Can't sleep so I emailed the local Mall Kiosk

[Shadoza]

I can't sleep so I am sitting around learning about my newest hobby/addiction. The Electronic Cigarette. Then, I got mad because I have to look around at all the websites and look at the products and read about them, but I am unable to hold them or see how they perform. I guess I can go to YouTube and watch everyone blow vapor into the cam but that really doesn't help my desire to feel the product. It is kind of like buying a new pair of shoes online. Then I thought about the first place I went when I heard about the electronic cigarette variety out there. The mall kiosk... That made me mad, because I drove about 45 minutes to get to that place just to be shocked by the price tags. So, I momentarily took my mind off my insomnia by writing them an email. Now I am taking my mind off of it by sharing it with you guys... haha

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I can't believe you guys charge so much...

About a month ago, I heard about your mall kiosk in (City Omitted) and drove pretty far to get there only to find that you charge unreasonable prices for your products. I am glad I did some research before I went and only bought an overpriced bottle of juice just because I felt sorry for the girl working there that had no idea about what she was selling.

Operations like yours are ruining the ecig industry and you should be ashamed of yourselves. 99.99 for a 510 kit? 179.99 for a 510 mod? Seriously? You will never get an order from me and I will tell everyone that I share the eCig experience with about your mall kiosk and to stay away from there.

The person that told me about your kiosk will also never buy from you again now that I showed him that he got ripped off. He actually gave up the eCig he paid over 200 dollars for until I told him about where to get items that weren't overpriced ($25 for a regular atomizer?). He was convinced that this was going to double his nicotine costs. As a matter of fact, I have turned on three people to eCigs that he couldn't because of your prices.

I might understand that you guys have to charge more because you are paying mall priced rent, but on your website the prices are the same. So there goes that excuse.

Electronic cigarettes are a product that can not only give people a way to get their nico-fix when they can't smoke but they also give people a hope of living healthier and longer lives . People interested in an electronic cigarette will stop by your website or your kiosks and never give it another thought.

Shame on you!

Sincerely,

Shadoza (real name omitted)

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[n2xe]

I think if you opened your own mall kiosk, it would be very educational for you. These guys are taking a fairly huge financial risk. They pay for the stock up front and risk having it confiscated by the FDA. They pay the high mall rent, business fees and taxes, have a mountain of paper work and have to deal with customers like you. I gotta be honest, I bought my first e-cig at a mall kiosk. Cost me $90 and I could have gotten it online for $35. So what? I quit smoking and got introduced to this miraculous device. It was worth every penny and them some. I think you are suffering from the Kruger-Dunning effect.

I can't sleep so I am sitting around learning about my newest hobby/addiction. The Electronic Cigarette. Then, I got mad because I have to look around at all the websites and look at the products and read about them, but I am unable to hold them or see how they perform. I guess I can go to YouTube and watch everyone blow vapor into the cam but that really doesn't help my desire to feel the product. It is kind of like buying a new pair of shoes online. Then I thought about the first place I went when I heard about the electronic cigarette variety out there. The mall kiosk... That made me mad, because I drove about 45 minutes to get to that place just to be shocked by the price tags. So, I momentarily took my mind off my insomnia by writing them an email. Now I am taking my mind off of it by sharing it with you guys... haha

---------------------
I can't believe you guys charge so much...

About a month ago, I heard about your mall kiosk in (City Omitted) and drove pretty far to get there only to find that you charge unreasonable prices for your products. I am glad I did some research before I went and only bought an overpriced bottle of juice just because I felt sorry for the girl working there that had no idea about what she was selling.

Operations like yours are ruining the ecig industry and you should be ashamed of yourselves. 99.99 for a 510 kit? 179.99 for a 510 mod? Seriously? You will never get an order from me and I will tell everyone that I share the eCig experience with about your mall kiosk and to stay away from there.

The person that told me about your kiosk will also never buy from you again now that I showed him that he got ripped off. He actually gave up the eCig he paid over 200 dollars for until I told him about where to get items that weren't overpriced ($25 for a regular atomizer?). He was convinced that this was going to double his nicotine costs. As a matter of fact, I have turned on three people to eCigs that he couldn't because of your prices.

I might understand that you guys have to charge more because you are paying mall priced rent, but on your website the prices are the same. So there goes that excuse.

Electronic cigarettes are a product that can not only give people a way to get their nico-fix when they can't smoke but they also give people a hope of living healthier and longer lives . People interested in an electronic cigarette will stop by your website or your kiosks and never give it another thought.

Shame on you!

Sincerely,

Shadoza (real name omitted)

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[mccawley]

Both of you have a point. I ran a small business for a while. The smaller you are the more overhead you have. The only way to offset is to charge higher prices.
$99.99 for a 510 starter kit is not bad for a mall kiosk, Ive seen higher. The real question is: Was it a JOYE510 or some knock off crap brand? 'cause then $99.99 for a crap 510 starter kit is a rip off.

My two cents.....

