Local B&M's
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I mix at home. Here's my secret recipe. 48% VG, 48% PG, 1.2% nic, 0.8% flavoring (cuppucino by capella). That costs me 1.2 cents per ml. 20 ml costs 24 cents. The bottle cost 50 cents. Luckily, it's reusable. Vape shops seem to survive on e liquid sales. With the e liquid markups they get they don't have to make many sales to cover the rent.
True. I plan to start making my own at some point. He makes his own there, so I know that's where he makes his money. And off new vapers like me who will buy mods and stuff there at first.
Americans are generally prosperous people. Many of us can pay $3,000 a yeaer to smoke or vape. But there are plenty of people in the US and around the world who still smoke and it hurts their families financially. A low income American who switches to vaping can feed his kids better or provide them with other opportunities. My coworkers with kids who switched say the part they like the most is the extra money they have to spend on the kids. Part of the hobby for me is figuring out how to have a quality vape for the lowest cost so I can brag about it to people who need to switch to help their families. Money talks.
I have a few shops near me and only 1 is fairly priced and have great customer service, had a mod start acting up and not firing on a .5 coil so they gave me a brand new one for free and 20% off on juice and batteries for my troubles. Their shop is kind of hidden in a corner of a strip mall and I really hope they get the business they need to keep the lights on. Another shop that is closer can hardly answer any questions, dont really know what juices they have, never have Kanthal, and to top it off tried selling me a Wismec DNA200 for $300 and the RX200 for $150...when I pulled mine from my pocket and said I got it for less than half of what they were selling his face was priceless! There is a difference between a mark up to still make a profit and being crooks...I respect the honest shops that are fairly priced and knowledgeable about their products and safety but I absolutely refuse to fund the ones that don't care about the safety of others, don't know their products, and have just comically high prices.
The shop I use sells the the Rx200 for $90, but includes 3 HG2 or 25R batteries with it. Still a little high but not too bad.
I always buy my juice local but I am lucky enough to be in Michigan so my local Shop for juice is Ahlusion. The other company I really love is Independent Vapor Co who also happen to be Michigan based so my other local shop carries their product line. I bought my 3li at a local shop and my Kanger as well when I first got back into vaping but the VTC mini and RX200 were purchased online.
A friend who owns a local tobacco shop that also sells vape gear told me to buy it online because the best he could do was sell it to me at his cost which was $12 higher than the online price. Local prices were between $69 and $79 for just the VTC mini with no tank and the shop by my work wanted $89 for it and $119 for the RX200!
I don't mind paying an extra $10 for convenience and I get my coils locally for the same as online prices but seriously, $119 for an RX200? No one is paying that if they have ANY shred of common sense! I overpaid a little bit at $55 compared to some places but the convenience of having it then was worth it instead of waiting for shipping. Some shops are still over $100 for an IPV3 li!
A friend who owns a local tobacco shop that also sells vape gear told me to buy it online because the best he could do was sell it to me at his cost which was $12 higher than the online price. Local prices were between $69 and $79 for just the VTC mini with no tank and the shop by my work wanted $89 for it and $119 for the RX200!
I don't mind paying an extra $10 for convenience and I get my coils locally for the same as online prices but seriously, $119 for an RX200? No one is paying that if they have ANY shred of common sense! I overpaid a little bit at $55 compared to some places but the convenience of having it then was worth it instead of waiting for shipping. Some shops are still over $100 for an IPV3 li!
Agreed. The one shop here that I mostly go into (when I do) is only because it's closest to me. The people that work there, for the most part, either don't know much or think they are way too cool to be working there and would just rather sit around and blow clouds. And I understand mark ups, and wouldn't mind paying a mark up for the convenience of having it in my hand that day. But a 20-30% would be my max.
You, and several others, got the point of my post. Availability through online outlets has driven huge B&M outlets completely into obscurity. This maxim applies to many other products/markets. It's a trend that's not likely to subside any time soon.
I participated in the other thread that is mentioned and will leave my reasons for why supporting your local vendors is important IMO there.
