Vape Shop Frustration/Confusion

[Matilo]

I've been to a few local vape shops in San Diego. They all have these "bars" for you to sample their juices. Why do they use such crappy gear for you to test on? I would think that as a vape shop owner there are a few things I would want.
1. For my customer to actually taste the e-juice
2. For them to like it
3. For them to feel their analogs are nasty in comparison.
4. For them to feel like their current mod/tank/juice is inferior and buy new ones!

Of course I understand there would be a higher initial investment in 50+ good tanks or a couple dripping setups.

Just a quick back story. I went to a shop they were friendly, the shop was clean, they had dozens of flavors to try on little racks. I tried about 15 of them. About 5 of them I couldn't taste or feel anything. 8 of them tasted like rubber, 1 was disgusting, and 1 had the faintest pleasant taste.

I decided to buy the 1 with the pleasant taste just so they didn't feel like I wasted their time. I would have bought several if the test vapes were enjoyable.

 

[Mrdaputer]

I've been to a few local vape shops in San Diego. They all have these "bars" for you to sample their juices. Why do they use such crappy gear for you to test on? I would think that as a vape shop owner there are a few things I would want.
1. For my customer to actually taste the e-juice
2. For them to like it
3. For them to feel their analogs are nasty in comparison.
4. For them to feel like their current mod/tank/juice is inferior and buy new ones!

Of course I understand there would be a higher initial investment in 50+ good tanks or a couple dripping setups.

Just a quick back story. I went to a shop they were friendly, the shop was clean, they had dozens of flavors to try on little racks. I tried about 15 of them. About 5 of them I couldn't taste or feel anything. 8 of them tasted like rubber, 1 was disgusting, and 1 had the faintest pleasant taste.

I decided to buy the 1 with the pleasant taste just so they didn't feel like I wasted their time. I would have bought several if the test vapes were enjoyable.

With about 100 tanks the cost of getting real good ones would be hard to justify. Also ppl steal to crappy ones so how many would get stolen of the good ones?

Also the ones you tasted but thought were bad someone else might think they were good. taste is subjectional

 

[Matilo]

"With about 100 tanks the cost of getting real good ones would be hard to justify. Also ppl steal to crappy ones so how many would get stolen of the good ones?"

Yea, I can see that happening occasionally. In my personal experience I would have spent around $50 stocking up on flavors and would be returning. Instead I spent $5 , and likely won't return. I guess it is up to me as the consumer to have my own drip setup if I want a pleasant taste test. (not sarcasm, just sadness).

 

[Baditude]

Agree with the above. Although that I agree that cheap tanks mute flavors, using high quality gear to test flavors would be ultimately passed on to the customer in the long run, and increase in-store costs. Then you'd be complaining about the high costs in that vape shop.

If the shop has a sample bar, they are filling those cheap tanks from bottled juice from behind the bar. Ask if you can drip onto your own RDA or 510 drip atomizer from those bottles instead of using the testers on the bar.

 

[TamiP]

Not to mention that, sadly, I'm sure some of those sample clearos or attys depending on what they use "disappear"... not so bad if it's a $3.00 clearo... not too great if it's an expensive set. The vape shop by me that has a taste bar just uses egos and clearos.. it's reasonable, although admitedly not great. I don't go there often for juice though so it doesn't really matter to me. However, I can certainly understand the desire to use cheap equipment, especially here in the Chicago area.

 

[Rickajho]

If it bothers you that much you could just bring your own gear and ask if you can sample in that. And also rebuild it every time you want to change flavors - sounds like fun.

Or you could just buy on-line where you don't have that option, so no complaints - right?

Your last option is to wait and see if the FDA has it's way - and tasting bars and vaping in vape shops won't even be on the radar any longer.

 

[Miata GT]

I feel that it is short-sighted to believe that cheap equipment should be used for tasters. Like the PO when I try using a CE4 or other cheap-o atty to taste it always tastes the same to me and it tastes bad. How will I ever know that I may have missed my next ADV for the next year? How will the shop know? Am I likely to ever try their ejuice again?

