Why is e-liquid selling at such high prices ?

[Jdbaker82]

So I never did DIY and have always pondered these questions... What do the premium vendors do differently to make the juice that tastes so good that everyone wants... And what makes it so hard for others to produce a identical clone?

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Xparent Skyblue Tapatalk 2

 

[wonkeypickle]

Good juice without the hassle of DIY is worth the it to me.

this. for a lot of us it's time, after sitting down and fighting with quintuple twisted center post tri-inception coils for hours, the last thing i want to do after that is have to sit down and fuss about with trying to get a vapable juice. let some other guy bother with that...

 

[Coldrake]

When I smoked it cost me $8 a day. The e-liquid I buy averages $16 per 30ml, so for me it costs about $2.13 a day.

Cigarettes, $8 a day.
E-liquid, $2.13 a day.

Vaping costs me a quarter of what I spent on cigarettes, it's more enjoyable, and most importantly my health is much better. Works for me.

It seems to me a some people in this thread are more concerned about how much profit a vendor makes than what price those vendors are charging.

I don't think prices are too high. I'd say $15-$16 per 30ml is about average, some a lot higher, some a lot lower. Price is subjective. If the price of 30ml was between $2 and $8 we'd still be having these same arguments

Let me ask everyone this, how much do you think a 30ml bottle of e-liquid from a vendor should cost?

So I never did DIY and have always pondered these questions... What do the premium vendors do differently to make the juice that tastes so good that everyone wants... And what makes it so hard for others to produce a identical clone?

Skill, talent and knowledge. Wlad who owns Ahlusion is a professional flavorist. Ahlusion extracts 80% of their own flavors. Wlad can extract the flavor from say, a strawberry. He can separate different flavor components from that strawberry extraction and use them in something that has no strawberry flavor. You're a What? Flavorist

 

[Flt Simulation]

Let me ask everyone this, how much do you think a 30ml bottle of e-liquid from a vendor should cost?

Lets see ... I can make juice for about .10 cents per ml.

To make 30 ml, it would cost me $3.00

The plastic bottle and the paper label on the bottle cost about .40 cents

So, I am looking at $3.40 before shipping

I think a fair profit for a small business selling low volume products would be about 100%

So,with the 100% profit, I should price that 30ml bottle of juice at $6.80 (before adding my shipping cost).

Even at a 150% profit, it would cost less than 10 bucks + shipping of course.

See how easy that was

 

[Jdbaker82]

Let me ask everyone this, how much do you think a 30ml bottle of e-liquid from a vendor should cost?

$15 IMO but when you have a product that really does taste better then anything out there $20 makes sense because people will pay it but it would be nice if $15 was the high end not $30


Sent from my SCH-I545 using Xparent Skyblue Tapatalk 2

 

[Midniteoyl]

When I smoked it cost me $8 a day. The e-liquid I buy averages $16 per 30ml, so for me it costs about $2.13 a day.

Cigarettes, $8 a day.
E-liquid, $2.13 a day.

Vaping costs me a quarter of what I spent on cigarettes, it's more enjoyable, and most importantly my health is much better. Works for me.

It seems to me a some people in this thread are more concerned about how much profit a vendor makes than what price those vendors are charging.

I don't think prices are too high. I'd say $15-$16 per 30ml is about average, some a lot higher, some a lot lower. Price is subjective. If the price of 30ml was between $2 and $8 we'd still be having these same arguments

Let me ask everyone this, how much do you think a 30ml bottle of e-liquid from a vendor should cost?


Skill, talent and knowledge. Wlad who owns Ahlusion is a professional flavorist. Ahlusion extracts 80% of their own flavors. Wlad can extract the flavor from say, a strawberry. He can separate different flavor components from that strawberry extraction and use them in something that has no strawberry flavor. You're a What? Flavorist

And that, IMO, is worth it.. You are paying for time and skill. The B&M down the street? Not so much..

 

[Midniteoyl]

Lets see ... I can make juice for about .10 cents per ml.

To make 30 ml, it would cost me $3.00

The plastic bottle and the paper label on the bottle cost about .40 cents

So, I am looking at $3.40 before shipping

I think a fair profit for a small business selling low volume products would be about 100%

So,with the 100% profit, I should price that 30ml bottle of juice at $6.80 (before adding my shipping cost).

Even at a 150% profit, it would cost less than 10 bucks + shipping of course.

See how easy that was

Dont forget time on overhead... But ya.

 

[Coldrake]

Lets see ... I can make juice for about .10 cents per ml.

To make 30 ml, it would cost me $3.00

The plastic bottle and the paper label on the bottle cost about .40 cents

So, I am looking at $3.40 before shipping

I think a fair profit for a small business selling low volume products would be about 100%

So,with the 100% profit, I should price that 30ml bottle of juice at $6.80 (before adding my shipping cost).

