The Vuse e-cigarette continues to widen its market share lead over Juul in both monthly and yearly comparisons.
The latest Nielsen analysis of convenience-store data, released Tuesday, covers the four-week period ending Nov. 5.
Owned by R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co., Vuse’s market share rose from 40 percent in the previous report to 40.4 percent, compared with Juul declining from 28 percent to 27.6 percent, according to the Winston-Salem Journal.
Vuse expanded its year-over year advantage to 34.4 percent to 31.5 percent compared with 33.6 percent to 32 percent in the previous report.
As recently as May 2019, Juul held a 74.6 percent U.S. e-cig market share.
According to Barclays, Nielsen largely covers the big chains. For the smaller chains, such as vape shops, the group extrapolates trends, which is why trend changes don’t appear immediately in Nielsen.
No. 3 NJoy was unchanged at 2.8 percent and Fontem Ventures’ blu eCigs was unchanged at 1.4 percent.
Juul’s four-week dollar sales in the latest report have dropped from a 50.2 percent increase in the Aug. 10, 2019, report to a 20.1 percent decline in the latest report.
By comparison, Reynolds’ Vuse was up 35 percent in the latest report, while NJoy was up 7.6 percent and blu eCigs down 35.4 percent.
On Nov. 11, Juul confirmed it is eliminating up to 400 jobs and obtaining financing from its earliest investors.
Multiple media outlets, first by the Wall Street Journal and cable business channel CNBC, reported the downsizing initiative also includes slashing its operating budget by between 30 percent and 40 percent.
It just keeps growing. In the latest Nielsen analysis of convenience-store data, the market-share gap between Vuse and Juul vaping products has stretched to a double-digit lead for Vuse.
The analysis, released Tuesday, covers the four-week period ending Sept. 10.
Vuse’s market share rose from 39 percent in the previous report to 39.7 percent, compared with Juul declining from 29.4 percent to 28.1 percent.
Vuse also has also now edged ahead of Juul in the year-over-year comparison at 32.9 percent to 32.7 percent, respectively. It’s the first time Vuse has led the year-over-year comparison.
According to Barclays, Nielsen largely covers the big chains. For the smaller chains, the group extrapolates trends, which is why trend changes don’t appear immediately in Nielsen, according to the Winston-Salem Journal.
The looming potential for an outright ban of Juul Labs’ e-cigarettes from U.S. retail shelves has accelerated the market-share gains of R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co.’s Vuse brand, according to reports.
Meanwhile, No. 3 NJoy dropped from 2.9 percent to 2.8 percent, while Fontem Ventures’ blu eCigs slipped from 1.6 percent to 1.4 percent.
Juul’s four-week dollar sales in the latest report have dropped from a 50.2 percent increase in the Aug. 10, 2019, report to a 17.7 percent decline in the latest report.
By comparison, Reynolds’ Vuse was up 41.4 percent in the latest report, while NJoy was down 5.6 percent and blu eCigs fell to 30.2 percent.
Brazil’s Justice Department Thursday ordered 32 businesses to stop selling e-cigarettes. They have 48 hours to comply or face a $960 fine.
Vaping products have been banned in Brazil since 2009. However vaping products are still easily available, according to reports.
One of the businesses on the list is Carrefour, the country’s largest supermarket with over 1,000 stores, according to a media report.
In July, the Brazilian National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA), voted to uphold the country’s e-cigarette brand.
A survey carried out in the first quarter of 2022 by the Vital Strategies organization and the Federal University of Pelotas, revealed that 19.7 percent of Brazilians aged between 18 and 24 have tried electronic cigarettes.
The Federal Trade Commission’s second report on e-cigarette sales and advertising across the U.S. shows sales of flavored disposable e-cigarettes and menthol e-cigarette cartridges surging dramatically in 2020.
The coincides with a federal ban on the flavored cartridges for closed systems. Regulators state that closed systems were popular with youth, so the FTC report suggests that youth e-cigarette use has shifted to disposable flavored products rather than declined.
The report also found that the distribution of free and discounted e-cigarettes reached record highs.
“This report shows that youth are still at risk from flavored or deeply discounted e-cigarettes,” said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Marketers of e-cigarettes have proven skillful at evading FDA regulation and hooking youth on addictive products.”
The FTC has been reporting on tobacco sales annually since 1967 and smokeless tobacco sales since 1987. Last year, the agency expanded its studies of industry and published its first-ever report on e-cigarettes.
This year’s e-cigarette report covers sales and advertising data from 2019 and 2020, a period in which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration published an enforcement policy banning the sale of flavored e-cigarette cartridges other than menthol.
