wave executive team to take their proven cannabis construction background and operational successes in California and implement those in Florida.
As a result, Michael Jennings, Next Green Wave CEO and founder, will be leading this exciting project for Planet 13. We couldn't have picked a more suitable candidate for this position. Similar to Nevada, one of our priorities is to increase our own brand share of shelf space. This increased vertical integration drives higher gross margins, increases our brand equity, and acts as a differentiated draw for our retail locations. In Nevada, for instance, our Medizin flower line is a regular reason for locals to visit our store. In fact, it is one of the things our investor email inbox gets asked about most often. In Illinois, while the license is still held up by regulatory and legal delays, we have been talking with landlords and local regulators at various locations in the region while we continue to narrow it down to an ideal location.
In Nevada, we expect the lounge legislation to be finalized in the coming months. In the interim, we are working through various potential approaches in both the short and long term to maximize profitability. We expect to receive approval and begin build-out of the cultivation expansion in Las Vegas within a matter of days. This expansion will add an additional 22,000 ft of indoor premium cultivation space that we've reserved for Medizin flower. Once again, we believe this will unlock improved gross margins, increase customer traffic, and ultimately more profitability. 2021 was a pivotal year for Planet 13.
We acquired the pieces to take us from a single-state operator to a multi-state operator with vertical integration in three states and retail in a fourth. 2022 is all about keeping our heads down and executing as we turn those pieces into the assets that will generate Planet 13's growth and profitability for the future. With that, I again want to thank everybody for participating on the call and would now ask the operator to open the line for questions.
Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. If you have any questions or comments, please indicate so by pressing star one on your touchtone phone. Pressing star two will remove you from the queue should your question be answered. Lastly, while posing your question, please pick up your handset if listening on speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. Please hold while we poll for questions. Once again, that's star one if you have a question or a comment. The first question is coming from Bobby Burleson from Canaccord. Bobby, your line's live.
Good afternoon. Hi. The Florida build-out, what do you see as the most difficult to predict? Constraints in terms of, you know, how smoothly and how quickly you're able to ramp in 2023 and going forward. Is it like permitting and construction around cultivation or, you know, the actual retail site, permitting, you know, et cetera?
Well, this is Bob. Let me jump in, Bobby. Good question. Obviously, you know, with respect to building the cultivation facility and the ancillary production facilities, you know, as I said earlier, you know, we've got material actually on site now. We did that in advance, as far in advance as we could because of the supply chain issues that are affecting everyone in business now. We think we've done a pretty good job of staying ahead of that and the uncertainty associated with supply chain issues. With respect to the retail stores, it's just a function of finding the locations and securing the local approvals. Now, that's not always easy, and it's not always quick, but we're pretty good at navigating that process.
Again, with having Michael on the ground there with us every day and working, you know, with our consultants and real estate representatives, we've had some pretty good success, and we don't anticipate that that's gonna change. We're very optimistic about meeting the schedules we set with the OMMU when we purchased the license.
Okay, great. Maybe just switching gears to Las Vegas and, you know, looks like this is a good tourist season, and you guys should benefit in a big way. Curious kind of what the capacity is of the SuperStore, you know, vis-a-vis, you know, a big surge in tourist traffic, and any kind of early indications that you have in terms of what the, you know, season's gonna look like.
Oh, go ahead, Bob.
Well, yeah, look, we're optimistic. Again, you know, we've been hit over the head with multiple strains of COVID for the last few years, as you know, and we've had a lot of, you know, a lot of steps forward and then, you know, unfortunately we've had to take a step back or two. I'm encouraged now. I see, you know, I see the town starting to fill up again.
I'm very encouraged to see the bookings for concerts and conventions, you know, coming back to pre-COVID numbers. You know, look, there's you know, the inflation aspect that we haven't addressed here that I think is something we all need to take into account. You know, we've seen soaring gas prices. You know, just costs in general have gone up considerably. We're gonna continue to monitor that, but you know, even with those pressures, we've been pretty excited to see a return to normalcy with respect to tourists here in Vegas, and certainly as we come into the summer months.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Okay. The next question is coming from Doug Cooper with Beacon Securities. Your line's live.
