E-Cig Sales Slide as Regular Smokers Return to Real Thing

[onehandle]

Source: Bloomberg

E-cigs have hit a wall. After at least five years of steady growth, sales of the U.S. tobacco industry’s most-hyped product since menthol fell for the first time in May and June. That’s 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 that’s 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. What’s more, efforts to lure regular smokers to e-cigs are faltering because most return to the real thing.

“There’s 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 it’s 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]

1. The real story is buried in there

The crappy cig-a-likes are turning off smokers to ecigs, while the generic refillables continue to increase sales.

[Ruby the Liberal]

2. This ^^

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]

31. I have to agree with you.

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]

5. I wonder if they're counting e-liquid sales?

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]

14. when I quit smoking in April, I substituted with e-cigs

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]

24. I used to refill the catomizers on the ecig-alikes...

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]

28. I think it has a lot to do with having e-cigs treated like regular cigarettes

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]

33. +1 nt

[Warpy]

3. "Return to the real thing?"

I think many of them are quitting. Period.

[Autumn]

6. I quit using the vape pen, it was so easy I don't even vape anymore.

I just don't think to use it now.

[tridim]

7. I've been forgetting to vape in the morning lately.

I can't wait to be free from nicotine.

[Autumn]

10. That's what happened to me. I would get up in the morning

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]

15. I haven't let go completely yet, but yeah, I'm pretty amazed that being around people

who still smoke, doesn't bother me.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

25. I pretty much use mine in the evening...

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]

9. I quit with the gum, and same here: I don't even use that anymore.

Free at last!

[Autumn]

11. It's a wonderful feeling.

[arcane1]

12. It is indeed! And thanks for replying so I could see my dreadful typos!!

Talk about a wonderful feeling: cleaning up a hastily crafted, illiterate-looking post

[Autumn]

16. You did good. I didn't see any typos

[arcane1]

17. Oh.. well then, Did I say typos?

I did not!

[phleshdef]

4. My e-cig is way better than the real thing, but I have a big ass mod.

If they try the crappy, cheap disposable junk you get at the gas station, then that's no good.

[PennyK]

8. Totally

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]

13. Yay if you've quit, as I did (many years ago, with Nicorette)

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]

18. That has NOTHING to do with eCigs

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]

19. There's only one way to quit smoking. Don't smoke.

There's no other way.

[Dawgs]

35. Yep. It's not easy, but it's the only way.

Quitting means divorcing yourself from anything that reminds one of smoking.

[Samba]

20. e-cig

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]

21. Hmmm, I had a different experience

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]

22. Maybe try to make e-joints? Just a thought. . .

[Dr Hobbitstein]

23. If you get one of the good liquid vaporizers,

you can fill the tank with hash oil. So much fun!

[F4lconF16]

32. They actually have products for that specifuc purpose.

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]

26. Loving all the stories of folks getting off of ciggy butts

I quit almost two years ago by jumping to njoy ecigs (cheapies). Then one day you just forget to do it.

[bunnies]

27. You need a bigger stick.

[madville]

29. Those little gas station e-cigs are crap

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]

30. A couple of points that need to be made

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]

34. I fail to see why anyone wold treat this as good news.

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]

36. This article misses the whole point, disposable commercial e-cigs are an inferior product and

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]

37. Your dream is coming true onehandle!

Keeping smokers locked in the clutches of Big tobacco... Keep up the good work!

[HockeyMom]

38. Was going to try them but not to quit smoking

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.