Even at a 150% profit, it would cost less than 10 bucks + shipping of course.

See how easy that was

Sure, if you're making it in your kitchen.

I said from a vendor. Who has a place of business, employees, a sterile lab, insurance, pays taxes etc, etc, etc. Not so easy.

 

[Mazinny]

When I smoked it cost me $8 a day. The e-liquid I buy averages $16 per 30ml, so for me it costs about $2.13 a day.

Cigarettes, $8 a day.
E-liquid, $2.13 a day.

Vaping costs me a quarter of what I spent on cigarettes, it's more enjoyable, and most importantly my health is much better. Works for me.

It seems to me a some people in this thread are more concerned about how much profit a vendor makes than what price those vendors are charging.

I don't think prices are too high. I'd say $15-$16 per 30ml is about average, some a lot higher, some a lot lower. Price is subjective. If the price of 30ml was between $2 and $8 we'd still be having these same arguments

Let me ask everyone this, how much do you think a 30ml bottle of e-liquid from a vendor should cost?


Skill, talent and knowledge. Wlad who owns Ahlusion is a professional flavorist. Ahlusion extracts 80% of their own flavors. Wlad can extract the flavor from say, a strawberry. He can separate different flavor components from that strawberry extraction and use them in something that has no strawberry flavor. You're a What? Flavorist

I don't think too many people are complaining about what the real quality liquid makers are charging ( well at least f the price is in the range you buy ). I pay between $ 10 to $ 16 per 30 ml for some very good NET's ( and some others ), depending on whether there is a sale or not. The last couple of times i bought from Ahlusion ( i will use your example ), the cost averaged about $ 13 per ml. Now compare that with the b&m that purchases pg, vg, nicotine in bulk and also some commercial flavors in bulk. Simple one or two flavor juices priced at $ 9 per 10 ml. Basically DIY'ing on a large scale. A llot of the DIY'ers have a lot more skill btw.

 

[Mazinny]

h. I'd say $15-$16 per 30ml is about average, some a lot higher, some a lot lower. Price is subjective. If the price of 30ml was between $2 and $8 we'd still be having these same arguments

Let me ask everyone this, how much do you think a 30ml bottle of e-liquid from a vendor should cost?


You're a What? Flavorist

impossible question to answer really. All depends on the volume. Five years down the road when 95 % of the vendors are out of business, and the remaining few produce juice in a mechanized fashion in much, much, much higher quantities, the prices will be a lot lower imo. But at the amounts the quality liquid makers produce these days $ 10 to $ 15 per 30 ml is reasonable.

 

[Skeebo]

Let me ask everyone this, how much do you think a 30ml bottle of e-liquid from a vendor should cost?

It depends... does it come in one of those fancy toilet paper tubes?

 

[DeliciousClouds]

Let me ask everyone this, how much do you think a 30ml bottle of e-liquid from a vendor should cost?

About 15 dollars for the gourmet kinds of juice would be nice. Now I'm paying 22 dollars for a 30ml bottle of Virgin Vapor, just a tad on the pricey side.

 

[Myk]

eLiquid is no different than any other product ... you get what you pay for.

juice can be bought for as little as $10 for 100ml ... maybe you are hoping for Filet Mignon to be the same price of Bolongna.

You mean when I buy something from FastTech for $10 and then buy the exact same thing from my local for $30 the exact same thing from the local is better?

Sticking a store label on a bottle of Dekang and charging three times more for it makes it better?

The ugly undercurrent in these threads always seems to be all about some crazy sense of consumer entitlement run completely amok.

The entitlement I see is from those defending price gouging because they're probably doing the same thing in their life either within or outside of ecigs. People who think they are entitled to other people's dollars.
Con artists also have ways to justify their cons.

I'll happily pay a fair markup. I will not happily hand over my money to someone who thinks that because they paid for a lease and ordered from China they deserve way more markup than any other non-perishable retail goods get.
I had a big name liquid I was happy to buy and I could be happy going back to that price. I have US vendors who I'm happy to shop with. That doesn't change the fact that there are a lot of scammers out there and yet there are always people jumping to stick up for them.

Why juice is expensive has been brought up a million times and the answer is simple. You are paying for convenience.

When you smoked you could have bought a $40 machine, 1 lb of tobacco and some paper. Then you would have been down to about 75 cents a pack.

Why do you see smokers lining up to buy packs of smokes though? Easy answer, because buying them is easier and convenient.

Except what they are saving by RYO is taxes not someone's markup.
So what happens to the eliquid market when/if similar taxes are imposed? Are we to believe the same people we get a sob story about not being able to afford to cut prices are going to eat the majority of those taxes like BT did to keep the customer from having sticker shock?

If the RYO tobacco companies had the same pricing policy as some who make eliquid you would save a few pennies by RYO because they wouldn't be basing the prices on their costs but rather how much cigarettes cost.

