UK Vendors, lack of choice?

[Reevo]

Is it just me or are we missing out on choice over here? A lot of the UK Vendors just sell the usual ego starter kits and a few drip tips, I asked a few vendors at Vapefest for steel rope and they just look confused and didn't know what it was! Maybe they should keep intouch more with whats happening to their customers needs? Ive just been on the Pink Mule website and they have 31 pages on drip tips alone, tubes for mods etc, spoilt for choice! Same on a lot of the US sites. What UK sites offer the same range? Why cant we get the same amount of choice from one site or even more choice from the existing ones?

 

[Purplefowler]

I think it must be very tricky for uk vendors. Whilst vaping is growing at a huge rate, many vendors are small businesses and won't want to get stuck with a load of products that they may get stuck with if it proves to be unpopular or quickly outdated in a short space of time. Also I believe vaping is bigger in some European countries (although I might be wrong on that). There are alot of people selling the same stuff but the good stuff is there if you look hard enough. Plus for every pink mule there are probably loads of generic vape suppliers trailing behind. Us vapers are a fickle lot and just because something is new and has the latest buzz this week doesn't mean that anyone will be doing it next week. I'm not saying that its ok for us to not have the same access to choice but just trying to see the reason behind it. I get equally frustrated when I want something that is only available abroad so shipping is more than the item but if something looks like it will be that popular someone somewhere here will try and stock it.

 

[Mark]

Yeah PF nails it in her post. Plus we forum dwellers tend to forget that the vast majority of Vapers are probably using cigalikes and ego style set ups. Certainly what the first time switchers want. And THAT market is growing massively.

Saying that, the more demand for the stuff at the other end of the market, the more will become available so no harm in saying it out loud

 

[Merino-Teflon]

I like Pink-Mule, but a lot of their drip tips are just the same, but different colours, well, barring the Siam Mod drip tips, depends where you look, independent producers are doing there own in this country, like RSM doing his nifty glass ones, another guy called Jim, Ashdog, Spartan Mods has some cool ss and brass numbers, and some company on here was advertising a shipment of cool looking drip tips the other day, Murano glass lookin', they were, and Mr Kraken has gotten some Captivapes extended drippy things in, and Cloud 9 Vaping has quite a large array, inc some lush Lukkas wood mixed ones just in, I think they had some at VF.

 

[clint]

I think that generally there are two types of vendors. There are those who specialise in ego and evod types and then there are the ones who cater for those who like their mods and rebuildables. As PF as already said, vaping is growing at a fast rate however the products that most people on this forum want is still very much (in this country) a niche market. I do think that some of the vendors here do a good job in catering for our needs anyway.

 

[zigackly]

The type of vendors I prefer to buy from are those who are a one stop shop for my supplies so I can cut the postage costs. So I might want to buy some nic base, PG, VG, flavour concentrates, kanthal wire, silica wick, cartos and batteries, all at once. There are few vendors who can offer all of that unfortunately but the ones who do tend to get my business, unless I'm buying a higher ticket item.

 

[ScottChensoda]

I think you've both made valid points Reevo and PF and it will be interesting to read the views of said vendors, should they feel inclined to answer.

Thirty one pages of drip tips is somewhat excessive in anyone's language but the issue is certainly there to be made.

I'm totally guessing of course but I suspect the reason why so many UK vapers have turned to vending is they see, via the different vaping fora, the possibility of starting/running a business with very little outlay and if it takes off fine and if it doesn't then it's back to stacking shelves in Tescos etc. For that you can hardly blame them.

However, what many fail to realise or can't be arsed about, as it appears in some instances, is the value and importance of customer service. I know this can and does apply to larger companies in the non-vaping world too but for those new to business and having had recent personal piss poor customer service from one of the so-called large companies, you would think more would say to themselves "Right, customer service is going to be and remain top of or high up on our list of priorities". Luckily, in our relatively new industry we do have a number of first class vendors who cherish and hold close to their hearts that same ideal. But in saying that, there are far too many who are only in it to make a profit at whatever the cost.

Talking of cost, I can understand that to be a very large factor when taking to the road as a new vendor and even the not so new vendor. Thinking that if they fill their spare bedroom with Chinese bought stock. There's an instant profit to be made providing they can stay current with the mainstay of 'today's market'. My idea of 'today's market' being 1st and 2nd generation goods. I.e. cig-a-likes and e-Go type devices respectively. Hence the plethora of shops opening this last twelve months selling just those items. Due to the boom in popularity of vaping and the growing awareness of the wider public, I think it will be few years before that situation levels out.

As 3rd generation vapers, us PV and Mod users have to realise and accept that and depend upon, the very few vendors who whilst depending on the sale of 1st and 2nd generation devices for the bulk of their income, also remain true to their roots and provide 3rd generation devices and accessories. We are I think, in a bit of a niche market.

Now as said at the top, this is all supposition and no doubt will be corrected by others.

 

[VaperCaper]

Why cant we get the same amount of choice from one site or even more choice from the existing ones?

Short answer: Money.

Longer answer: There is a bewilderingly large amount of 'stuff' connected to vaping. There are hundreds of flavours of e-liquids to start with and various strengths of e-liquid, To stock one flavour ideally you want a minimum of 100 bottles or so, more if the lead time is long.