 

[WomanOfHeart]

The kiosk at our local mall is charging $150-250 for basic 510 kits, $25 for one atomizer and $35 for a 5 pack of cartomizers. The juice is also $25 for 15ml. Exorbitant? Yes. But I'd be willing to bet that he pays around $2000/month to rent the space because it's a high-end mall, plus he has to put up with all the crap that n2xe mentioned. I don't like the fact that the prices are so overinflated, but they've got bills to pay just like everyone else. If someone wants to shell out that much cash to quit smoking, so be it. A lot of them end up here, anyway and they figure out how to keep vaping without the high costs.

 

[keelalagirl55]

Okay...I have 2 points to make here one for both sides......

1) EVERYTHING in malls is overpriced in my opinion.....I ONLY go to our mall for Cinnabon and to have my jewelry cleaned and inspected to keep the warranty in tact. So I would expect the kiosk e-cigs to be overpriced.....good business practice? well....

2) who do you think will stay in business? The place that sells 20 kits at 25$ or the place that can only sell 1 $200 kit per day? If you can get these wholesale and sell for a smaller profit margin, you will sell more and be able to cover your overhead. Mall kiosks tend not to do this cause they wanna make the big money fast...well what they find is that they have sold very little and now they can no longer cover their expenses....hence the kiosks CONSTANTLY have some new vendor taking over with some other high priced product.

Now the kiosk company mentioned in the op doesn't have the excuse of the high overhead of the kiosk rent and such...they sell online for the same inflated prices.....they are IMO looking to get rich quick.....and that kinda outlook only leads to company failure....

 

[wv2win]

I'm not a fan of the mall kiosks only because some of them do charge way too much. However, as n2xe pointed out, they have to charge higher than the online retailer working out of their house. I know the monthly rent on a mall kiosk in this area can be $1100+ a month. Plus you are required to have it open the entire time the mall is open which means you have to hire and PAY people to run it. So if an online kit costs you $35, 3 times that cost ($105) at a kiosk is probably not unreasonable. $180 is unreasonable. If 10ml of eliquid online costs typically $10 ($13-$16 with shipping), then selling it for $25 at the mall is probably not unreasonable. Most retail (brick & mortar) markups are at least 200% and many are 300% for other items we buy.

 

[wv2win]

....Now the kiosk company mentioned in the op doesn't have the excuse of the high overhead of the kiosk rent and such...they sell online for the same inflated prices.....they are IMO looking to get rich quick.....and that kinda outlook only leads to company failure....

There could be another explanation for the same higher prices for the kiosks online store. If the kiosk's online store has much lower prices than at the kiosk, why would anyone go to the kiosk? The owner might end up killing his kiosk business.

 

[keelalagirl55]

There could be another explanation for the same higher prices for the kiosks online store. If the kiosk's online store has much lower prices than at the kiosk, why would anyone go to the kiosk? The owner might end up killing his kiosk business.

I wonder if he had the online first and wasn't moving product so went to the kiosk thinking if they see them first hand they will likely buy.....I as a business owner would never start in a kiosk....that would be crazy to start off with that kind of overhead. But then again...there are quite a few out there with no business sense at all trying to make a buck.

 

[mccawley]

keelalagirl55 has a good point. The kiosks always change.

I think the people fall into the "YOU CAN MAKE BIG MONEY" pitch and end up opening a kiosk with dreams of riches.They never last.

My aunt had a Kiosk renting DVD's years ago. She didn't last. She also had an idea to work it at home mailing DVD's to people for a membership fee. We all told her she was crazy.

 

[ctourtelot]

The guy at the local kiosk actually offered me a job there as I used to work at the local e-cig shop. We had looked into getting a kiosk ourselves to compete, but we'd have had to charge more than double the cost to break even. I understand the higher cost, but I told the mall guy that I didn't think I could morally sell a kit for $150 knowing that they could save $100 by driving the 12 miles to the store.

Granted, I could use the work but I'm too passionate about these devices to not be honest about them to customers.

 

[ajkron]

i strongly believe your letter should of been addressed to mall management. these kiosks cost more than you can imagine. where im from and im from a small city, rent alone on these things can cost 3-5k a month plus a percentage of your sales. oh and during Christmas (Nov. and Dec.) you can more than double that. no one should have the right to infringe on someones right to make a living. its great that you find this site like i did. im glad theres a kiosk in the mall where i know i can go and pick up juice in an emergency. i too bought my first ecig at the mall years ago and gave up on it very fast cause of the short battery life. then i found this place and well you know the rest. these kiosks are trying to make a living as you are and i think its wrong to go out of your way and black ball them.

 

[mccawley]

And spammers need to feed their children.

Running a kiosk is not what someone does to make a living.
Its something they fell for, will fail at, and eventually learn from.
No one runs a kiosk without being sold some money making spiel about how the mall has thousands of potential customers, and how you will be in the middle of all of them, great riches, girls in bikinis, motorcycles, blah, blah....

Calendars, Stale Bubblegum, e-cigs, Cell phones, Gold Chains, its all crap.
The people selling it knows its crap.
You know its crap.