 

[Tangaroav]

IMO 7.50 $ for 30ml of e-juice is the maximun acceptable for premium e-juice. Less for the less complex flavor.

It cost a commercial entity to mix the ingredients less than 0.05$/ml. At $7.50/30ml it is a 400% gross profit. Keep in mind that they are not producing anything here, merely mixing readily available ingredients.

I understand that small mom&pop shops may need to charge more because of low volume, (like the small convenience store where you pay for convenience).

The big chinese companies are charging around $4 to 5$ for 30ml mixed in highly automated and sophisticated plants.

In my case I almost never buy anything over 7.50$/30ml. I use recipes like the numerous ones found on ECF and elsewhere It is very simple and I normaly mix two 100ml bottles each of different flavors every two weeks. It takes me about 30 minutes and it cost me around $1.50 to $3.00 for 30ml depending of the number and types of flavors used. I am a chain vaper at 6mg and I prefer strong but not too complex flavors.

As it concerns me, mixing e-juice is simpler, easier and a lot more profitable that re-coiling which I normaly do using pre-wick coils bought already made at very low cost. To me the gains of making and wicking my own coils are not enough to DIY.

 

[Rossum]

The entitlement I see is from those defending price gouging

It seems to me you are mis-using the term "price gouging". In an essentially unregulated market, with plenty of supply from hundreds of different vendors who are all competing, there can be no "price gouging". If you think a particular liquid is too expensive, there's a simple solution: Don't buy it.

 

[Tangaroav]

It seems to me you are mis-using the term "price gouging". In an essentially unregulated market, with plenty of supply from hundreds of different vendors who are all competing, there can be no "price gouging". If you think a particular liquid is too expensive, there's a simple solution: Don't buy it.

In many cases it is price price gouging, lets call it as it is AND not buy it.

 

[Myk]

It seems to me you are mis-using the term "price gouging". In an essentially unregulated market, with plenty of supply from hundreds of different vendors who are all competing, there can be no "price gouging". If you think a particular liquid is too expensive, there's a simple solution: Don't buy it.

I'm not misusing the term, I'm not talking about the crime. If I said people were being robbed would you assume I meant they were being held at gun point or would you understand what I was saying?
I know people who offer the same solution for the crime of "price gouging" and "don't buy it". It would be a solution for that too if people would actually follow the advice.
When you consider the disease that smoking causes and the hold the addiction has on smokers you could say marking liquids up to almost meet but beat smoking resembles the crime of price gouging. Desperate people paying whatever is asked and someone willing to take advantage of that.

How do we get the word out to newbies not to buy it if we're continually chastised as entitled consumers every time it's mentioned?
How do we get the word out about eliquid costs and if your fast food burger was priced the same way you'd be paying $30 a sandwich?
Can't do that, we're not even allowed to mention you can DIY for 5¢/ml or else we're an entitled consumer wanting something for nothing (still trying to figure out how I am wanting anything from anyone when I DIY, but con men rarely make sense).

 

[ClintS]

I removed a large portion of your text which I totally understand and have the same concerns. However I believe DIY will still be around.

...
As far as vaping is concerned E-liquids are what can be regulated without too much efforts by the existing govt. agencies and it looks to me that it will soon be. Maybe progressivly, maybe completly, but it is coming.

I agree that e-liquids will be regulated to at least some extent - however those are e-liquids that are/will be produced for sale, not that by individuals for their personal use.

... They do intend to regulate e-liquids, and very specifically, the nicotine base that is needed for DIY.

I agree e-liquids will be regulated and part of that is purity of the nicotine with specifics for the amount of nicotine in the e-liquid. But not controlling or limiting the sale of nicotine except to those under the age of 18.

I see no way for them to individually regulate PG, VG, or the flavors that are used anymore than currently - and that leaves those ingredients for DIY use.

However I'm not so sure they can regulate or restrict the use of nicotine specifically and directly -
It would seem that specifically and directly regulating or controlling the use of nicotine is outside of the FDA's current legal framework and would require a law authorizing them to do so. If they could control nicotine, why have they not done so?

Since the FDA does not currently control the use of nicotine and the deeming regulations are only purposing warning labels along with specifics for the purity and amount of nicotine that is used in e-liquids by those selling the products - that would leave nicotine bases still available for non-commercial use - DIY folks.

Or did I miss something in the deeming regulations?

 

[Coldrake]

In many cases it is price price gouging, lets call it as it is AND not buy it.

Price gouging
price gouging

noun
pricing above the market price when no alternative retailer is available

 

[Aaron1100us]

My local HyVee gas station has some pretty good juice and its only $5 for 15ml. We have two new vape shops in town. One is $12 for 15ml and the other $10 for 15ml. The $5 at HyVee is good enough for me, just not a huge selection.

Online, I like Yealiq. Its from Israel and its $18 for 100ml.