Hardware prices at the local B&Ms

[StockyIrish]

I find the prices at B&Ms here in Philly pretty reasonable. We have a lot of stores in the greater Philadelphia area though, and new ones popping up everyday. All of the stores offer tasting and most have couches and places to chill. Some have video game systems hooked up, one even has a ball pit! lol

 

[thanantos]

Boom! well stated... I WANT to give a good local shop my buisness... I am single, no bills other that 30$ electric, 300$ car payment, 60$ pre paid cell phone... I work off shore as a paramedic... the helicopter ride out here costs my employer 30 thousand dollars... I have a HUGE disposable income...

BUT this paying 40$ for a 30$ item does not happen in my neck of the woods. This -----> https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10010766/1921000-dovpo-e-mech-style-variable-voltage-wattage-apv costs the shop 48$ if they buy it on fasttech, they have it on sale for $130 REALLY? I can afford it... I can afford 10 of them... but the fact that they couldnt just be reasonably greedy and ask for 99$ is kind of ridiculous.

I bought my second MVP2 ( the back up I thought I needed ) at a brick and mortar for 60$... now that is a fair price... 50% mark up everybody is happy. I really dont care much one way or the other... as long as prices are ridiculous informed consumers will just drop by to sample juices and look at mods to decide if we want to buy them online or not.

Totally agreed. I am happy to encourage local business. I am not happy being gouged by them.

 

[Danbrooks2k]

Buy from B&M's that provide excellent service, then say "Those dudes totally took care of me! They earned that extra 20 bucks."

That is just the type of place I want to find... anyone know of a really great shop near Houston or lake Charles, I have given up on east Texas.

 

[Uncle00Jesse]

Are the hardware prices at your local B&Ms out of control?

I understand that a small local shop needs to charge some premium to stay in business. I get it, and I'm willing to spend a certain percentage more to support local business. But, my observations so far are that the local shops are really Stealing from people.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in a shop, and I heard the guy selling to a customer. I made note of what he was selling, the price, and then priced it at home. It was about twice the cost of mail order.

Recently, I have decided that my first mod will be an iStick. Mail order, that's 35 to 40ish. Today, one local store wanted 75. One wanted 65.

Again, I know these stores can't compete with mega mail order, but, they are doing themselves a tremendous service with attempting hardware margins like that.
If That's what they need to stay in business, if that is their business model, they will be gone in short order.

I think it does damage to the whole vaping industry.

I think I know exactly where you're talking about as I'm from the same area. Before I knew anything about anything vaping related, I walked in there to get my first set up. It's embarrassing to say, but I paid $55 for a Nautilus, and $75 for a MVP 2.0. That's almost a 100% markup over MSRP on both products. When I went home and looked online at what I bought, I turned blue. I'm not strapped for cash, but I don't like being railroaded. It's cool that these places exist and they really do help people quit smoking, but business must be real bad if you need to overcharge like that. It's ugly out there.

 

[Oberon75]

The store by my house is pretty ridiculous however when they have coupons, the prices are very reasonable.

 

[Krashman Von Stinkputin]

Are the hardware prices at your local B&Ms out of control?

I understand that a small local shop needs to charge some premium to stay in business. I get it, and I'm willing to spend a certain percentage more to support local business. But, my observations so far are that the local shops are really Stealing from people.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in a shop, and I heard the guy selling to a customer. I made note of what he was selling, the price, and then priced it at home. It was about twice the cost of mail order.

Recently, I have decided that my first mod will be an iStick. Mail order, that's 35 to 40ish. Today, one local store wanted 75. One wanted 65.

Again, I know these stores can't compete with mega mail order, but, they are doing themselves a tremendous service with attempting hardware margins like that.
If That's what they need to stay in business, if that is their business model, they will be gone in short order.

I think it does damage to the whole vaping industry.

Good business model is to make 20% profit, not rape someone when they walk into the door. A simple thing as a drip tip, 12 of them can be had for 10 bucks mail order and these are the better ones. Go into some B&M stores and they want to charge 20 bucks for the same drip tip, not the set one of the tips! This is unacceptable. I go into one B&M and they are more modest and sell it for 5 bucks but the other one charges 20. No it is not the rent money, same town so much for that. We simply don't want to call a spade a spade!

