I'd just like to rant a bit and list a few of the complaints I have about this new and growing industry. These complaints don't mean I'm going to give up yet. I'm not. But my god, is this whole thing a royal pain in the .... I'd think competent vendors could easily come to dominate a significant chunk of the market, but I haven't seen many (or any) of them so far. I'm going to list my complaints as suggestions for vendors, but it'll be clear what my complaints are from reading my suggestions.
(1) Selling Devices
You should know what you're selling. You should know how it works. You should provide instructions. If you have a physical location with employees, they should be highly informed about the products they are selling. Your employees need to actually use the crap they are selling and be familiar with quirks and problems, as well as work-arounds and so on.
Selling kits which only come with almost non-existent instructions written in Chinglish is stupid and a recipe for your business to fail. Selling knock-offs without making it clear that you're doing this is a recipe for disaster. Generally speaking, selling garbage products that don't work well is a recipe for failure. Just stop it, people. Disgusting your customer and pissing them off by selling them crap that doesn't work after one week makes you look like a trash business. Learn what works first, and then sell it. Your customers shouldn't be beta testers unless you're a worthless swindler out for a fast cheap buck.
(2) Provide Documentation
If you sell kits that come with only minimal documentation of functions and that is written in Chinglish, you deserve to have your business fail. If you don't provide your customer with a clear explanation of what every blinking light and colored light on that battery means, you deserve to fail. Expecting your customers to stick with you while they bug test the product you sell is a pathetic business model. Only a ..... would invest in your failure.
Make the warranty information clear. If this junk you sold me breaks in a week, what's my recourse? How should I best use this device to maximize its longevity? What are pitfalls I should avoid? Do I need to keep the clearomizer at least 1/2 full to avoid problems with this particular device? When I run into problems, what are the best ways to try to solve them? How much should I expect to spend over the course of a year using this product? How many times am I going to have to replace a defunct atomizer or cartomizer, etc...? Will I be saving money, or just funding cranks?
(3) Offer Options
So you sell e-liquid? Fantastic. But you only sell flavored e-liquid? Fail. Not everyone wants to be guinea pigs who test your (at-best) food grade flavorings. Offer an unflavored option or die in a fire. If you can't cater to customers who don't want to inhale additional potential poisons (beyond PG/VG), you obviously don't care about your customers at all. You're just a wannabe hack who dreams of being a drug dealer but can't even hack that.
Not everyone wants to vape your preferred PG/VG blend. Offer various PG/VG blend options from 100% PG to 100% VG. Explain to your customers the downsides and upsides of various blends. If you don't understand these downsides and upsides, you don't deserve to be in business. What effect on my device will a pure VG blend have over a mixed PG/VG blend, for example? Given our best current scientific knowledge, which blend is the safest?
Offer your e-liquid in the widest possible range of nicotine levels you can. This is beyond obvious. And if you don't have a zero nicotine blend, you deserve to fail.
Offer only those devices you are familiar with. Don't sell devices you don't know much about. And offer as many options here as you can reasonably expect your business to be able to know a lot about. Document this knowledge for your customers and provide it to them when they purchase a device from you. If you get complaints about a particular device, consider dropping it from your inventory.
(4) Transparency
Demonstrate to your customers that your product is high quality. In the case of devices, this means you have to be intimately familiar with the devices you are selling as well as being familiar with devices that don't work as well. You should be able to intelligently compare poor devices with the good ones you sell.
In the case of e-liquid, you should be able to demonstrate that your e-liquids are of high quality. If you can't demonstrate that you are using pharmaceutical grade PG and VG, your business deserves to fail. Are you sourcing this putative USP grade PG and VG from China? Or from legitimate chemical companies? If you can't demonstrate that you're using legitimately USP grade PG and VG, you probably aren't, and nobody (save fools) has any good reason to believe you're selling a quality product.
So let's suppose you're now offering unflavored e-liquid composed only of what is obviously pharma grade PG and/or VG. Now about that nicotine you're adding? What is its quality? Are you picking it up from an unreliable vendor who is mixing it with PG (and can't demonstrate that the PG is of genuine pharma grade), for example? If so, you've failed at life, Mr. Kitchen Cook. Can't demonstrate to your customer that your nicotine is of the same quality as the PG and/or VG bases you're using? More fail.
If you want to fail on transparency because it's "standard" or "best" current "business practice", you can look forward to the FDA fixing your .... up for you. Lame "standard" or "best" current "business practices" are going to get your industry regulated. If you want to avoid harsh FDA regulations, you need to man up. And in any case, decent people will put you out of business if you don't. You'll be forced to tow the line one way or another. You might as well man up now unless you just want to make a quick buck off fools.
(5) Health Concerns
If your business isn't current on health concerns associated with vaping, your business deserves to fail. I am so sick and tired of ignoramus know-nothings spewing obvious garbage when it comes to the health concerns associated with vaping. I don't think most such folks are inveterate liars. I just think they are complete ignoramuses who pull most of their information from forums and ridiculous blogs run by kooks.
If I purchase a product from you, I want to know you're keeping up on this literature. You need to demonstrate this. To take a well-beaten dead horse, if you're using food-grade flavorings which contain butanedione, your business deserves to fail. In that case, you're business would obviously be being run by complete ignoramuses who would be better off cooking crank with Jesse Pinkman.
You need to make it very clear to your customers that you give a .... about health concerns. You need to stop peddling misleading swill under the guise of information. Otherwise, you might as well just be Big Tobacco. And we know how that's going to work out for small time e-liquid shops. You'll be crushed by regulation since you're incompetent fools and mediocre cooks who can't afford a decent lawyer to fight the FDA. And I would welcome your destruction.
