A price comparison of Quality Control NY (Brighton Beach, Brooklyn) against its four closest competitors — corrected using phone-verified tax-display intel for each store, so it’s a true out-the-door comparison rather than sticker-vs-sticker.
New York adds a 13% retail cannabis tax (9% state + 4% local) at checkout. Menus can show prices either way, so a raw scrape mixes tax-inclusive and pre-tax stickers. Using the tax status you verified by phone for each store, here’s the like-for-like, out-the-door comparison.
For pre-tax stores, “out-the-door” adds NY’s 13% tax to their sticker so it matches QC’s tax-inclusive prices. For tax-included stores, the sticker already is the out-the-door price — no change. A negative gap means QC is the cheaper option for the same product, all-in.
The 80-store median can’t be pinned exactly because each store’s tax-display setting varies and only the four neighbors are verified. But it’s bounded: if every store showed tax-inclusive prices, QC would look +6.7% high; if every store were pre-tax, QC would be −5.6% low. The truth sits between — and with conventions mixed (2 of the 4 verified stores include tax), QC lands close to the middle: broadly in line with the market.
Selection is a real strength: 1,023 products, 10th of 81 stores and ~2.7× the Brooklyn median. Well-stocked and competitively priced out-the-door — a strong position the menu presentation was hiding.
Two of the four closest rivals also include tax; two show pre-tax. Once tax is equalized, QC’s ~9% sticker gap vs the pre-tax stores flips to ~3% cheaper.
Cheaper than Elevated (−3%), High Tidez (−3%) and Grow Together (−7%); ~2% above Easy Times (which also includes tax). QC is the value pick in its cluster.
1,023 products, 10th of 81 and ~2.7× the median — competitively priced and well-stocked.
Against the pre-tax stores, QC’s menu price looks ~9% higher even though it’s cheaper at the register. Where shoppers compare stickers — menus, aggregators — that costs QC the click.
Either match the pre-tax stores’ display so QC’s sticker looks as low as it truly is, or keep tax-inclusive and market it hard: “price you see = price you pay · tax included.”
Against Elevated and High Tidez specifically, show the out-the-door math: same product, lower final price at QC. It’s a true, defensible claim — no need to discount further.