Would a better business model be a 19% profit? Why not 21%
Better business model is get compensated for the value you provide not to artificially put a number to that value, --then adapt to the market as it changes.
And that doesn't mean one set profit margin for all you sell.
Gas stations do not profit by selling gas.

 

[VHRB2014]

I don`t shop at all in either of the two shops we have here in my small town. Simple fact is I do not need them. Nor do I want them. The price are HIGH compared to what Iv gotten used to on the net. For me, this was`nt about quitting smoking. It was about the astronomically high cost of smoking.

Next week it`ll be time to jump on the DIY juice bandwagon. I figured out I can make 1 liter (!!!!!) of juice for the same price it would cost me to buy 3-4 30ml bottles of the "cheap" stuff I`m already buying. Once I get that under my belt it time to stock up on nic.

 

[bullet08]

i was at local BM. i had my penny clone with me. some customer walked in. he saw my penny, and penny in the showcase. the customer asked how much. the guy behind the counter says $65. and i know it wasn't 1:1 either. i got mine for $20 at the FT. i didn't say anything. if the customer is happy paying that much, i guess it's his money. when i was checking out, i said "that guy seems like never been on the internet". the guy behind the counter just smiled.

 

[Mike 586]

People can rationalize it anyway they want. Taxes, rent, utilities, payroll, etc. but even the mail order companies have to pay ALL of those things. Its not like these things aren't stored anywhere, that no one packages them, that no one is working support, returns, etc. they have a lot of costs associated to running their business that B&M stores don't....just different costs in an environment with much fiercer competition. . Its not like these things just magically appear in the mail from non-existence while some guy sits in his mom's basement running it all from a single PC giggling in a pool of money at the expense of the poor hard working B&M.

With most other products right across the spectrum, be it consumer electronics, clothes, tools, etc. the prices online while often better, only on the rare item will you see huge differences, not like the absolutely wild price discrepancies that you see in vaping right across the board. Most of the time it isn't even worth ordering stuff online because shipping often wipes out the savings making it a wash. The only thing that can account for the kinds of discrepancies we're seeing here is predatory greed.

Greed a lot like all those old computer shops one of the guys alluded to. Most of them were predatory as a great many vape shops obviously are. Just locally I can remember too many incidents to count, some high profile cases of consumer gouging, predatory marketing, etc. making national news, a lot more local news reports, fines, court cases. Most of them eventually went out of business, many declaring bankruptcy, many simply vanishing overnight with employees showing up to locked doors, their last pay period unpaid, along with a large pool of customers who will never receive their goods and an even more massive trail of debts left behind...

...I never did get that 3DFX Voodoo 3 card. I knew better and lost that gamble.

I look at some of the vape shops in town and so far not one looks like it will survive in the long run. I've gotta go 2 hours out of town to find the ones that won't fail and will likely expand. Anyway, the good ones will survive while the bad ones will leave a trail of financial consequences extending beyond everyone they ever came in contact with.

No amount of people rushing to make excuses for their pricing will change that.

 

[Danbrooks2k]

Well said...

Walmart or some retailer is going to just have a vape kiosk next to the lenscrafters in some big supercenter... B&M wont be able to get a customer because that manhattan clone will be 2 dollars cheaper that on fasttech... hell Walmart could broker a deal with mod designers and sell authentic mods for dirt cheap... thats what happens when you buy a hundred thousand at a time.

 

[jhhollier]

Two Local B&Ms - One was charging $65 for the MVP 2.0, a good bit higher than online prices but you get instant gratification, etc. One was charging $110 for it. Really? I understand the markup to $65, I do. And if I had reeeaaallly wanted an MVP 2.0 I would have probably been willing to pay that price even though I could've drove home, sat at the computer and got it for less with shipping. Might've been able to pick up a couple of other things as well. But $110? That's ridiculous and that type of pricing is what I have a problem with. One seems like they're trying to actually make some money to keep the store going and the other is trying to gouge you IMO. I don't really see any reasonable defense for that. I still go to the first store but haven't been back to the second one.

 

[SuperTaz]

The good,the bad and the ugly. As a consumer it is up to you to shop and compare prices then make the decision to buy or not. For me well...I live in a very rural location and if it was not for the kiosk at the mall I would most likely still be smoking. I stopped on impulse to see what e-cigs were. The clerk was extremely helpful and knowlegable . She could have made a lot of money off me that day but did not. I left with the very basic starter kit and the number one selling juice. She also told me that their online store would be a great place to get supplies. They offer everything I need at very reasonable prices any all shipping is only 5$. The best part is I get my orders within 48 hrs!...BTW I have upgraded my gear since but still use my starter kit at work.

