YOUR VAPE SHOP HANGS IN THE BALANCE

Until now, you probably thought it was safe to assume that your vape shop could continue doing business as normal until at least 2022. Maybe you even hoped that a lawsuit or act of Congress would force the FDA to change the predicate date of February 15, 2007 for grandfathered vaping products. Unfortunately, it now seems as though none of those things are going to happen. Right now, the safest thing to assume is that you will need to clear out the products you’re currently selling and either find new products – or close up shop – by May of next year. You need to immediately begin transitioning to products that will still be legal to sell in 2020.

Our recommendation is CBD.

YOUR VAPE SHOP HANGS IN THE BALANCE

The sooner you begin your transition to CBD sales – the sooner you can position your vape shop as your city’s new CBD superstore – the more likely it’ll be that you will emerge from the changes in May 2020 not just alive, but even healthier and more profitable than you currently are.

WHAT IS CBD?

If you keep up on the latest health trends, you may already know about CBD. You might, in fact, sell CBD products in your vape shop already. CBD and vaping products tend to go hand in hand because inhaling CBD is an extremely fast way of absorbing it. For the uninitiated, though, here’s a primer. YOUR VAPE SHOP HANGS IN THE BALANCE

CBD IS THE PRIMARY ACTIVE COMPONENT OF INDUSTRIAL HEMP

Cannabidiol (CBD) is one of the cannabinoids – or active components – in the cannabis plant. It’s present in all cannabis, but it’s particularly abundant in the form of cannabis known as industrial hemp. Unlike marijuana – which also contains the psychoactive cannabinoid THC and is a prohibited Schedule I substance according to the Federal government – industrial hemp contains almost no THC and has no psychoactive effects.

PEOPLE USE CBD TO TREAT MANY HEALTH CONDITIONS

By exposing hemp plant material to pressurized carbon dioxide or another solvent, it’s possible to extract the plant’s essential oils. The essential oil of industrial hemp is rich in CBD and other compounds, and medical researchers have found that CBD may have a number of remarkable health benefits. It’s been discovered, for example, that CBD helps to prevent seizures for those who suffer from certain seizure disorders. That discovery led to the first ever FDA approval of a prescription drug derived from cannabis with CBD as its main active ingredient.

WILL CBD BE PROFITABLE FOR MY VAPE SHOP?

YOUR VAPE SHOP HANGS IN THE BALANCE

The CBD market is huge. A recent forecast suggests that the size of the global CBD industry may reach $20 billion by 2024. The same forecast suggests that general retail stores – like your vape shop – will be the largest sellers of CBD products. YOUR VAPE SHOP HANGS IN THE BALANCE

How dramatically can CBD transform your vape shop? To get an idea of where the market is heading, we spoke with David Reich of Crescent City Vape, a chain of four vape shops in the New Orleans area. Crescent City Vape began selling a small assortment of CBD products two years ago, but it wasn’t until the shops fully embraced CBD and began putting significant promotional effort behind it that CBD sales started to take off. The biggest move they made was turning an entire section of each vape shop into a CBD pop-up experience which seamlessly introduced customers to CBD products and helped to guide their first purchases.

ARE THERE ANY VAPING PRODUCTS THAT MY VAPE SHOP CAN STILL SELL AFTER MAY?

Yes. Although e-liquid vaping could be nearing the end of its life in the United States, dry herb vaporizers will remain available. Herbal vaporizers have always been popular among cannabis users who’d rather avoid smoking. In addition, with the potential demise of e-liquid vaping, dry herb vaporizers are also usable with tobacco and may find new life among former cigarette smokers who will lose the ability to buy e-liquid vaping products. If your vape shop isn’t already stocking vaporizers for dry herbs and wax, now might be the time to start.

DISPLAY A POSTER IN YOUR VAPE SHOP

Consider placing a helpful poster near the shortfill e-liquids in your vape shop. The poster should describe what shortfill e-liquids are and explain that, to use those e-liquids, customers will need to purchase nicotine shots and combine the two. The poster should also have a chart explaining how many nicotine shots customers need to add for each bottle size to achieve final nicotine strengths of 3 and 6 mg. Even for customers who already understand what shortfill e-liquids are, it’s still easy for confusion to develop when it comes to figuring out the correct number of nicotine shots to buy. YOUR VAPE SHOP HANGS IN THE BALANCE

DISPLAY SHORTFILL E-LIQUID IN A PROMINENT PLACE

You may not have as much space in your vape shop as you’d like, but it’s still worthwhile to make the room necessary to put your shortfill e-liquids in a prominent place. If you want to sell more shortfill bottles, make sure that your customers know about them. If you really have difficulty selling the shortfill e-liquids in your stock, consider holding a promotion to drum up some attention. For example, you could price your shortfill e-liquids significantly lower for a while to generate a little bit of hype.

INCLUDE NICOTINE SHOTS WITH SHORTFILL E-LIQUIDS

If you really want to eliminate any possibility of confusion with shortfill e-liquids, bundle each shortfill bottle with the correct number of nicotine shots to achieve a final nicotine strength of 3 mg. Build the cost of the nicotine shots into your prices for the shortfill e-liquids. Many online vape shops have begun including nicotine shots with shortfill e-liquids, and customers have responded very positively because the free nicotine shots remove the guesswork from the process of buying shortfill e-liquids. It may also be worthwhile to print handouts and give them to customers who are buying shortfill e-liquids for the first time. YOUR VAPE SHOP HANGS IN THE BALANCE

ADD AN ARTICLE TO YOUR WEBSITE

YOUR VAPE SHOP HANGS IN THE BALANCE

Some of the customers who visit your vape shop may visit your website first to look at your product listings. It may therefore be helpful to add an article about shortfill e-liquids to your website. It takes only a few minutes to write a short article explaining what shortfill e-liquids are, why they exist and how to use them. Adding an article about shortfill e-liquids to your website may also help you attract traffic from search engines when people search for information about where they can buy shortfill e-liquids locally.

OFFER A BOTTLE OPENING TOOL

One of the most inconvenient aspects of shortfill e-liquid is the fact that e-liquid bottle tops can be incredibly difficult to remove. It’s necessary for e-liquid bottles to have tight tops because, if they didn’t, bottles would pop open when people tried to fill their tanks! Some companies are now making simple tools that pry off e-liquid bottle tops in the same way that bottle openers remove bottle caps. YOUR VAPE SHOP HANGS IN THE BALANCE

MENTION SHORTFILL E-LIQUIDS TO YOUR CUSTOMERS

If you have customers who stop in almost daily to buy huge quantities of 10 ml e-liquid bottles, it’s probably safe to say that those customers are using sub-ohm vaping equipment and are going through their e-liquids rapidly. Train your staff members to recognize when that’s the case and recommend shortfill e-liquids instead. Some vapers buy nothing but 10 ml e-liquid bottles because they don’t want to go through the hassle of adding nicotine shots to each bottle.