Been lurking since last year when I switched from a pack a day of Newport Light 100's to an njoy pen style and that was after 4 bad atomizers and 6 bad batteries.
Before I even got to that item I got stuck with a pile of cloned junk that I had no idea what was in it. At least Ruyan had paperwork that was real. That was nice for awhile, with Kick and Wicked and Johnson Creek but the LoongTotem 2 piece blew me away with the amount of vapor and hit. That was what I started to use and decided to sell after seeing their paperwork.
LT soon became involved with 51 (Smoke Anywhere) and we couldn't get the stuff direct. We paid, it never shipped, we charged it back. 51 promised it to us direct in the USA so we made a deal. We sold a lot until the QC and supply issues.
So we really started up in August testing the Ruyan/njoy product. Loads of research and paperwork. We decided to move to LT in October and then 51 in November.
We officially opened retails and website in December and was on eBay as esmoke51 and smoke-fifty-one. We hit Silver Power Seller in 6 weeks. You need to sell $13000 US dollars a month to do that! We had a reliable device, easy to use and great feedback. We were on our way to Bronze when the ban hit on eBay. It ain't easy to fulfill those kinds of orders with just two guys running it!!!
Our retail sites were moving slow but sure, we hired staff and managers and we tweaked locations and demographics.
The website was building slowly without heavy keyword marketing. We started to get wholesale distribution contracts and web affiliates. It's still growing.
As I indicated, we ran into some quality control issues in late Jan. We started to get into the supply chain mess and deal with defects and support issues even from a "USA" supplier.
At one point we had to cut our inventory almost in half to cover bad components and save our reputation. That's half our product down the drain just to make working kits. That doubled our price on each kit!
Now we've phased them out after making our own connections and checking every angle in person in China.
Thank goodness, we never stopped shipping since we started and hopefully our homework and experience will continue to pay off.
We are not the cheapest because we have an LLC, Trademarks, testing facilities, SSl certificates, several merchant accounts for CC processing besides the requisite PayPal (which slams you also) not to mention the need to support our customers with time and staff. This is all expensive and checkable about us.
I think it's important to note that Chinese prices look cheap, even from the legit companies (as I said we originally started with Ruyan/NJOY, moved to LoongTotem and 51 and now our current supplier in China), but bringing it in with tariffs paid and inspections and paperwork also is expensive so we base our pricing on our landed cost and our ability to support the product. We don't sneak it in and everything is shipped directly to our warehouse. That also cost money.
As I said we ate a lot of LT/51 and Ruyan stuff to keep our customers happy and have the half empty boxes and triple returned parts that came back to us all UV marked by us to prove it. And we're going to have to to get our money back, which also cost money.
This is a risky and expensive business to keep customers happy, make no mistake about it. There is no get-rich scheme and there is a lot to be aware of and even so there are plenty of surprises - sometimes pleasant and sometimes scary.
I know I'm ranting but I want to make these points.
If we don't see a real patent and lab certifications that we can put in front of customs we won't touch it. They want to see it. That also cost money for reps and brokers here and overseas. China is famous for clones and knockoffs and mislabeling. In any country you will pay top dollar for legitimate goods with proper documentation and labeling.
As I said lawyers cost money too, especially in the areas of expertise with trademarks, patents, customs tariffs, FDA... right down the line. Those lawyers can be states away and need to travel to you or you go to them. They charge for expenses. Trips to China are not cheap and you have to be invited and have proper visas to "commute" more than one trip.
Preparation and protection of the product concept let alone it's manufacturer and sale is a big issue and will become even bigger down the rocky road.
We're in it now and the bottom line is if we can't do it right for our customers, we'll stop the whole thing and call it a day. This is a hard-business and not a cheap one to keep running smoothly.
But we are believers and use it and love the popular excitement it generates everywhere we go. Invariably I wind up selling the couple of units I keep in my car. I have printed over 20,000 info cards which are almost gone because my jaw hurts from all the questions folks ask me. I went through as many "tester" tips and plenty of demo cartridges. ($$$)
I know I'm repeating myself at this point and I apologize but we never have anything for sale that we physically don't have in stock. If we don't have it, you can't even order it. Never did and never will.
We sell what we use and think is the best. That enthusiasm is real and catches on.
Things do change and improve and we have new products hopefully to ship real soon. We say real soon because we know better than to announce a date with all the variables involved. But it is a product that we have checked out completely and have samples in our hands that we brought back. We have a large order in and hopefully we will get it like we've been getting everything else. If it's weren't good around all the issues, we wouldn't touch it.
We have proper warnings and ingredients on our labeling and stay clear of any dubious or unproven claims. We reject those materials from our suppliers and write and print our own - again $$$.
In general we hope this will be a great and beneficial device and we won't all get crushed by Engulf & Devour.
Right now we are holding with around 2000 end user customers, 4 wholesalers and numerous affiliates beside our retail locations which average about 50 to 100 kits a week plus refills and accessories. We test, pack and seal everything here in the US and do repairs here as well. If stuff doesn't work we take it offline and return it or in many cases we wind up eating it as I said.
It's still a free market and please buy what you think is best. I have my info in my profile. Feel free to check it out. Thanks. I wish everyone success in their sincere endeavors as users and suppliers and thanks for the opportunity to put it out there. You've probably heard it all before...
I hope I haven't violated any rules or offended anyone. If I have, I apologize in advance and will accept whatever happens to me on this forum.
We are located in Lakewood NJ (Lautenberg's State - thankfully there are more than one senator in NJ and in the Senate plus there's also the House). With the smoking ban in our area on the Jersey Shore beaches this summer, things should get pretty hot under the sun. Let's all hang in there and hang together.