 

[Johnny Hughes]

They make a ridiculous amount of money off of in house juice usually I mean when you do diy you realize just how much they are marking that up buttttt it matches the rest of an industry lol a store making money off of jacking up hardware prices like that is silly they don't know where to make thier money

 

[GinnyTx]

on some things it's cray cray..clone iStick $49, er..no thanks I can order it from Slow Tech too for $24ish..

but they have OVERHEAD, leased retail space in Houston is NOT cheap, labor, taxes and permits (those lil "gotcha's" annual inventory tax, there's always some fire code or something that's a couple hundred bucks), insurance, etc. I "get it" trust me..been there done that on a wild hair to give my girls and their friends a job when they were in college it was fun. But hint the best way to suck the joy out of a hobby, is to earn a living at it *lol*

but we do buy premium juice from them, if they have it, in support. Or if they happen to have some hardware that'ts not crazy marked up we will if it's a couple bucks more in support to help them pay the bills and stay in business. They're struggling, we've got an oversaturated market here in Houston.

 

[Danbrooks2k]

Can you suggest any good shops in Houston?

MVP for 65$ That is a perfectly reasonable mark up for a B&M store... Its at least 100$ at the ones near me.

 

[erikbal]

The store by my house is pretty ridiculous however when they have coupons, the prices are very reasonable.

Those prices really aren't that bad considering the local one here wants $150 for the ipv3. I think they might want the same for the sigelei 100w. Sorry I'm not paying $60 more for something than it costs online.

Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk

 

[wonkeypickle]

B&Ms support your local economy. If you love to see shopping centers with for lease signs, and halfway empty shopping centers and malls, by all means support the online dealers.

Prices are fixed upon a projected bottom line numbers on an income statement. A specific total of revenue is required to sustain the business after expenses and desired profit is factored in.

I once was about to place an online order. Then I made it to checkout and I laughed and cancelled my order. The prices were cheap, but what was laughable was their shipping prices. In this day and age, if you are going to charge my ANY shipping at all, it best get here in 2 days. Nothing more. If you want to deliver it USPS ground and expect me to get it in a week, you should be paying me for the time it takes for the package to get to me, not the other way around.

i love how people are posting things like this as if it's the general public's responsibility to keep local business afloat......

 

[Brandon David]

The last time I wanted to buy hardware from my preferred (and best priced locally) B&M was when the istick had been out for a month or so. Surprisingly, it was on par with interwebs prices. I'm assuming that was a door buster thing because they quoted me $33 for a protank 2. I went home and ordered one for like $13. :-/

They also wanted $65.99 for an mvp 2 which had just hit $40 online at the time online. I still buy their juices occasionally but I'm scared to ask what they'd want for any of my current gear.


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[Croak]

I buy a fair amount of juice from my local B&M since they have some decent house blends at $5/10ml, and they stock some of the premium brands like Jimmy's. I've also bought both a Nautilus Mini and Atlantis from them, both on a whim and both $45, and individual coil heads at $5 a pop from time to time. High, but not out of line, and I didn't mind it so much for the convenience.

But I was in the store last Saturday getting juice and picking up a "reasonably priced" LG HE2 for $12 when another customer came in and bought a Siegeli 150w box mod...for $150. That's at least a 50% markup on internet pricing. Kinda made me sick, but I didn't say anything.

 

[chopdoc]

I, like many understand they need to make a profit to stay in business BUT they too must understand that their competition is the Internet and if they dont curb their prices they will go out of business. Not long ago I needed a spare Ego batt. The local B&M sold me a 900 mhz ego for $30. It would of said hell no but I needed it. A few weeks later I ordered online 10 1100 mhz Ego's for $50 with free shipping. Im sure if I can find them that cheap the local B&M can aslo. If I wanted to buy 200 of them the price would of dropped to @ $3.50 each.
The thing is they made in my opinion a $25 profit on that one sale and lost me as a customer in the same process. If they would of charged me $10 or $15 I wouldnt be really upset and understand they need to make a profit. B&M's need to wake up or go out of business. Just my two cents.