Good afternoon, everybody. Guys, I think I missed the quarterly revenue from California. Sorry, I didn't quite catch that number.
Dennis, you got it?
Yeah. No, I'm here. Doug, just give me a second to pull it up. I don't think we mentioned the actual breakdown of California. You know, part of the SEC requirements, we're considered one segment, we don't provide the segmented detail anymore. Just let me dig it up for you. Go to your next question, and I'll come back to you.
Oh, okay. Bob, just on the lounges, I think in your speech there, you talked about in the coming months. Is this? You know, I think we were hoping to have this sort of done by the end of Q1. Has this sort of been delayed, and you know, sort of what are your thoughts on how this progresses?
Well, yeah, look, it was my expectation that we would've had something, you know, here in Q1, but it's government. You know, I'm encouraged. We've had some very significant progress or movement rather in progress. We've had a number of workshops. I anticipate based on the last workshop a week ago, there may be one more, then I actually see this, you know, going into final form. We do see light at the end of the tunnel, and we're gonna continue to push as aggressively as we can with our, you know, our colleagues in the industry. At the end of the day, you know, it's the CCB will make that determination. We're getting close, getting really close.
Okay. Dennis, just to. You obviously had a number of, sort of, I'll call them one-time costs in 2021, you know, through the conversion to U.S. registrant or U.S., I guess, registrant. Like, out of the sort of $44.4 million of G&A expenses in the year, how many of that would you deem to be non-recurring? I guess, or we're just trying to get a run rate for fiscal 2022, I guess, again.
Well, let me go back to your first question. It's $2.6 million for California for the quarter. Kind of $5 million, a little over $5 million for the, you know, the year, the back half of the year. In terms of those costs, it was. I'm guessing, you know, [audio distortion] still waiting for some of the final bills to come in on the Form 10 filing, et cetera. It's approximately $3.5 million to do that conversion into U.S. GAAP, do the three-year audits and go forward filing that Form 10. That was one of the big chunk of costs there. There were some other one-time costs. We had a couple of failed acquisitions in there, probably added up to another $2 million in legal fees that we had to write off during the year, out of that $44 million. You know, obviously, if you look at the G&A and the G&A breakdown in the MD&A, you can
Get a sense of where those buckets are. We talked about salary increases, you know, being there. We are focusing quite heavily on trying to, you know, get our costs under control. Obviously, you know, need to have those costs under much tighter control in order to continue to make money. I mean, our revenue's up 70%. Our costs were up higher than that, so that was part of the problem. We're actively working on that, bringing it down.
Okay. If we look forward into 2022, obviously 2023 is gonna be the year. You know, you're gonna get the impact of Florida in 2023, potentially Illinois, and I guess potentially the consumption lounge in 2023. As we sit here in 2022, you know, if Las Vegas picks up in the tourist season and you guys gain some share there, you'll get there. California obviously is the major growth avenue, I guess, in 2022. Next Green Wave being a good start there in building infrastructure. What is the plan? I mean, California seems to me, you know, it's always been a bit of a, you know, an anomaly. It seems like it's such a huge market, but nobody seems to be making any money, and at some point, there's gonna be a return to rationality. You know, there's no clear winners there in such a big market. I guess, what are your thoughts in California about what you wanna be in the next few years there?
Well, yeah, Doug, California is a challenge right now. I mean, there are a lot of headwinds, no question about that, particularly on the cultivation side. What it's going to take in the near term is the state of California to get serious about regulating the industry and about taking meaningful action to curb the black market. I mean, it's just out of control. The tax rates down there are just unacceptable as well. Those are all hurting our ability to be competitive. That said, I still think the location for the SuperStore makes sense as we start transitioning, you know, our products through the Next Green Wave facility into the store. We think that's gonna help. You know, I'm down there just about at least one week a month now.
