E-Cig Sales Slide as Regular Smokers Return to Real Thing
Source: Bloomberg
E-cigs have hit a wall. After at least five years of steady growth, sales of the U.S. tobacco industrys most-hyped product since menthol fell for the first time in May and June. Thats potentially bad news for an industry struggling to offset falling sales of traditional smokes. It also presents a challenge to Reynolds American Inc. (RAI), which agreed to sell the popular Blu e-cig brand as part of its proposed acquisition of Lorillard Inc. (LO) The newly merged company would be left to rely on Vuse, an e-cig line created by Reynolds thats only now being widely distributed.
After betting on sleek disposable electronic cigarettes, the industry is grappling with rising competition from generic vaporizers that can be refilled with nicotine liquid of many flavors. Whats more, efforts to lure regular smokers to e-cigs are faltering because most return to the real thing.
Theres clearly a willingness to try the product, the problem is the technology is just not good enough, said Vivien Azer, an analyst for Cowen & Co. in New York. If its not good enough in terms of replacing a cigarette, smokers are going to stay with the cigarette.
Sales of e-cigs and refillable vaporizers more than doubled to $1.7 billion in 2013, or 1.7 percent of a roughly $100 billion market for nicotine products. The first signs of a slip came this year. Sales of packaged electronic smoking devices fell 2.9 percent in the four weeks ended May 18 compared with the previous year, according to data from Chicago researcher IRI. Sales slid twice as fast the following month.
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-16/e-cig-sales-slide-as-regular-smokers-return-to-real-thing.html
The devil you know...
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)The crappy cig-a-likes are turning off smokers to ecigs, while the generic refillables continue to increase sales.
Ruby the Liberal
(26,216 posts)I have an eGo-C that I buy parts for occasionally as batteries weaken and atomizers pop. Also learned how to make my own vape juice years ago.
The crapola tasting, sporadically working, single use $10 BLU (and its clones) can't stand up to a refillable, reliable $70 one time purchase (with charger).
Ask me - Big Tobacco got on the eCig bandwagon not because it was 'the future of profit', but because they wanted to flood the market with an inferior, tastes-like-shit, unreliable product so that they could kill the entire concept in the hearts and minds.
JMO.
F4lconF16
(3,747 posts)I have a couple friends who can't stand the disposable crap that is out there right now, but don't mind the refillable ones. One of them returned to cigarettes because it just wasn't good enough for him. Given the crap that the tobacco industry has already done through the years, it wouldn't surprise me if this sort of reaction was planned.
As for me, while I don't smoke tobacco (now weed on the other hand ), I do have an eGo-C as well. Got into the habit of vaping nicotine-free liquid as a way to relax. The vapor always felt good after a run, too. You'll have to tell me how to make my own juice-I keep running out.
tridim
(45,358 posts)Because once you have a few tanks going, e-liquid and replacement wicks are all you need to buy.
I agree, the commercial e-cigs are pretty nasty.
notadmblnd
(23,720 posts)I found a brand and flavor that I liked and found them convenient especially when driving. What I didn't like about them was the cost and the high number of defective ones I got stuck with.
I invested in a beginner set (battery, tank, and charger for about 30 bucks along with the liquid which runs in the 10 dollar range). Since then I have invested in better equipment and now instead of spending between 80 and 100 dollars a week for smokes, I'm now spending about 20 a month for a disposable replacement tank and nicotine liquid.
Dr Hobbitstein
(6,568 posts)But they've gotten so cheap that the wick burns up before I'm done with the cartridge.
I've since switched to a battery/tank system (I use a CE5 tank with a coil). So much better. Got an extra battery, and occasionally drop $4 on a new tank when the old one starts to leak.
This guy has kept me off of analogs for QUITE some time now.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)They are banned like cigarettes so people say, "well heck if I can't smoke anywhere then I might as well go back to regular"....
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)Warpy
(110,900 posts)I think many of them are quitting. Period.
Autumn
(44,748 posts)I just don't think to use it now.
tridim
(45,358 posts)I can't wait to be free from nicotine.