Before I even got to that item I got stuck with a pile of cloned junk that I had no idea what was in it. At least Ruyan had paperwork that was real. That was nice for awhile, with Kick and Wicked and Johnson Creek but the LoongTotem 2 piece blew me away with the amount of vapor and hit. That was what I started to use and decided to sell after seeing their paperwork.
LT soon became involved with 51 (Smoke Anywhere) and we couldn't get the stuff direct. We paid, it never shipped, we charged it back. 51 promised it to us direct in the USA so we made a deal. We sold a lot until the QC and supply issues.
So we really started up in August testing the Ruyan/njoy product. Loads of research and paperwork. We decided to move to LT in October and then 51 in November.
We officially opened retails and website in December and was on eBay as esmoke51 and smoke-fifty-one. We hit Silver Power Seller in 6 weeks. You need to sell $13000 US dollars a month to do that! We had a reliable device, easy to use and great feedback. We were on our way to Bronze when the ban hit on eBay. It ain't easy to fulfill those kinds of orders with just two guys running it!!!
Our retail sites were moving slow but sure, we hired staff and managers and we tweaked locations and demographics.
The website was building slowly without heavy keyword marketing. We started to get wholesale distribution contracts and web affiliates. It's still growing.
As I indicated, we ran into some quality control issues in late Jan. We started to get into the supply chain mess and deal with defects and support issues even from a "USA" supplier.
At one point we had to cut our inventory almost in half to cover bad components and save our reputation. That's half our product down the drain just to make working kits. That doubled our price on each kit!
Now we've phased them out after making our own connections and checking every angle in person in China.
Thank goodness, we never stopped shipping since we started and hopefully our homework and experience will continue to pay off.
We are not the cheapest because we have an LLC, Trademarks, testing facilities, SSl certificates, several merchant accounts for CC processing besides the requisite PayPal (which slams you also) not to mention the need to support our customers with time and staff. This is all expensive and checkable about us.
I think it's important to note that Chinese prices look cheap, even from the legit companies (as I said we originally started with Ruyan/NJOY, moved to LoongTotem and 51 and now our current supplier in China), but bringing it in with tariffs paid and inspections and paperwork also is expensive so we base our pricing on our landed cost and our ability to support the product. We don't sneak it in and everything is shipped directly to our warehouse. That also cost money.
As I said we ate a lot of LT/51 and Ruyan stuff to keep our customers happy and have the half empty boxes and triple returned parts that came back to us all UV marked by us to prove it. And we're going to have to to get our money back, which also cost money.
This is a risky and expensive business to keep customers happy, make no mistake about it. There is no get-rich scheme and there is a lot to be aware of and even so there are plenty of surprises - sometimes pleasant and sometimes scary.
I know I'm ranting but I want to make these points.
If we don't see a real patent and lab certifications that we can put in front of customs we won't touch it. They want to see it. That also cost money for reps and brokers here and overseas. China is famous for clones and knockoffs and mislabeling. In any country you will pay top dollar for legitimate goods with proper documentation and labeling.
As I said lawyers cost money too, especially in the areas of expertise with trademarks, patents, customs tariffs, FDA... right down the line. Those lawyers can be states away and need to travel to you or you go to them. They charge for expenses. Trips to China are not cheap and you have to be invited and have proper visas to "commute" more than one trip.
Preparation and protection of the product concept let alone it's manufacturer and sale is a big issue and will become even bigger down the rocky road.
We're in it now and the bottom line is if we can't do it right for our customers, we'll stop the whole thing and call it a day. This is a hard-business and not a cheap one to keep running smoothly.
But we are believers and use it and love the popular excitement it generates everywhere we go. Invariably I wind up selling the couple of units I keep in my car. I have printed over 20,000 info cards which are almost gone because my jaw hurts from all the questions folks ask me. I went through as many "tester" tips and plenty of demo cartridges. ($$$)
I know I'm repeating myself at this point and I apologize but we never have anything for sale that we physically don't have in stock. If we don't have it, you can't even order it. Never did and never will.
We sell what we use and think is the best. That enthusiasm is real and catches on.
Things do change and improve and we have new products hopefully to ship real soon. We say real soon because we know better than to announce a date with all the variables involved. But it is a product that we have checked out completely and have samples in our hands that we brought back. We have a large order in and hopefully we will get it like we've been getting everything else. If it's weren't good around all the issues, we wouldn't touch it.
We have proper warnings and ingredients on our labeling and stay clear of any dubious or unproven claims. We reject those materials from our suppliers and write and print our own - again $$$.
In general we hope this will be a great and beneficial device and we won't all get crushed by Engulf & Devour.
Right now we are holding with around 2000 end user customers, 4 wholesalers and numerous affiliates beside our retail locations which average about 50 to 100 kits a week plus refills and accessories. We test, pack and seal everything here in the US and do repairs here as well. If stuff doesn't work we take it offline and return it or in many cases we wind up eating it as I said.
It's still a free market and please buy what you think is best. I have my info in my profile. Feel free to check it out. Thanks. I wish everyone success in their sincere endeavors as users and suppliers and thanks for the opportunity to put it out there. You've probably heard it all before...
I hope I haven't violated any rules or offended anyone. If I have, I apologize in advance and will accept whatever happens to me on this forum.
We are located in Lakewood NJ (Lautenberg's State - thankfully there are more than one senator in NJ and in the Senate plus there's also the House). With the smoking ban in our area on the Jersey Shore beaches this summer, things should get pretty hot under the sun. Let's all hang in there and hang together.
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