If you are opening a shop that caters to the eGo stick and cheap clearo crowd only then by all means use cheaper equipment; that is what you are offering to the consumer anyway. I guess.

However if I'm in a higher end shop that sells mostly APVs and mech mods what are people going to get out of using that same equipment to taste ejuice?

If you have 100 flavors and can't afford good equipment to showcase them maybe you need to think about slimming down your range of offerings.

 

[AngiBe]

Most of thime for me it's hard to really tell if I will like the juice sampling them at a B&M because it's usually 0 mg nic samples and I still need TH. So when I test them out, they seem "weak" to me and the nic can change the taste of the juice a lot. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. It's a crap shoot

 

[Baditude]

I feel that it is short-sighted to believe that cheap equipment should be used for tasters. Like the PO when I try using a CE4 or other cheap-o atty to taste it always tastes the same to me and it tastes bad. How will I ever know that I may have missed my next ADV for the next year? How will the shop know? Am I likely to ever try their ejuice again?

If you are opening a shop that caters to the eGo stick and cheap clearo crowd only then by all means use cheaper equipment; that is what you are offering to the consumer anyway. I guess.

However if I'm in a higher end shop that sells mostly APVs and mech mods what are people going to get out of using that same equipment to taste ejuice?

If you have 100 flavors and can't afford good equipment to showcase them maybe you need to think about slimming down your range of offerings.

If you feel this way, then open your own "high end" vape shop and see how it works out for you economically. I guarantee that you won't last 6 months.

As I said before, if the sample bar has multiple tanks, the refill bottles are somewhere close by. Bring your own dripper and drip from those bottles. Most shops don't mind you doing this, just don't abuse it. Bring some straight Vg with you to drip between flavors to remove the remnants of the previous flavor. You don't have to change the wick with each flavor. Yikes!

If a vendor offered only a select few choices in flavors, then you'd complain they don't have enough variety available. Taste is so subjective, how can just a few flavors be adequate for a wide group of vapers all with different tastes and palates? How is an owner supposed to know what you will like?

Be reasonable. Vape shops are in the business to make money and make profit. They need to keep operating costs at a minimum in order to keep their costs down and still stay in business. They have an overhead to cover and salaries to pay their sales staff. E-liquids are where vape shops make the highest share of their money, not with the gear they sell.

If you are a new vaper, you most likely have vaper's tongue and it wouldn't matter if the equipment is high end or not, you're not going to be able to tell the difference. If you don't have vaper's tongue, you'll be able to tell if you'll like the flavor even from cheaper tanks.

Of course, if you don't believe any of the above you can always just order flavors blindly onlne based solely on one person's description or reviews which may have been faked by the vendor. Yeah, that'll work.

Or you can learn to make your own liquids. Its not difficult and is way cheaper than buying pre-mixed e-liquid.

 

[dbrandt01]

The local shop has this too, but at the same time they let me do what someone above mentioned. I'd rather sit there with my RDA and change cotton out for 5 flavors and get the taste then use theirs on a little ego twist. They're okay with me doing it this way as well because chances are I know about what I want and the majority of times I buy the ones I test. Now I just order online and hope they're good haha. There's a better selection online.

 

[aaronbabaron]

Go to The Vaping Section on Convoy. It's a nice store and they let you drip. This is why you always have your dripper handy! It also doesn't make sense to have expensive gear, because that would cost a lot and the gear has a high chance of breaking from many people using it

 

[Huh?!]

To be honest, I'm just happy that B&M vape shops are opening up and that they have the "juice bar" to try flavors out. Anyone remember when you either had to order blindly online or buy from a head shop? I sure do...

 

[Gillette1023]

Check out vapemod on insta for some juice reviews.

 

[2buildawall]

My local store has their mods wired to the wall so you can't take them with you. They have about 15 flavors to try and I bought two and the atomizer that they were using. It was a kanger three that hit way better than my other tanks.