Autumn
(44,748 posts)and not think to even get it off the charger until 10 or so. Over about a 3 week period I just stopped thinking to get it and then I realized I hadn't used it in about 2 weeks. It is wonderful to be free from nicotine after about 40 years. I thought it would be difficult to be around people who do smoke but it hasn't bothered me at all. Keep it up, you will soon be free.
notadmblnd
(23,720 posts)who still smoke, doesn't bother me.
Dr Hobbitstein
(6,568 posts)A couple puffs after lunch at work, and then a few puffs in the evening... A little more if I'm having a couple beers and/or toking some ganj.
Note: I completely quit about 5 years ago. 3 years after I ended up smoking again after spending a LOT of time in smokey bars (I'm a musician). It's been tough to put the cigs back down, but this has helped a LOT.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)Free at last!
Autumn
(44,748 posts)arcane1
(38,613 posts)Talk about a wonderful feeling: cleaning up a hastily crafted, illiterate-looking post
Autumn
(44,748 posts)arcane1
(38,613 posts)I did not!
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)If they try the crappy, cheap disposable junk you get at the gas station, then that's no good.
PennyK
(2,300 posts)Why would I want to buy an ecig from Big Tobacco? They're the ones who lied to me and did everything they could to get me addicted. Let's hear the numbers for Innokin or Mount Baker Vapor.
pleinair
(171 posts)and a warning: I bought e-cigs online for my son and his girlfriend, and then my credit card was misused to the tune of a couple of hundred dollars. After many hours of phone calls, some of the charges were reimbursed, but please beware of unethical online retailers.
obxhead
(8,434 posts)and everything to do with unethical thieving online retailers.
Your advice is correct, know (as best as you can) about online retailers. To associate this horror with the product overall is just silly.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)There's no other way.
Dawgs
(14,755 posts)Quitting means divorcing yourself from anything that reminds one of smoking.
Interesting that Bloomberg distinguishes between the cig-alikes they call e-cigs and the refillable vaporizers which would
be considered e-cigs under the FDA's proposed deeming. If their logic is right and the users disgusted with the little cig-alikes are going back to real cigarettes then cigarette sales would be rising - which they didn't mention. They did mention "the industry is grappling with rising competition from generic vaporizers that can be refilled with nicotine liquid of many flavors." which - I think is more accurate - and I don't think customers are switching back to regular cigarettes once they use a good refillable vaporizer.
So far, the little cig-alikes are the only type that "Big Tobacco" is invested in. Yet politicians often talk as if 'Big Tobacco' were behind the whole thing. The refillables are largely imported from china - Kanger and Innotek. Quite a few small american firms make basically limited-edition "Mods" - limited because if they are good there will be a chinese knock-off 'Clone' in 3 months undercutting their price by 50%.
The big money is in the Juice - costs under 10 cents a milliliter to make - sells for at least 50 cents and if its a really good recipe or a decent recipe in a great location, you might get 80cents. Dozens of businesses and hundreds of small retailers sprung up the last few years to make a living mostly from that juice markup. Big Tobacco seems to have little or nothing to do with the juice - even the Nicotine in them is often imported from India or Turkey.
The little cig-alikes they mention here put out 4-5 watts and you could suck on one for half an hour before you got a blood level of nicotine similar to smoking one cigarette - by then the battery would be nearly dead and the cartridge they'd have you think is equivalent to a pack of cigarettes would be more than half empty. The 'Blu"s are particularly small and both battery and cartridge could be empty before you got the same 'fix' as one real cigarette provides.
The APV - advanced personal vaporizors - 3rd generation devices at the higher end of 'refillable vaporizors' do 8-15 watts and some even 20, 30 and 50 watts tho I'd guess 9-12 watts is a more typical setting. They get much closer to the nicotine delivery of cigarettes - get your blood nicotine saturation up to the level you want a lot quicker than the little cig-alikes.
Lots of people have replaces a $300/month cigarette habit with a $20/month vape habit - they mix their own juice and make their own coils then all you need is new batteries on occasion. Many others buy their juice and atomizers retail which can make it a $100/month to replace $300 of cigs. The little e-cigs would cost around $180-240 to do the same job at $2 per cartridge.
They mention the FDA putting restrictions on selling and marketing to minors - basically already in place for the vaporizer market; and child-proof lids on juice bottles, and "nicotine is addictive" - all reasonable, easy and mostly already done. What they are really interested in is tagging it as a "Tobacco Product" where a lot of policies will apply to it - policies based on the deadliness of cigarettes.
