How much do these vendors really actually make??

[Iffy]

For myself and my v-verts, I'd say I spend 'bout $4 per 30ml. Yes, it only cost me 'bout $3-4 for the joose components. But then factor in the bottles (why can't my v-verts return da bottles?) and a bit of labeling (Brothers labeler). BUT I don't have to battle the shipping/tracking, customer dissatisfactions, CC processing, governmental employee requirements nor the public liabilities.

Note, I do buy most joose componets in volume; gallons and liters! Flavs are 'nother story...

What very lil' profit I make is 'dumped' back into finding/developing other flavs that they, AND I, might enjoy!

Since starting DIY, I've come around to appreciate what some of the premix vendors provide, especially with some of their sales.

There is NO way I'd try to satisfy the vaping public via jooses as a business!

 

[AzPlumber]

There is NO way I'd try to satisfy the vaping public via jooses as a business!

That right there would be my biggest cost, sanity. I've read far to many negative posts to ever consider a joose business.

 

[favor1]

Making a lot of good juices is practically an art, I have a friend who sells juices and he told me it took him about 3 months to perfect some of his "signature" mixes.

 

[Myk]

For myself and my v-verts, I'd say I spend 'bout $4 per 30ml. Yes, it only cost me 'bout $3-4 for the joose components. But then factor in the bottles

I bought some bulk wine clarifying agents not realizing how much it was. So I repackaged it into smaller bottles, about 1 year use size. I think I spent as much on bottles as I did the bulk stuff.

I'd be telling them no bottle, no refill.

 

[Myk]

Yes, you're overlooking how easy this is on a larger scale. Suppose I was Ralikar's Johnson Creek and I wanted to start my own secret recipe and make it really easy to mass produce:

100mg nic 100% PG is $57 at WL for 500 ml...
1500ml of PG from WL is $30
Making a 25% nic PG solution of 2000ml
10% VG is about $5
Making 2200 ml of base 22.5 nic
Now if you use a 15% secret blend of Capellas which is way expensive 120ml (4 oz) costs $20... so you'd need about $60 (3 bottles) in flavors...


Which gives you 2530 ml of juice...
Which gives you 84 bottles of juice
At $20/bottle for 30ml you've made $1680
-1$/dropper bottle...


So for $209 in cost on the easy to make side you've made $1600 in product. And customer pays for shipping. Once you know the ratios, you probably want to test your nic from the supplier, dump all into sealed vat at once and steep.

You're making a ton of cash/batch. Even more with bulk discounts.

Hmmm... this DOES make me want to make "Ralikar's special vape"... Hmmm....

Easy on a larger scale?
Now that you're the size of Johnson Creek you need a million dollar building (low estimate). If you buy the building that's considered income. If you rent the building it's money down the drain but you get to write it off as it goes down the drain. Their building is 24,000 square feet. They lease it. Figuring it at $11 square foot (which I think is cheap, probably more like $15-$20) you have to come up with about $250,000 a month in rent.
You have about 30 employees full time and they need to make enough money to live. There's $1M a year plus another $120,000 in your part of their social security.
Don't forget your insurance. If you have employees messing with nicotine that's going to be costly.
Your customers don't pay the shipping in and everything that goes out had to come in.
You also have an excellent customer service guarantee so they don't pay for juices they don't like or the shipping back and forth of the juice they didn't like or the one you replaced it with.

You really think you're going to make it big mixing the same flavors everyone else makes? No, you'd better work with the flavor companies to get some exclusives. That means more money going out because they're not making exclusive flavors unless you're making it worth their while.

I'm sure there are a lot of things I haven't thought of because I've only been in or run very small businesses. But I can tell you're thinking like a countertop mixer and trying to apply that to a major player.
Yes that small local DIY guy charging $1/ml is making profit, but he doesn't have enough business to be making much money.
As the business grows so does the overhead. Sticking with Johnson Creek, they got big enough to get on the FDA radar a year after opening.

I can make wine at home with my own fruit for next to nothing. That may also sound like a high profit industry until you start looking into it and trying to make enough to make the requirements pay for themselves.

 

[favor1]

I bet it's a nightmare, or maybe an enjoyable, hectic 12-hour day (if that even makes sense) for 1 man E-Liquid sellers. I guess I'll just sit here and save money experimenting with my own mixes; the profit is there but once you gain perspective, it's an unbelievable amount of work to get a full E-Liquid business up and running, especially if you're a one man show.

 

[caged]

Good Prophets seems to manage at about half the cost of other vendors ($6.99 for 30ml right now), and they produce really good juice. They may make batches in bulk, but that just means you don't have to wait for juice to steep. When I'm too lazy to mix my own, that's who I order from (and in all honesty, they do a better job at it than I do). Place charging $15 for 20-30 ml are ripping you off.