It might be a different story if they sold descent product. JOYE510 atty's or something.
I'd pay for the convenience of having product close.
but no matter how convenient crap is to acquire its still crap.

Maybe other peoples mall kiosks are different, but I doubt it.

 

[Shadoza]

I was overtired and couldn't sleep. I am having 2nd thoughts about that email, but... ajkron, I didn't go out of my way to blackball them, there is no mention of the company name in my post at all. I was just blackballing overcharging in general.

I was merely sharing something that I wrote to the company and thought maybe someone else might do the same. In hopes that that company might change their business practices. I am upset that their prices do damage the industry/hobby/addiction and I was letting them know that. They may have no clue of the damage they are doing.

No more posting for me just because I can't sleep... ha

edit: BTW, ajkron I love your avatar!

 

[ajkron]

Please take no offense in what i said. You have the right to speak your mind regardless of what anyone thinks. I was just giving my opinion is all.
[
QUOTE=Shadoza;2754154]I was overtired and couldn't sleep. I am having 2nd thoughts about that email, but... ajkron, I didn't go out of my way to blackball them, there is no mention of the company name in my post at all. I was just blackballing overcharging in general.

I was merely sharing something that I wrote to the company and thought maybe someone else might do the same. In hopes that that company might change their business practices. I am upset that their prices do damage the industry/hobby/addiction and I was letting them know that. They may have no clue of the damage they are doing.

No more posting for me just because I can't sleep... ha

edit: BTW, ajkron I love your avatar![/QUOTE]



sent from my iphone killer

 

[Shadoza]

No offense taken.

I am gonna have to start posting from my G1 with Cyanogenmod 6.1

 

[seanmc]

Wow, after all of my years on this forum...I've never seen so many people stick up for Smoking Everywhere! That is who you're talking about...right? That name used to be a "bad word" around this forum...how things have changed!

 

[Carless]

As a retailer myself, I can tell you that the prices malls charge for their kiosks aren't all that bad. Around here, a kiosk rents for $1,600.00 a month during regular months and about double that during the Christmas season.
(After your gross sales reach $1,600.00 for the month, the rent becomes 10% of your gross sales).
That's only $53.33 a day.
If they were to lower their prices to a reasonable amount, they would do ok.
Paying minimum wage, if the vendor staffed his kiosk at all hours of the day and didn't work there himself his labor would cost him an additional $140.00 a day after employee taxes.
A phone and merchant (banking) fees - $5.00 a day
Insurance (GL & Comp) - $15.00 a day

That's about $213 a day in expenses.

With cost of goods sold at typical 100% markup on product, he would need $426.00 a day in sales to break even. After that, he gets to keep half of every additional dollar he generates through sales.

..........But wait! From what I can see, vendors (even those selling over the internet) are selling these things at four times their own cost. If that's the case, the break even point is now about $300.00 a day.

Guys, that's only $25.00 an hour in sales. Pretty easy if you ask me. Hell....... I'd do it.

There are a lot of good (and bad. Yes.) things about renting a kiosk. The biggest thing being traffic and that it's a month-to-month lease. You don't have to risk your future - just your start-up capital.
The downside is staffing, management, shrinkage issues. In addition to the FDA Nazi's.

.....and before someone asks me why I don't do it then, it's because I already have a full plate.

 

[ajkron]

Im not sticking up for no one. Im just saying if someone wants to invest his hard earned money in a kiosk and charge whatever price he wants he has that right without being branded some snake oil salesman. We all have choices. I bought once and probably never again unless some emergency arises

Wow, after all of my years on this forum...I've never seen so many people stick up for Smoking Everywhere! That is who you're talking about...right? That name used to be a "bad word" around this forum...how things have changed!

sent from my iphone killer

 

[kboyts]

A lot of very good points brought up in this thread. I thought Id take a minute to toss out my two cents. Yes Kiosks prices are rediculous. My local malls kiosk only sells starter kits and refill cartridges. They want $139, and $229 for the two starter kits they offer. Although stupidly overpriced, talking to the kiosk guy and trying out the model is what convinced me to start researching on my own online. Which brought me to order two KR808D-2 kits from china, follwed by me coming here and building two mods myself and ordering a nice stock of juices from various vendors. All of which cost me less then had I bought one of the upgraded kits from the kiosk.

So although some people here have said they are bad for the e-cig business, they have their place. If for no other reason then to introduce people to the world of PV's as right now its quite a niche market that most people, smokers included, have never even heard of. And the more people know about vaping the better.

 

[seanmc]

I was just giving you guys a hard time. I pondered opening a small kiosk here in my local mall back in 2007. E-cigs were still in their early stages, so I had to submit samples and what not to the big wigs. They denied my business and about 2 months later Smoking Everywhere opened up a booth. Im glad I didn't get approved though, a little while after that, ATF gave control of tobacco to the FDA and all of our shipments were being seized. You should've heard some of the conversations we were having in the "suppliers only" forums...haha, talks of shipping to Mexico etc...man those were the days!