Cigarettes kill and cripple millions each year - you'll hear FDA spokesman soy "We've know for years that its the Nicotine that addicts, but the Tar that kills" - The lung inhaling of smoke causes the emphysema, COPD and lung cancers.
They know pipe and cigar smokers don't get those lung problems but do get more mouth, nose, throat cancers than non-smokers - but overall much less severe consequences than cigarettes. And smokeless - chewed - similar and newer 'Snus' smokeless even fewer health problems. But they refuse to let anyone say so - if you say "SNUS has been used in Sweden for 40 years and has 98% fewer health consequences than cigarettes " They'll get on your back. Their position is that none of them are totally safe so nobody can talk about their type being safer. This will end up applying to e-cigs as well. Now you can say "cigarette smoke has 50 known carcinogens and 800 known toxins and heavy metals - but e-cigs have 2 harmless carriers, nicotine, and food flavorings - make up your own mind. " Once they are 'Deemed" to be a tobacco product they may stop you even from mentioning that entirely true statement as a 'health claim'.
Digit
(6,163 posts)I had been using e-cigs for a few years and I decided to just quit before they began to tax the snot out of the juice or whatever else they could. So I went from 1.5 packs a day AND using e-cigs to smoking nada, nothing, zilch, zero. I don't want any of it but I credit the e-cig with being able to quit in the first place.
I had tried Chantix, Welbutrin, the patch, Commit, hypnosis, and acupuncture but nothing had worked for more than a couple of days.
My quit date was May 16, 2014.
rickyhall
(4,889 posts)Dr Hobbitstein
(6,568 posts)you can fill the tank with hash oil. So much fun!
F4lconF16
(3,747 posts)Maybe not a joint, but there's a nUmber of different types of vapes: stuff that runs on oils, some that run on juice, and some that can even burn dry.
JustAnotherGen
(31,681 posts)I quit almost two years ago by jumping to njoy ecigs (cheapies). Then one day you just forget to do it.
bunnies
(15,859 posts)madville
(7,397 posts)I dropped about $50 at the Vape store and got a nice rig, replacement parts are inexpensive. I'm down to 6mg of nicotine and the Vanilla mixture I've been using is pleasant.
My mom has been off the real things for 5 years thanks to e-cigs.
jmowreader
(50,447 posts)1) Cigalikes are, in many places, more expensive than tobacco cigarettes. Idaho is a very bad example because tobacco taxes are almost nonexistent, but a pack of Marlboro is about $5 and the cheapest disposable one-pack-equivalent cigalikes are $10. Even if these things gave the most wonderful smoking experience imaginable, no one's going to double their smoking cost for no good reason.
2) The "high end vaporizer" market is very complex hence hard to track. I live in a 50,000-population town with four stores that sell nothing but fancy e-cigs, the next town over is 30,000 population and has five stores, Spokane has dozens of them, Sandpoint (population 7500) has three, Priest River (population under 2000) has one...then throw in the multitudes of websites that sell them and you gotta wonder: are reported sales going down because overall sales are going down, or because every Tom, Dick and Harry is selling these things now?
3) Every market has a saturation point, and e-cigs are reaching theirs.
4) The Next Big Thing is the dry herb vaporizer.
and
5) Like it or not, some people really are switching back from quality refillable e-cigs to tobacco cigarettes.
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)It is most likely due to recent legislation treating e-cigs the same as cigarettes. All this proves is that the legislation and ridiculous news propaganda are keeping people from switching to a much healthier alternative.
So congratulations to those promoting these policies and enjoy the tobacco smoke instead. The cigarette companies surely thank you as well.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)people are turning to refillable vape pens that do a better, cheaper job. This article uses weasel wording to make a point it wants to make when the facts do not support that point.
Dishonest bullshit.
jayfish
(10,035 posts)Keeping smokers locked in the clutches of Big tobacco... Keep up the good work!
HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)I don't like being treated like a 2nd class citizen, or a Leper. However, if the rest of the population and the health police considers them in the same vein as "real" cigarettes, why bother? I will just stick to the real thing. Again, I don't WANT to quit smoking. Please don't tell me the health aspects. At 65 I really don't care.