There is no doubt that what you say is true, Kristin and we, as vapers, are definitely living large compared to only a few years ago thanks in no small part to the efforts of Chinese companies to supply the demand for inexpensive vaping supplies. However, I think we need to balance our demands
being only about price makes the producers only about quantity. We need to demand not only reasonable prices but reasonable quality as well. As stated , a 20% failure rate to the end consumer is just abysmal. Something we can all relate to: If you bought a carton of smokes (dont) and in one pack, 2 of the cigs had no tobacco, 1 had no filter, another had a filter on both ends, and another wouldnt come out of the pack because it was inadvertently glued to the box, would you be miffed? What if every pack in the carton had a similar failure rate? Would you buy another carton from that company?
For some, its mostly about the price simply out of necessity; if you cant afford it, you cant buy it. But, I believe that, for many of us, we just search for the best deal and it is there that we falter. If we simply retrain ourselves to think of the best deal as being a balance of good price and good quality rather than just the price, we could go a long way toward sending the signal thats its not OK to have horrible quality as long as its cheap.
So what can we, as purchasers, do?
- We can make an effort to buy products made in countries we feel have shown that they understand that quality is important and that being responsible for their product is essential. Yes, these products will be more expensive. BUT, they are higher quality
thats how it works! And, in the end, would they really be more expensive if you consistently get a 98% success rate from the products? Buying a pack of 5 cartos with a 20% failure rate is really just buying 3 cartos for the same price. Starts to sound pretty silly, doesnt it?
- We can find those devices which have been shown to be of good quality and concentrate our purchasing power on these items. Unfortunately, as Salt&PePPer pointed out, that can be difficult too because of the total lack of regard for intellectual property in China which allows anyone there to make crappy knockoffs of even the decent products
with no repercussions. So, even our vendors can have difficulty determining what products are real and what are fake. But, the effort must be made. If we discover a product sold by vendor X is a knockoff (and they did not say so upfront), we should inform others here and take our business elsewhere.
- We can buy only from vendors who stand behind the products they sell. If we give our business to only those vendors then they will be given the power to demand higher quality control from their suppliers. I will not buy cartos and attys from a vendor that states that they have NO warranty on these products. Admittedly, the best I have seen is a DOA warranty only but thats far better than no warranty at all (baby steps, folks).
- We can inform our vendors that we do not accept unreasonable failure rates and or crappy quality and we can make sure that that they know we mean it by demanding replacements for such items.
Simply stating that were mad aint gonna cut it. We have to vote with our wallets. Only then will the producers of these goods start to feel it where it counts and make an effort to change their practices. If we dont, it is likely to get worse rather than better.
