Vapor Product C-Store Sales Up More Than 12 Percent

E-cigarette sales continue to recover from a Covid-19 slump. Sales in C-stores are up 12.7 percent after rising 2.9 percent in the previous data release, according to the latest Nielsen convenience store report released last week. Nielsen does not track vape shop data.

Sales overall had slumped since February 2020, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration implemented its latest round of heightened regulations on the products, according to the Winston-Salem Journal. Overall e-cigarette sales-volume growth has declined steadily since Nielsen’s Aug. 10, 2019, report, when it was up 60.2 percent year over year.

On Feb. 6, 2020, the FDA, among other things, required manufacturers of cartridge-based e-cigarettes, such as Juul Labs, R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co., NJoy and Fontem Ventures, to stop making, distributing and selling “unauthorized flavorings” by Feb. 6, or risk enforcement actions.

Top-selling Juul’s four-week dollar sales have dropped from a 50.2 percent increase in the Aug. 10, 2019, report to a 5% uptick in the latest report. By comparison, Reynolds’ Vuse was up 82.2 percent in the latest report and NJoy down 22.3 percent.

Juul’s market share dropped from 52.1percent in the previous report to 51.3 percent. It was at 53.3 percent a year ago. Vuse’s market share climbed from 29.2 percent to 30.6 percent, while No. 3 NJoy slipped from 5 percent to 4.9 percent, and Fontem Ventures’ blu eCigs slipped from 3.5 percent to 3.4 percent.