Seeing a lot of improvement on the freeway construction and just an overall sense of, you know, positive behavior from the consumers. People are, you know, they're starting to put the masks away, starting to come out. I haven't seen the tourists pick up yet, but, you know, talking with, you know, other operators in other industries, you know, everybody remains optimistic that things are gonna swing to the upside here, pretty quick. So t here's a lot of positive. It's just taking much longer than we thought and we're gonna continue to push forward, and we think we'll make significant improvement with the Next Green Wave acquisition.
Yeah. Just, I guess, I'm just curious. You know, you have the one store, obviously, and the Next Green Wave is a very profitable company in the cultivation side and brings that vertical integration aspect to it. But do you wanna open maybe more greenfield stores? Like in Florida, obviously, you're obligated to open at least six, but from the license. But, you know, do you wanna open more stores in California? Maybe where would those be if you're gonna continue to increase your infrastructure in the state?
Yeah, I mean, look, the challenges of California have obviously also created some opportunities. There are a lot of distressed assets down there that are becoming, you know, more and more distressed every month. So we're continuing, you know, to field inquiries, and we're, you know, looking at deals. Nothing's really hit our plate yet that gets us, you know, terribly excited, but we think that there will be additional opportunities. To your other question, we think most of those will be, you know, you know, a mix in the larger metro areas. You know, we've seen some stores that have done quite well in the smaller, you know, midsize communities. It's just a function of the right deal. You know, we've got our plate full just trying to get Florida moving and, you know, getting Next Green Wave integrated. That doesn't mean we won't take a hard look at the right deal.
Maybe just my last one, then we all get back to Nevada. You know, you talked about 10% statewide. I'm assuming in Clark County, you're continuing to be more than that. Can you talk a little bit about the competitive landscape there? Obviously, MedMen is having, you know, continues to have difficulty, just maybe the competitive aspect for the tourist dollar and then maybe just some comment on the Medizin and how they're doing for the local market.
Well, Doug, if you've looked, and I'm sure you have, you've looked at the state's numbers for the last. I think they've published through December now. It's been very challenging, and we've seen a pretty significant drop in revenue, statewide. Look, there's much more competition here in the Valley, particularly for the local customer, and that's not going to abate anytime soon. You know, the state is still allowing operators to open and, you know, we're just gonna have to deal with that.
As Dennis said earlier, and I think even Larry alluded to in his comments, we've held our own and, you know, we're continuing to move forward. We think that we'll continue to be a significant or dominant player in the space. Again, with respect to the SuperStore, which is our biggest revenue driver, you know, it's a function of how the tourist market looks. We're encouraged by that, and we'll just deal with the competition, you know, as best we can.
Right. Is there any way you can quantify sort of the number of, you know, conferences, say, for example, that are booked in 2022 versus this time 2021? You know, any sort of indicators to show that Las Vegas is gonna be that much fuller sorta coming up than it was in the prior two years?
Yeah. I don't have that data in front of me, but you can look to, for instance, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Then you can look into, you know, concert sort of booking, for instance, Allegiant Stadium and some of the larger venues. Their bookings are up significantly over last year. We're very, you know, like I said, we're very encouraged with that because those are real drivers for us. You know, there are certain shows and certain events that, you know, are fantastic for us, you know, historically EDC, for instance. Whereas others, you know, World of Concrete, for instance, that drives no traffic to us. With concerts, though, we get a very nice mix. It seems like for, you know, for every large scale concert, we get a nice bump. We're very excited to see that. We're very excited to see Allegiant Stadium being utilized in that respect. It's much more than just a football venue.
Okay. Thanks very much, gentlemen. I'll pass it along.
Yep. Thanks, Doug.
Once again, if there are any remaining questions or comments, please press star one on your touch tone phone. The next question is coming from Greg Gibas with Northland Securities. Your line's live.
Hey, good afternoon, Larry, Bob, and Dennis. Thanks for taking the questions. You know, you mentioned some staffing issues in the quarter. Have they since improved? If so, maybe what steps did you take there to remediate those issues?
