One of the most difficult things to do as a vape shop owner is selecting the right products to sell. You don’t want your assets tied up in inventory that isn’t moving. Even worse, you don’t want to have inventory that languishes on the shelves for so long that you eventually have to sell it at a loss just to get it out of the store.
A large part of running a brick-and-mortar vape shop is understanding your customer base. Some vape shops have done extremely well marketing primarily to beginners, while others mainly serve expert vapers who only shop for high-end gear. Another important aspect of running a vape shop is knowing what’s hot within your local community. Sometimes, certain products start to generate hype when local vapers discuss those products with one another. It always pays to keep your ear to the street, so you can find out about those products and get them on your shelves before demand subsides.
So, what’s hot within the vaping industry at large may not always be precisely the same as what’s hot within your own city or region – but it’s still wise to make sure that you never lose sight of the wider trends within the vaping industry. So, what are the products that you should strongly consider adding to your vape shop if you haven’t already? These are the hottest products of 2021 in the UK vaping market.
Durable Vape Mods
If you’ve ever had a vape mod that stopped working permanently because you used it in the rain for a few minutes or dropped it on a hard floor, you know how unpleasant it is to have a vaping device die before its time. What’s more, there’s also a reasonably good chance that you selected a device from a different manufacturer when you bought your next mod.
Manufacturers don’t want that – they want to gain loyal users. Mods, after all, aren’t where the manufacturers earn their money; they earn most of their profits from selling replacement coils and pods. The longer you use the same device – assuming, of course, that you use the tank included with it – the more the manufacturer will earn from you. Therefore, one of the best ways for a manufacturer of vaping products to maximize its long-term earnings is by designing devices that are capable of potentially lasting several years.
Durable vape mods like the Geekvape Aegis Solo are leading the way these days among the new crop of longer-lasting hardware. People are demanding devices that last longer, and the manufacturers are responding with new vape mods that are resistant to dust, water and shock. Some devices even meet the IP67 specification, which means that dust can’t penetrate them and that they can survive immersion in up to a meter of water for up to 30 minutes. Your customers are going to love the new generation of durable vape mods, and you’re going to love the fact that each sale of a long-lasting vape mod results in a consistent and predictable stream of replacement coil sales.
Pod Mods
As you’re already well aware, the vaping community has essentially divided itself into two halves over the past few years. On one side, you have the mod owners who will absolutely love the latest generation of durable vape mods – and on the other side, you have the pod system owners who have almost no interest whatsoever in buying traditional vape mods.
In 2021, the two halves of the vaping community will begin to merge. Owners of first- and second-generation pod systems are ready to upgrade, but they’re not looking for traditional mods – they’re looking for better pod systems. The manufacturers have already begun to satisfy that demand by creating the pod mod – a new type of vaping device that resembles a box mod or large vape pen on the surface but actually stores its e-liquid in a removable pod rather than a traditional glass tank.
Pod mods differentiate themselves from simpler pod systems by combining the convenience of removable pods with many of the more advanced features that you’d typically only find in box mods. Some of the features that you’ll find in the latest pod mods include:
- Variable wattage or voltage
- Automatic temperature limiting
- Manual airflow control
- High-end trim options such as stitched leather
- Replaceable atomizer coils of different types
- Automatic detection and wattage configuration for the connected coil
- Removable batteries
- Ability to swap between pods and traditional tanks
The only thing that really separates high-end pod mods from traditional vape mods is the fact that they use pods rather than tanks – but pod system users are going to love them. Like the latest durable vape mods, pod mods also represent a great opportunity for you as a vape shop owner because, while a few pod mods do have the necessary 510 threading to support traditional tanks, most do not. Almost anyone who buys a pod mod, therefore, can only use replacement coils made by that device’s manufacturer. Every sale of a pod mod represents a new stream of residual revenue for you, so make sure that you have plenty of replacement coils in stock for the best-selling devices.
Medium-Strength Freebase E-Liquid
In the previous section, we left out one extremely important feature of pod mods: They produce dramatically more vapor than the early pod-based devices. With that in mind, someone who upgrades from a simple pod system to a new pod mod will almost certainly need to lower the nicotine strength of his or her e-liquid to compensate for the increased vapor production.
If you have customers who own traditional pod systems and currently buy high-strength nicotine salt e-liquid, you should prepare yourself for the fact that nicotine salt is likely to become significantly less popular in the UK in 2021. Even lower-strength nicotine salt vape juice – which typically has a strength around 10 mg/ml in the UK – is going to be too strong for most pod mods.
On the other hand, the 3 mg/ml nicotine strength that many sub-ohm tank users prefer may not quite be strong enough.
With most pod mods, freebase nicotine e-liquid with a strength of 6 mg/ml seems to be just about right. Pod mods differ from one another in vapor production, so the 6 mg/ml strength may not be ideal for all devices. The vast majority of the people who buy pod mods will end up using freebase nicotine e-liquid at one strength or another, though, so make sure that you increase your stock of freebase vape juice when you begin carrying pod mods.
Jason Artman is the owner and author of eCig One. A professional freelance writer and SEO consultant with more than a decade of experience, Jason works with vaping companies around the world to increase their targeted web traffic and improve their revenue.