Overall, the report found that total e-cigarette sales, which had increased from $304.2 million in 2015 to $2.046 billion in 2018, grew to $2.703 billion in 2019, but then declined to $2.24 billion in 2020. The FTC report notes that the 2020 decline may not represent the market given major industry shifts. Key findings in the report include:
Significant shift to flavored disposable e-cigarettes: Publicly available sources indicate that the sale of disposable e-cigarettes – which are exempt from the FDA’s 2020 policy – increased substantially, with “other” flavored disposable products making up 77.6 percent of all disposables sold in December 2020. The FTC’s data did not show an increase in disposable sales. However, FTC’s data likely does not represent an accurate picture of the market for disposable e-cigarettes. Only two of the five companies submitting data for 2019-20 continued to market disposable e-cigarettes in 2020, and those that did provided more limited offerings. In order to improve the representativeness of its industry sales data for future FTC reports, the FTC recently sent orders to four additional e-cigarette companies.
Major increase in menthol cartridge sales: Similarly, the report found that the sale of the remaining non-FDA-banned flavored cartridge, menthol, increased significantly, to 63.5 percent of all cartridges sold in 2020.
Record high e-cigarette discounting: The data also reveal that price discounting for e-cigarettes reached a record high of $182.3 million in 2019, and, although it decreased slightly in 2020, such discounting still represented the largest category of ad expenditures by e-cigarette manufacturers.
Doubling of nearly free e-cigarette samples: The data collected for 2019-20 suggest that spending on the sampling and distribution of free and deeply price-discounted e-cigarettes more than doubled in just two years, making it the second-largest spending category in 2020. This occurred because, after the FDA banned tobacco product sampling in 2016 to limit youth access, some companies began offering e-cigarettes for $1 (or even less) in an apparent attempt to get around the ban.
“This report shows that partial bans on certain types of flavors for certain types of e-cigarettes are unlikely to be successful in achieving a reduction in youth addiction to nicotine via e-cigarette usage,” the FTC wrote in statement.
The Commission vote approving the FTC’s E-Cigarette Report and related data tables for 2019-20 was 5-0.
An entrepreneur is using his business acumen to reinvent the convenience store experience.
By Norm Bour
The one thing we can all agree on is that the vape industry has been in a constant flux, peppered with an occasional crisis. The once “easy to operate,” unregulated business from a decade ago has morphed into a highly regulated (with more to come) struggle to stay ahead of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and maintain their competitive position in a very crowded, ever-evolving market.
“I think it’s easy to see where the market is going,” claimed Nathan (Nate) Coccimiglio, who has been in the business world for almost 15 years. “But besides having the vision, you need the guts to make a change and the capital to implement [that change].”
Coccimiglio hasn’t always had the complete package, but as he just crested the age of 40, he has had his share of victories along with the inevitable defeats along the way. However, now, he feels as prepared to go forward as he’s ever been. He’s been a mainstay in the Salt Lake City business community and had a journey through nutritional supplements, enhancement pills and even owned a storage facility for precious metal and bullion.
“I saw an opportunity in that space, so I took it and grew it into a multimillion-dollar company. I did the same thing with vapes when I ventured into that in 2012,” he said. “In 2007, my life took a serious detour when I got hit on my motorcycle on the interstate doing 80 mph. I was running an electrical contracting business and suddenly that all went out the window. I wasn’t able to do certain hard labor like I used to, and suddenly, I had to reinvent myself,” he shared. “That forced me into starting my own business.”
ALT21
Coccimiglio began with vitamin supplements and enhancement-type pills, which he started selling from his home and later expanded into a second location in Tucson, Arizona. That location got burglarized, and the entire inventory was stolen. Once again, he had to backtrack and dig in at his home office.
Even after adversity, in less than two years, Coccimiglio generated over $5 million in annual sales, and he sold that business just a few years later.
“I look back and wish I had kept that one,” Coccimiglio confided. “I was in my mid-twenties and didn’t know then what I know now. It taught me lots of lessons about what to sell, how to sell and what to stay away from.”
The cash from the sale, along with his passion for metals and the business experience, gave him confidence to start a private vault company. He started storing and warehousing bullion in 2012. The company stored platinum, ore and worked with several mines in Utah storing hundreds of millions in metals.
However, Coccimiglio was still intrigued with supplements and accessories and decided to open an e-liquid company called Tronic Vape. He also created a few other lesser known brands.
