Help Center

Please email us at support@topshelfdata.com with any questions, suggestions, or issues. We love to hear your feedback.


Frequenty Asked Questions

Where do you get your data?
All Washington State marijuana producers, processors, and retailers are required to track every step of production from "seed to sale" (chapter 314-55 WAC). These businesses must regularly upload data feeds about plants, harvests, processing, transfers between businesses, and retail sales to the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB).
Washington State makes this data available as a matter of public record. We regularly ingest the raw tracking data, analyze it, and match it with additional external data (such as maps or strain information).
In November 2017, the LCB changed the software provider for their traceability system from BioTrack to Leaf. This impacted availability, the reliability of data, and the types of data made available to the public.
In December 2021, the LCB again changed the software provider for their traceability system - this time, from Leaf to CCRS. There was a period of time from December 2021 - June 2022 when traceability was not available, but the data was made available starting again in July 2022.
Has the LCB provided full CCRS traceability data yet?
Yes, the WA state LCB was able to make CCRS traceability data available in July 2022, with the data including January 2022 onwards.
Is sales data accurate?
From January 2022 onwards, the LCB has ceased to regularly provide topline monthly total sales data for retailers, producers, and processors. We now compute total revenue directly from the reported line-item transactions. Please be aware that some sales data is self-reported channels and may be prone to human error in data entry, and contain a handful of outliers. We do our best to remove obviously incorrect data points, but that does mean it's possible bad data points still slip, in or data is missing.
Our policy is to regard the LCB as the source of truth, and to report the numbers as the LCB provides them (barring extreme outliers). If you see a sales number that appears inaccurate, please notify the LCB and request that they correct the mistake. We will pick up any changes in our next data refresh.
Why should I pay for data that is publicly available?
While we strive to keep charts and reports and easy-to-read and clean, the simplicity can be a bit misleading; under the hood there is a lot of data analytics and processing. Our paid plans give you access to deeper analysis and reporting, which saves you the (massive) effort of converting the raw public record information into a usable report by yourself.
Should I be concerned that my business data is in the public record?
We understand that there may be misgivings about the information the state makes available. Our stance is that if everyone else has access to this data, you should too. We do not share contact information, any personally identifying data, or addresses for producers/processors. There are other data companies out there that expose the public LCB tracability system data, and other cannabis business that take advantage of that information to gain a competitive edge. What differentiates Top Shelf Data is the depth of analysis, reporting, and ease of use we provide to you.
Where do violations come from? Can you remove ones we think are in error?
We show violations exactly as reported by the "Violatons Dataset" made public by the Liquor and Cannabis Board. As the LCB notes, "this information may not be the final disposition of the violation" because these are often investigations in-progress. If you disagree with a reported violation, please contact your LCB examiner; we will automatically pick up any changes they make when we do our next refresh.
Why do you charge sales tax? If I live elsewhere, do I need to pay?
Top Shelf Data is a Seattle, Washington business that is regarded as providing an online digital good. Because it is digital, we are required to include a 10.100000000000001% sales tax which is determined by our location (not the buyer location).
Who are you?
We are a duo of experienced software entrepreneurs with a combined 20+ years of experience. Our passions are helping businesses thrive and technology. We've started and sold two successful companies; and we have worked at businesses of all sizes, ranging from 10-person startups to 500-person pre-IPO businesses to corporate behemoths.
This is our first foray into the cannabis space. We're eager to learn from folks in the business; we've loved attending the trade shows and conferences, and regularly talk with local retailers and producer-processors to get their feedback and ideas for making this the best possible resource.

Upgrade

Like what you see? Upgrade your account and get access to more data, advanced comparison features, analytics, and more! Stay tuned for more details.

Title

Message

Sign Up for FREE to keep exploring

or Sign In

By clicking "Sign Up" you agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
How is this is free? See our pricing.

Sign In



Don't have an account yet? Sign up here.

Forgot password?

Forgot Password

We can email you a link to reset your password.

Almost Done!

Please check your email to finish signing up: None.

Don't see the message yet? Check your spam folder, or click here and we'll send you another. Want to use a different email? Click here to sign up again.