I really do understand what you are trying to say. It's great to support a local vape shop as much as you can. However, I can't (and won't) pay double for every product I purchase at my local shops just for the sake of supporting them. I also have to put food on my table. The last thing I did buy from a shop here was a 10ft roll of 26g kanthal and I paid almost $9! And yes, even if I do pay double, I am probably still spending less than I did on cigarettes. But saving money was one of the small reasons I started vaping. I am now at the point where I am happy with my set ups (I think lol).You, and several others, got the point of my post. Availability through online outlets has driven huge B&M outlets completely into obscurity. This maxim applies to many other products/markets. It's a trend that's not likely to subside any time soon.
I participated in the other thread that is mentioned and will leave my reasons for why supporting your local vendors is important IMO there.
I don't know, maybe it's because I don't have a shop here that I feel "connected" to. These shops don't have vape meets. They don't have coil build stations to help people learn. Most of the time I feel like they want me to come in, buy what I need, and leave.
Can someone link the other conversation here? I searched for one before I started this one but Tapatalk search doesn't do that great for me.
Back when I started vaping I ended up paying $80 a week for juice, and being treated badly by a belligerent employee at the B&M where I got my juice. I mean really badly. It's what got me into DIY, and now I make 100ml at a time for about $5. I determined it was in my best interest to become independent of the B&M's and I did so. I use gennies on mechs only, wind my own coils, roll my own wicks, make my own juice, and don't need anything from the B&M's which is how I like it.
Some time back I stopped at a B&M here in Cape Coma, looking for new drip tips, and the young 20 something hottie behind the counter wanted to know what kind of dripper my genny was, and would not hear that it wasn't a dripper, even insisting that it was on a dripper mod, (my mech). Wow! It was obvious what she was hired for, and it wasn't her knowledge of vaping. I see a lot of this at vape stores here, together with the ensuing vape opera.
Then there are the vape stores that become basically hangouts for the staff's friends, and a closed social circle develops there. Other customers are treated as outsiders, and are ignored while the staff and their buddies socialize, eventually getting around to the customer who's been waiting a while. I waited quite a while at one such place trying to get the attention of the young woman sitting on a stool behind the counter, completely absorbed in her phone and blowing clouds as she ignored me.
I wouldn't have been there at all had they not had a case with authentic gennies in it. I got two of them over time, but I don't bother with that store anymore, because they can't be bothered with me.
Some time back I stopped at a B&M here in Cape Coma, looking for new drip tips, and the young 20 something hottie behind the counter wanted to know what kind of dripper my genny was, and would not hear that it wasn't a dripper, even insisting that it was on a dripper mod, (my mech). Wow! It was obvious what she was hired for, and it wasn't her knowledge of vaping. I see a lot of this at vape stores here, together with the ensuing vape opera.
Then there are the vape stores that become basically hangouts for the staff's friends, and a closed social circle develops there. Other customers are treated as outsiders, and are ignored while the staff and their buddies socialize, eventually getting around to the customer who's been waiting a while. I waited quite a while at one such place trying to get the attention of the young woman sitting on a stool behind the counter, completely absorbed in her phone and blowing clouds as she ignored me.
I wouldn't have been there at all had they not had a case with authentic gennies in it. I got two of them over time, but I don't bother with that store anymore, because they can't be bothered with me.
How were you treated badly?
It really gets under my skin when any business treats its customers like dirt. And sometimes it seems to be worse at some B&Ms because, like you said, you have those people sitting around blowing clouds, and looking down at you because you still use a sub ohm tank on a regulated mod and not some $300 mech mod with an rda and some crazy coil build
Oh this guy Nick at the B&M for reasons of his own decided he didn't like me, and antagonized me when I would come into the store, nasty remarks, rude treatment, and once when I went in to buy juice he insisted on making it for me, and gave me a bottle of juice from what they had thrown out, or something else nasty. It was very obviously not the juice I'd been getting. Later he had the cops called on him for assaulting the store manager, who was fired for calling the cops on him, because Nick was sleeping with the store owner. Needless to say, I never went back there.
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