There are regulated mods (vamo,SID,Smok ZMax,Sig Zmaxes, SVD) those are just mid range tube mod styles then you have pen styles, box mods, cheap mods, expensive mods.

Mech mods. You could write a list 100 entires long and just cover sigelei, there are a LOT of these, short ones, long ones, brass ones, SS ones, brushed ones, polished ones, pinky button mechs, bottom button mechs, cheap and cheerful mechs, mid priced mechs, high end mechs.

eGo batteries 650mah 900mah 1100mah VV eGos pass through eGos (and every eGo you buy in the UK can't be an 'official Joyetech' manufactured one because Totally Wicked have an exclusivity agreement so you have to buy clones (or buy from TW or find a n other way of getting hold of them, turns out SmokTech and Vision branded ones are equally as good fwiw) and those are all available in a multitude of colours and styles if say you want smoktech ones the minimum order quantity of those is 50pieces of 1 style/colour.

Atomisers? ignoring knock offs you have vivi novas, protanks, evods, iclears, carto tanks, CE4s, which you can get in differnet colours and sizes, there are hundreds of different variations on those from various manufacturers.

God knows how many drip tips are out there.

There are many sizes of battery all of which you can get in ICR, ICR protected, IMR.


So if you want to stock ALL of that you need a big chunk of money for stock. Then you need money to pay for the behind the scenes office work that ordering them, stocking them and doing the due diligence paperwork requires, the more stock you have the more forms and stuff you gotta write.
You need to have a customer service person who picks up the phone and answers queries who can give help and advice to customers about anything that you have in stock who uses(used) and believes in the products they are talking about. On top of all of that you need to keep up to date with the market and not have too much stock that you get saddled with 100 v1 LavaTubes which you can't sell now cos noone wants them but enough stock so you don't go out of stock in 2 days flat and have to re-order from China (2 weeks)

Then you have competition from several hundred other websites one of which will always have a sale on and will be selling below cost, one of which is selling off a job lot of cheap rubbish "I can buy an eGo kit from the market for a tenner, why does yours cost £45" so you also don't want to spend a lot of cash on stock that you might not be able to sell at a profit in a reasonable amount of time. Lets not talk about FastTech.

Oh and good luck getting funds from a bank to fund your e-cig venture now with all the MHRA bollocks. You can blag a couple of 'personal' credit cards or 'personal' loans perhaps but actual proper business finance for an industry that might be regulated out of existence in 2 years time ...

We added up all of stock here last week and were really surprised how much money we have tied up in it already and we have a small range of stuff on our site so far. To add all the things to our shop that I'd like to would be a crazy sum of money.

The main UK vendors are Liberty Flights, C9V, ecigwizard, TW, UKecigstore and Safercigs and maybe vapeescape, everyone else is a little guy who presumably, like us, have limited cashflow.

 

[anthonyb]

If VaperCaper was to stock all that in one go, assuming they had the customer base. They would also need a distribution centre, to have all the stock layed out ready for orders to be assembled. A team of order pickers/packers to assemble the orders. A mailing room for the obvious. And all the appropriate support staff. I work in a retail distribution centre, it's 400,000+ square feet, has 5 levels.

 

[Fleabag]

Though I'm by no means a demanding customer (being still on Egos, DIYing liquids and with an increasingly adventurous interest in tanks), I do find it frustrating when I can't get everything I need in one place (or I can, but some items are much cheaper elsewhere). I have used the marketplace here, which is really useful for speed, being able to browse and use one shopping cart for everything, but you get quite a shock when you find you're final bill includes postage costs for 2 or 3 different vendors.
I'm not yet affected so much by the lack of items I want/need, but more by the cost and the lack of an online supermarket where I can get it all at a price that makes it worthwhile buying from the one site.

However, what's even worse is the standard of many of the bricks & mortar shops - granted, there must be decent ones (as they have an online presence as well), but there seem to be many that have invested a lot in fancy glass display stands & counters with a minimal stock of Egos, CE4s and, if you're lucky, a couple of Protanks - all at vastly overinflated prices. I understand that renting a space increases overheads, but equally, it's much easier to pick up the passing trade and the curious who may not consider buying blind on the net.

I had a browse round one last week, and stock was sparse (plus they'd sold out of Protank Minis). They had perhaps a couple of size of Egos in various colours, but no sign even of the Twist and no Evods. Much of what they did sell were starter double battery Ego kits with a couple of CE4s or one Protank in cases priced £45-£65 - stuff that could easily be sourced separately online from the UK for half the price (100% mark-up on Fasttech prices I could understand).

I've also found before that when you speak to staff in some of these places, they don't know enough about vaping (and that's compared to a novice like me)- you start to question them about PG/VG ratios, VVs or recoiling supplies and they look at you like you're speaking Swahili.

It seems to me that many of the stores opening up are leaping on a bandwagon and are not in it because they've turned their passion into a business (like many of the small online vendors appear to have done), and have no interest in establishing a face-to-face resource for returning customers restocking on supplies - just to cash in on the newbies who can be persuaded to pay silly prices because they're still comparing it to the even sillier cost of fags