“E-liquid was easy back then,” he laughed. “Just a simple 10 mL bottle filled with liquid, which we made with no restrictions or regulations at all. We also imported little e-cigs from overseas that I thought were the hottest things. Even though there was minimal regulation, we implemented our own and insured our products with Lloyds of London and had full liability coverage.”
Coccimiglio continued to manufacture his e-liquids until 2018. Over the years, he private labeled for other companies as well. That was when he opened his first vape shop: Draper Vaper, in Draper, Utah.
I visited that shop and can verify that it was over-the-top beautiful and a true testament to the possibilities of a high-end vape shop. He also opened a second location and phased out of private labeling to focus on his retail locations and to grow his wholesaling opportunities.
Coccimiglio also offered his experience and knowledge with other shops in the area along with taking an ownership interest with a few that he believed could be successful. He also got involved with many of the vaping advocacy associations to help support the industry. He even served a stint as president of the Utah Smoke-Free Alternatives Trade Association.
Coccimiglio has been challenged with many of his fellow vape entrepreneurs, who he says have closed minds and unwillingness to change.
“When they say they are vape only and will stay that way, I just roll my eyes and walk away,” he said. “If there is one thing I have learned from entrepreneurship, [it] is that you either adapt or die. I started saying that almost 10 years ago when I saw smoke shops carrying vape shop products.”
He sees standalone vape shops as being a “thing of the past” and instead all-around “vice shops” will carry any and everything that people want.
“We’re all playing in Big Tobacco’s sandbox,” he lamented. “It’s inevitable that they will control the vape industry over time. If every single one of our vape businesses banded together, we’d still be outmanned, outgunned and out financed.”
Over the years, Coccimiglio has almost divested out of his vape businesses and is now evolving into his version of where the future is going.
The key word is “almost” since he still has one shop left, which has added CBD, alternative products and adult novelties. He went back in time with his version of a “build-your-own” flavor station and offers flavors for his customers to create their own e-liquids.
Coccimiglio believes that flavoring for e-liquids will universally be stopped through regulation. However, his new shop, Alt21, located in Murray, Utah, may be on to something. It also offers clothing, glass, kratom, e-juice and pretty much anything anyone would want.
Coccimiglio also sees convenience stores taking over a larger share of these types of products. “For years, they’ve been looked down upon,” he said, “but c-store owners are pretty smart. They look down the road and many times band together to totally change the market.”
Coccimiglio currently manufactures a product for them, Kush Kubes (a brand of Delta-9 and CBD-enhanced gummies) and sells them domestically as well as overseas.
“We’re a manufacturer/distributor right now, and rather than taking new products to old markets, we’re trying to lay new ground and create new markets for our stuff. We see gas pumps coming out of the ground and c-stores looking totally different in the future. They have so much exposure and visibility right now; it’s up to us to find things for them to sell.
“We want to sell less SKUs to more markets rather than load everyone up with a surplus of things they can’t sell. If you can’t recognize opportunity, then you’ll always miss it,” he said. “I don’t think I have a magic eye; it’s just a matter of who has the bigger pockets and how can we do business with them.”
That is how a survivor thinks.
Norm Bour is the founder of VapeMentors and works with vape businesses worldwide. He can be reached at norm@VapeMentors.com.
The global disposable e-cigarettes market size is expected to be valued at $6.34 billion in 2022, according to new research.
With growing demand for non-tobacco products owing to rising health concerns among others, the overall demand for disposable e-cigarettes is projected to grow at a CAGR of 11.2 percent between 2022 and 2032, totaling around $18.32 billion by 2032, according to a report from Future Market Insights (FMI).
The rising traction of using disposable e-cigarettes among consumers is expected to accelerate the market in the forthcoming years, according to FMI.
New and innovative products to comply with the growing demand for these products among consumers are being launched by many market players.
In January 2021, Dinner Lady, a U.K.-based vape brand launched a disposable vape pen, for example.
North America dominated the disposable e-cigarettes market and accounted for the maximum revenue share of 49.8 percent in 2021.
The increasing popularity of flavored disposable e-cigarettes offered by brands such as Puff Bar, Vuse, and Suorin, is one of the major factors that is expected to drive the growth of the industry in the region.
A New Zealand vape industry advocate says retailers selling to underage youth are destroying the industry and must be prosecuted.
Nancy Loucas, co-founder of Aotearoa Vapers Community Advocacy (AVCA), made the comments following the airing of a consumer television show, Fair Go, conducting a hidden camera investigation which showed three retailers selling to under 18-year-olds in Gisborne, a city in the country’s North Island, in one afternoon.