All right. Yeah, It's Dennis here, Greg. I'll take part of it, Bob, and then you can do the f latline stuff. We're seeing significant pressure in the back office area, in the accounting staff and, you know, sort of the administrative staff. The Nevada market is really heating up for talent, so we're having a bit of challenge keeping people from that perspective. We did get hit pretty hard with COVID. I think at one point or another throughout the quarter in the back half of 2021, you know, probably 50% of our employees overall had COVID, were out with COVID. So we did have some challenges there. You know, Bob, you wanna talk through specifics on the store itself and the storefront there?
Greg, good afternoon. Dennis is exactly right. The other thing we had, though, kind of more falling into Q4, we really staffed up for Santa Ana. So we were pretty heavy on staff there initially. We pared that back considerably to make it more reflect the traffic volume that we're seeing. You know, challenges there as well. A little different in Vegas, but we think we're starting to, you know, get our hands around that and, you know. There is a lot of pressure right now, particularly with respect to, as I said earlier, you know, increases in gas, where a lot of our employees are, you know, coming in now, you know, obviously bringing those issues to our attention, and we're trying to manage that as best we can. It's not unique to our company. It's unique to all employers.
Right. Got it. That's helpful. I guess along those lines in California, can you just remind us when some of those headwinds, like the freeway construction, are expected to, you know, no longer affect business?
Well, when I was down with our managers last time, the number I heard is they're about 8-12 months out for full completion of the four or five there. You know, based on what I saw and what I've seen the last few times I've been down there, they've made significant progress in the Santa Ana corridor where we are. You can now actually get off the Fairview ramp quite easily, and the Harbor ramp. That's very encouraging. You know, and the whole focus, of course, now is to be able to get Warner over the freeway into beach cities like Seal Beach. You know, that's gonna be many more months. Again, you know, things are improving from my perspective considerably.
Okay. Got it. You know, I guess in relation to the sales impact from COVID, you know, probably hard to quantify, but if we were to maybe, you know, if you think about it being a slower season anyway, near the end of the year, you know, how much did you maybe see from that in December? I guess in relation to Q1, you know, I'm guessing a lot of it was January. Just wondering if you could try to maybe quantify or discuss, you know, how sales were impacted from COVID, you know, to the best of your knowledge and, you know, maybe how February has kind of trended since.
Dennis, I'll pass that to you.
Greg, it's kind of harder. The COVID impact has been, you know, ebbing and flowing throughout the year. We've typically seen, you know, more seasonality in Q4. Obviously, October is strong. November is kind of 10% down on October, and December 10% down on November. We've typically seen that over the last three years. January picks back up and improves. You know, this January and February were not as big of improvements as they were, you know, this time last year. March, we're starting to see significant increases in March as the tourists come back.
I look at that more as more COVID, but as Bob mentioned too, it's also, you know, shrinking wallet due to the high price of gas and the high price of inflation are causing some of that, and the lack of stimulus checks for some of our customers compared to last year. It's kind of hard to pinpoint exactly what is pure COVID versus other. But, you know, it's all having an impact. But we are seeing the uptick in March, kind of back to more normal levels of visitors and spend and average ticket.
Okay, great. I guess last one for me, relating to the gross margins. You know, nice improvement, I guess, in the quarter despite the lower top line sequentially. Just wanted to ask maybe what you attribute that to and how you're thinking about gross margins in 2022.
Yeah. The increase in gross margin is basically a larger share of the in-store sales at the SuperStore would come from our own brands overall as we push through, you know, we push through our own capabilities and our own products into that marketplace. We also did see, you know, a softening in the wholesale side of the equation from a B and C grade flower, so we were able to pick up less expensive flower to process through our production facility. We picked up some margin there as well. We continue to completely sell out of our premium indoor flower and, you know, have not seen any price reduction in that premium segment of our flower market compared to the rest of the flower market. Picking up some margin there as our costs come down, our yields improve at the Bell Drive facility that we're currently continuing to expand.
Got it. Thank you.
All right. Thanks, Greg.
Thanks, Greg.
There are no further questions in queue. This concludes the Q&A portion of the conference call. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.