Legacy Vapors is a place where people can learn about vaping in a friendly, helpful environment.
By Stephanie Banfield
After experiencing a series of challenges and setbacks during their own individual quests to quit smoking combustible cigarettes, a pair of longtime friends made it their mission to prevent others from encountering the same struggles they had faced by starting their own business. Together, they opened a vape shop whose primary focus is providing superior customer service and assisting patrons with their search for a product that will finally permit them to kiss their cigarette smoking habit goodbye for good.
Founded in 2014 in Loveland, Colorado, USA, Legacy Vapors offers premium e-liquids from manufacturers across the country, an extensive array of hardware devices ranging from rebuildables and refillable pod systems to temperature control mods and sub-ohm tanks, as well as a sleek and sophisticated tasting bar where customers can sample products, and a modern lounge area that provides the perfect place for them to enjoy their purchases. Vapor Voice caught up with Legacy Vapors owner Daniel Garcia to discover what drives his continual efforts to further develop his business—and to find out how his pursuit of passion has paid off as the company edges ever closer to celebrating its fifth anniversary later this year.
What attracted you to the vapor industry?
In early 2014, my business partner, Brenner Brightbill, was living in southern Colorado, and I was living in Southern California. We had met in college in northern Colorado and had kept in touch ever since. Both of us were working in different capacities for large corporations over the years and had been looking for an opportunity to strike out and be our own bosses—and we both wanted to end up back in northern Colorado, closer to our families. Legacy Vapors was the answer.My business partner and I had both used vaping to help us quit smoking cigarettes. We both had gone through the progression from cigalikes to eGo style devices and finally on to sub-ohming. Even though at the time we lived in different states, we both had similar experiences at the vape shops that we had been visiting. Most of the shops that we had been to were far from helpful when we had questions, and we both felt like we had taught ourselves all about the intricacies of vaping. At that time, there was one small vape shop back in our hometown that had a small selection of eGo batteries and a handful of flavors. Since we both had been looking for an opportunity that would take us back home to Loveland, we quit our jobs and set out to open our shop.
What sets Legacy Vapors apart from other vape shops?
We’re all about taking care of our customers and making sure that they have a great experience every time they come in. We want each of our customers to feel like they’re the most important person in the room—because they are! We founded the shop with customer service in mind and have continued to keep customer service as a top priority throughout the years. There are a lot of great vape shops around us and a lot of smoke shops that sell vape gear, so our in-store experience always has to be on point.
What’s your experience within the vapor industry and how has your business changed?
The vapor industry has been an absolute blast to work in! I’ve gotten to meet some amazing people from all over the place. I’ve seen a ton of growth within the industry, and our shop has definitely grown and changed. Industry trends and regulations have driven continual change over the years. When we opened, we only had one display case, a couple shelves of juice and a tiny one- to two-person tasting counter. With the growth of the business, we’ve remodeled to add a larger tasting bar and more display cases, and we’ve covered a couple of walls with juice shelves, redecorated a few times and put together a nice lounging area. The business looks completely different, but we’ve made sure to stay true to our original goals of providing high-quality products with the best customer service.
What is your greatest accomplishment so far?
I think our biggest challenge and greatest accomplishment are the same thing. I remember a scary statistic that something like 90 percent of small businesses fail within the first five years. It may not be that high because 96 percent of statistics are made up on the spot, but it was still a pretty scary number. We’ve seen a bunch of vape shops in our area open and then close a couple of months or years later. We’ll hit our five-year anniversary in a couple of months and have no plans of going out of business anytime soon. Keeping ahead of the trends in the market and the changing regulations, maintaining a high-quality customer experience and building the business provide daily challenges.
What impact do regulations have on your business?
Regulations are always on my mind. To build a lasting business, we have to stay in compliance, and we have to stay on top of all of the continuous changes in the regulations. We made a bunch of changes in the shop back in 2016 to make sure we would stay in compliance when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) deeming regulations began going into enforcement—and we continue to change with the times. Adding warnings to all of our advertising material began last year. We have always worked with e-liquid manufacturers that are dedicated to working through and surviving the enforcement of the FDA regulations. The industry in the U.S. has been stunted by regulations. I read an article about a device from Joyetech that got a UL certification, and it can’t be imported into the U.S. because of the halt on new products in the FDA regulations.
What effect, if any, does the legalization of recreational cannabis in Colorado have on your business?
Recreational cannabis was legalized in Colorado prior to the founding of Legacy Vapors. Because we opened just a few months after legalization in Colorado, we decided to keep our product offering unaffiliated with that industry. Most consumers at the time seemed to confuse vaping with cannabis use. Since our focus was to help people get off of cigarettes, we decided to let the smoke shops carry the devices for cannabis use while we focused on killing our niche and stuck to the nicotine-delivery systems. We decided it was more important for us to build an identity as a vape shop. In the years since, we have seen less consumer confusion and now only get asked about cannabis by tourists. We have started carrying a very small selection of hardware that can be used for vaporizing herbal concentrates, but we have stuck to our identity and do not carry any products that are used in combustion. We recently added vapeable CBD [cannabidiol] products to the store, and we are expanding that category quickly as well.
Where do you see the future of the vapor industry?
The near future of vaping is going to look pretty similar for hardware—minor advancements and changes but nothing drastically new. We may see some more variations on TC mods and different pod systems. The smaller sub-ohm devices and pods are getting more popular. The longer-term future of vaping is being shaped by the regulatory process. I think there is still a fair amount of uncertainty with how it’ll all look in five or 10 years. The FDA could push forward with their regulations and push a nationwide flavor ban. Although the statements from [former] FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb look hopeful for vape shops, we’re still in the early stages, and 10 years is a long time from now. I’m hopeful that the industry will continue to make its voice heard politically and will adapt to the times as we get more heavily regulated.
What advice do you have for other vape shop owners?
I’m going back to customer service on this one. Most vape shops are small retail boutiques. We don’t have big-box stores and self-checkout machines. The personal touch and the sense of community are integral to our success. My advice is to care about your customers. Take care of your customers and build a community. It’s also extremely important that we all pay attention to regulations and take an active role in shaping the future of our industry. We all need to work together as vaping advocates and activists. Get involved in any way that you can.
What is the ultimate goal of Legacy Vapors?
I think that, like most small-business owners, I want to make a positive impact on the lives of the people in my community and be free to live and work at something that I’m passionate about. We named the shop Legacy Vapors because we wanted to build a future for ourselves and help the people of our community achieve their goal of switching from cigarettes. Getting off of cigarettes was one of the hardest things I ever did. It changed my life when I switched to vaping, and I wanted to be a part of that change for others.