I could rant on, but let's call this RANT OVER (for now).
(1) Selling Devices
You should know what you're selling. You should know how it works. You should provide instructions. If you have a physical location with employees, they should be highly informed about the products they are selling. Your employees need to actually use the crap they are selling and be familiar with quirks and problems, as well as work-arounds and so on.
Selling kits which only come with almost non-existent instructions written in Chinglish is stupid and a recipe for your business to fail. Selling knock-offs without making it clear that you're doing this is a recipe for disaster. Generally speaking, selling garbage products that don't work well is a recipe for failure. Just stop it, people. Disgusting your customer and pissing them off by selling them crap that doesn't work after one week makes you look like a trash business. Learn what works first, and then sell it. Your customers shouldn't be beta testers unless you're a worthless swindler out for a fast cheap buck.
(2) Provide Documentation
If you sell kits that come with only minimal documentation of functions and that is written in Chinglish, you deserve to have your business fail. If you don't provide your customer with a clear explanation of what every blinking light and colored light on that battery means, you deserve to fail. Expecting your customers to stick with you while they bug test the product you sell is a pathetic business model. Only a ..... would invest in your failure.
Make the warranty information clear. If this junk you sold me breaks in a week, what's my recourse? How should I best use this device to maximize its longevity? What are pitfalls I should avoid? Do I need to keep the clearomizer at least 1/2 full to avoid problems with this particular device? When I run into problems, what are the best ways to try to solve them? How much should I expect to spend over the course of a year using this product? How many times am I going to have to replace a defunct atomizer or cartomizer, etc...? Will I be saving money, or just funding cranks?
(3) Offer Options
So you sell e-liquid? Fantastic. But you only sell flavored e-liquid? Fail. Not everyone wants to be guinea pigs who test your (at-best) food grade flavorings. Offer an unflavored option or die in a fire. If you can't cater to customers who don't want to inhale additional potential poisons (beyond PG/VG), you obviously don't care about your customers at all. You're just a wannabe hack who dreams of being a drug dealer but can't even hack that.
Not everyone wants to vape your preferred PG/VG blend. Offer various PG/VG blend options from 100% PG to 100% VG. Explain to your customers the downsides and upsides of various blends. If you don't understand these downsides and upsides, you don't deserve to be in business. What effect on my device will a pure VG blend have over a mixed PG/VG blend, for example? Given our best current scientific knowledge, which blend is the safest?
Offer your e-liquid in the widest possible range of nicotine levels you can. This is beyond obvious. And if you don't have a zero nicotine blend, you deserve to fail.
Offer only those devices you are familiar with. Don't sell devices you don't know much about. And offer as many options here as you can reasonably expect your business to be able to know a lot about. Document this knowledge for your customers and provide it to them when they purchase a device from you. If you get complaints about a particular device, consider dropping it from your inventory.
(4) Transparency
Demonstrate to your customers that your product is high quality. In the case of devices, this means you have to be intimately familiar with the devices you are selling as well as being familiar with devices that don't work as well. You should be able to intelligently compare poor devices with the good ones you sell.
In the case of e-liquid, you should be able to demonstrate that your e-liquids are of high quality. If you can't demonstrate that you are using pharmaceutical grade PG and VG, your business deserves to fail. Are you sourcing this putative USP grade PG and VG from China? Or from legitimate chemical companies? If you can't demonstrate that you're using legitimately USP grade PG and VG, you probably aren't, and nobody (save fools) has any good reason to believe you're selling a quality product.
So let's suppose you're now offering unflavored e-liquid composed only of what is obviously pharma grade PG and/or VG. Now about that nicotine you're adding? What is its quality? Are you picking it up from an unreliable vendor who is mixing it with PG (and can't demonstrate that the PG is of genuine pharma grade), for example? If so, you've failed at life, Mr. Kitchen Cook. Can't demonstrate to your customer that your nicotine is of the same quality as the PG and/or VG bases you're using? More fail.
If you want to fail on transparency because it's "standard" or "best" current "business practice", you can look forward to the FDA fixing your .... up for you. Lame "standard" or "best" current "business practices" are going to get your industry regulated. If you want to avoid harsh FDA regulations, you need to man up. And in any case, decent people will put you out of business if you don't. You'll be forced to tow the line one way or another. You might as well man up now unless you just want to make a quick buck off fools.
(5) Health Concerns
If your business isn't current on health concerns associated with vaping, your business deserves to fail. I am so sick and tired of ignoramus know-nothings spewing obvious garbage when it comes to the health concerns associated with vaping. I don't think most such folks are inveterate liars. I just think they are complete ignoramuses who pull most of their information from forums and ridiculous blogs run by kooks.
If I purchase a product from you, I want to know you're keeping up on this literature. You need to demonstrate this. To take a well-beaten dead horse, if you're using food-grade flavorings which contain butanedione, your business deserves to fail. In that case, you're business would obviously be being run by complete ignoramuses who would be better off cooking crank with Jesse Pinkman.
You need to make it very clear to your customers that you give a .... about health concerns. You need to stop peddling misleading swill under the guise of information. Otherwise, you might as well just be Big Tobacco. And we know how that's going to work out for small time e-liquid shops. You'll be crushed by regulation since you're incompetent fools and mediocre cooks who can't afford a decent lawyer to fight the FDA. And I would welcome your destruction.
I could rant on, but let's call this RANT OVER (for now).
I much rather prefer the blue ice that Heisenberg cooks as opposed to the chilli bomb Jessie throws together......if it were ejuice. 