 

[Boodle]

Starting to delve into DIY and I was just wondering what these guys are actually making??

I know no one knows for sure, but are the owners of these shops actually supporting their lives with just juice vending?

People like AVE and Vermillion, and Halo??

What do you think these companies make a year?

Not trying to pry or get personal, it's just something I've been thinking about.

Jim

Jim,
They're private companies so any number would be a guess. Those you named are great companies with outstanding service by vapers serving the community. We had a goal to hit profit by month 8 and we've pushed that to one year. With R&D, focus group testing, lease on the space, insurance, equipment, quality raws, advertising etc. everything that comes in goes out initially and more. Thankfully we didn't plan to take salaries for a while. The market certainly seems crowded here on ECF but there's plenty of room in the industry for a great vendor with excellent products and service that is heart-connected to the cause. The more the merrier It's worth every moment and dollar invested to be a part of lives transitioning to a new, better, healthier lifestyle.

We've not made a bottle of juice for the numbers quoted here, not by a long shot but profit is around the corner and the journey is uber rewarding. Good luck to you

 

[Switched]

What really amazes me is how we as vapers have become so cheap. We are paying a mere fraction of what it use to cost us to smoke. That being said, once the government gets involved at the rate we are going it will be more expensive than smoking.

 

[kabonk]

it's that the truth, I read posts all the time about people complaining a carto only lasted a week and I think to my self $1 a week for a carto vs $12 a day for smokes

 

[AzPlumber]

Jim,
They're private companies so any number would be a guess. Those you named are great companies with outstanding service by vapers serving the community. We had a goal to hit profit by month 8 and we've pushed that to one year. With R&D, focus group testing, lease on the space, insurance, equipment, quality raws, advertising etc. everything that comes in goes out initially and more. Thankfully we didn't plan to take salaries for a while. The market certainly seems crowded here on ECF but there's plenty of room in the industry for a great vendor with excellent products and service that is heart-connected to the cause. The more the merrier It's worth every moment and dollar invested to be a part of lives transitioning to a new, better, healthier lifestyle.

We've not made a bottle of juice for the numbers quoted here, not by a long shot but profit is around the corner and the journey is uber rewarding. Good luck to you

Great post from one that has seen both sides of this discussion. Sure is nice to see you out in the forum

 

[caged]

What really amazes me is how we as vapers have become so cheap. We are paying a mere fraction of what it use to cost us to smoke. That being said, once the government gets involved at the rate we are going it will be more expensive than smoking.

This is why I started vaping. If I had to pay as much as I did for cigarettes I wouldn't have started.

 

[thinkingaboutit]

it's that the truth, I read posts all the time about people complaining a carto only lasted a week and I think to my self $1 a week for a carto vs $12 a day for smokes

Right with ya brother. I remember my friends and I freaking when smokes jumped from $2 to $2.25. We swore $2.50 would make us quit. That didn't happen...

 

[Switched]

Right with ya brother. I remember my friends and I freaking when smokes jumped from $2 to $2.25. We swore $2.50 would make us quit. That didn't happen...

You must really be old eh?

 

[thinkingaboutit]

You must really be old eh?

Incredibly

 

[Myk]

Right with ya brother. I remember my friends and I freaking when smokes jumped from $2 to $2.25. We swore $2.50 would make us quit. That didn't happen...

$2.50? I was going to quit if they ever got over $1.

 

[canoeist]

$2.50? I was going to quit if they ever got over $1.

I remember saying the same thing.

 

[mwa102464]

Bottom line on making profit still comes down to how well the owner of the company runs his business just like every other company in the world. The smarter juice company owner is making a very good living, very good, doing millions of dollars a year in sales, so the answer is YES some of them are supporting themselves there families, and there employees and doing extremely well for themselves, where others barely make it or fail just like every other business out there.

On the flip side you can DIY your own juice for .10-.20c an ml and make your very own and some dam good stuff for way less if you want to get into DIY and Don't let anyone talk you out of it, its not that hard to do as long as you put in the time and work your recipe's to there max performance. It doesn't take brain surgery to DIY but it takes some study, practice, trial and error to make good juice, bottom line. A lot of vendors make it seem a lot different like its extremely hard to do and that's to protect there business investment and bottom line. I wouldn't give out my business secrets that make my company succeed either if I where in the juice making business and I surely don't give out my personal business secrets either, so don't expect them to be posting there recipes any time soon.. If you want to save a lot of cash start to DIY I've saved a bunch over the last almost 3yrs doing so, though I still occasionally buy some juice as a treat or to replicate something I bought and liked.

 

[pounder]

Some do, but I really picture this cottage industry as having most of the vendors working out of part of their home. I am sure places like ecb and VR and the big guys have more overhead...but also more customers. I could be totally wrong, but I could see lots of them operating out of a few hundred well organized square feet, not warehouses.

A double ditto on that one.