Just six vape stores nationwide have been issued with infringement notices in the past two years, according to the AVCA.
“I’m pleased Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall and Health New Zealand are promising more compliance checks and enforcement,” said Loucas. “No one wants kids vaping and so any rogue dairy owners need the book thrown at them and fast. No prosecutions have so far been made and that needs to change forthwith.”
In June last year AVCA publicly called for greater enforcement. At the time it stated that “retailers have had long enough to know right from wrong. I respect the Government’s initial focus is on educating retailers about the new law, but it’s now time to move onto enforcement.”
AVCA claims dedicated standalone specialist vape stores are not the main issue. Instead, the problems occur when convenience stores partition off a part of their shop to be a “specialist vape store” enabling them to sell a full range of flavors. AVCA stated that it’s a cynical move, which might be within the new vape laws, but needs greater attention, in an email to Vapor Voice.
“These supposed ‘vape stores’ at one end of dairies [convenience stores] need greater oversight before they’re signed off and then greater enforcement. Overall, the regulations that came out of the 2020 vaping legislation are working well, but youth access remains a work in progress,” said Loucas.
A recent ASH survey on youth vaping confirmed that only two percent of youth vapers illegally purchased the vapes themselves. The rest are getting it from their friends, siblings, or parents, according to Loucas.
The Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill, currently in Parliament, aims to significantly limit the number of retailers able to sell combustible tobacco by banning sales to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2009.
AVCA is encouraging supporters of New Zealand’s Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR) approach to make a submission to Parliament’s Health Select Committee on the bill by Aug. 24.
“MPs and officials need to keep their eyes on the prize and not let a few anti-vapers hijack this all important smokefree legislation. This is not the time to try to relitigate the country’s vaping laws which were well covered in 2020. This is all about crunching the cancer sticks which is long overdue,” said Loucas.
The U.K.-based next-generation nicotine distributor Aquavape has partnered with Philip Morris Limited (PML), the supplier behind IQOS, to offer heated tobacco products for the first time. Philip Morris Ltd. (PML), the U.K. affiliate of Philip Morris International
This year, vape retailers have been challenged by the needs of their consumers, which are changing rapidly, according to Better Retailing. While over a quarter of adult smokers will explore smoke-free products in 2022, 58 percent haven’t yet found a satisfying alternative to cigarettes.
The challenge for vape retailers, said PML, is twofold: meeting the growing consumer demand for smoke-free products, while matching individual preferences based on taste, satisfaction, ritual and other potentially complex needs.
“It’s fair to say that no one single product can achieve this which is why retail outlets of all sizes have evolved as vape specialists, to become multicategory operators. Aquavape is one supplier which has made the move to multicategory, both for the benefit of its retailers’ customers and to the revenues generated by its business,” a spokesperson for PML told betterRetailing.com.
Ebrahim Kathrada, managing director at Aquavape, said historically, the company did not list multiple smoke-free categories: “We now supply a range of smoking alternatives that meet market demands and trends.”
Ebrahim believes a complete smoke-free product offering is essential to diversifying sales and increasing chances of satisfying more customers. “If you don’t have a category in the store, you can’t sell it and explore its potential. If you do, you become the one-stop shop conveniently catering to all the customer’s needs which increases overall takings, basket spend and retention,” he explained.
The New York State Senate is moving forward with proposed legislation that would allow bars and restaurants to use facial recognition or fingerprint scanners to verify someone’s age before they buy alcohol, tobacco or electronic cigarettes, according to the New York Post.
“This is the new frontier of age verification,” said state Sen. James Skoufis, who is sponsoring the biometrics bill. “It does advance the interests of convenience.”
Skoufis envisions that bars and restaurants could scan fingerprints, faces or retinas of customers who want to be spared the trouble of showing an ID when they return to an establishment in the future. The proposed legislation requires all data to be encrypted and prohibits businesses from selling biometric data to third parties.
“No one’s forced into engaging with this technology, but they would have the choice,” Skoufis said. “There’s no big brother involved.”
More than two years after banning sales of vaping products, Walmart is testing a potential ban of traditional tobacco products.
The world’s largest retailer will stop sales of tobacco products in some of its more than 5,000 stores across the United States, the company said on Monday.
Walmart did not disclose how many stores would be affected by the move, but said it would not be exiting the category entirely.
The markets in which cigarettes are being removed from stores include California, Florida and New Mexico, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news, according to Reuters.
Several Democratic U.S. senators have urged Walmart and several other retailers to stop selling all tobacco products.
