On the surface, starting a vape shop may look like a pretty quick path toward success. All that you need to do is rent a storefront or start a website, find a good wholesaler and buy your inventory. After that, you’re off and running. That, at least, is how things appear from a distance. The truth, though, is that operating a successful business in the vaping industry isn’t as easy as it might seem – and many of the potential pitfalls are actually in the inventory sourcing process.
When you’re choosing a vape wholesaler, it may not be a good idea to just buy from whoever appears first on Google. If you’re not careful, buying wholesale vapes can be much more expensive than you think. Here are some of the important things to look out for.
Some Vape Wholesalers Charge Membership Fees
On the surface, some vape wholesalers appear to offer their products at incredibly low prices. When you go through the account creation process, though, you’ll discover that some wholesalers actually charge monthly membership fees. This definitely isn’t the same thing as a Costco membership, where the company sells its products nearly at cost and makes its money on membership renewals. If you have to pay a monthly fee to buy from a vape wholesaler, you’ll end up losing money every month unless you order enough products to cover the membership costs. You’re better off ordering from a wholesaler that doesn’t charge a monthly fee, like Shefa Distribution.
Note that a membership fee is not the same thing as a minimum order quantity. Most vape wholesalers will not accept small orders and will want you to spend several hundred dollars or more in order to buy products. One of the reasons why wholesalers can charge low prices and still make money is because they’re shipping dozens of large orders a day instead of hundreds of small ones.
Pricing Can Be Account Based
Have you ever wondered why most vape wholesalers don’t show their prices to the public? That’s partially because they only want to show their prices to serious buyers. If you’ve created an account and provided a copy of your reseller license, you’re definitely serious. Another reason why prices aren’t always available to the public, though, is because some wholesalers have account-based pricing. Customers who have the ability to place larger orders get better prices per unit.
If you have the ability to buy vapes in bulk, you can potentially use account-based pricing to your advantage. You should never be afraid to negotiate with a wholesaler because prices can often be flexible as long as you’re willing to place large orders. Talk to your account representative on the phone and ask if the website is showing you the best available pricing. If you’re unable to make any progress, shop around. It’s definitely possible to find a better deal if you’re persistent and willing to make it worthwhile for the wholesaler by ordering in large quantities.
You May Need to Pay a Shipping Charge
When you’re comparing vape wholesalers and trying to figure out how much the various companies will charge for the products you need, don’t forget to compare their shipping rates. Unless you find a wholesaler that’s willing to waive the charge for large orders, you’ll almost definitely have to pay a shipping fee – and with today’s fuel prices, shipping isn’t cheap. If you can’t find a wholesaler that will waive the fee for orders over a certain minimum amount, look for a wholesaler that charges a flat shipping fee for all orders instead. If possible, you want to avoid working with a wholesaler that charges a weight-based shipping fee because a box containing hundreds of vapes can be quite heavy.
You May Need to Order from More Than One Place
If you can manage to find a single wholesaler that has every product you need in one place, that’s a great thing because it’ll help you save a lot of time. It’s more likely, though, that you’ll end up using different sources for different products. One wholesaler might have a great selection of disposable vapes, for instance, while another will have a large range of bottled e-liquids. Do your best to consolidate your supply chain and minimize the number of different wholesalers that you need to order from. Every time you buy from a different wholesaler, that’s more time that you need to spend at your computer putting orders together and more shipping fees you’ll potentially have to pay.
Shady Wholesalers May Sell Fake Vapes
When you’re looking for a new vape wholesaler to work with, remember that prices aren’t the only things that you need to examine. You should also evaluate the wholesalers’ supply chains and confirm that they’re only sourcing their vapes from the original manufacturers or from authorized distributors who work with those brands. Despite a large amount of scrutiny from law enforcement both domestically and abroad, counterfeit vapes continue to pour out of China by the thousands every day.
Fake vapes may look virtually identical to official products, but they often don’t taste the same and definitely don’t have the same level of reliability. In rare cases, they could even be dangerous to use. If you end up buying fake vapes for your vape shop – and your customers find out about it – you could potentially be dead in the water before your business even gets started because it may be impossible to reverse the reputational harm it’ll cause.
You Can’t Sell Vapes Unless You Have Customers
As exciting as it is to go through the process of sourcing products for a new vape shop, don’t forget that you can’t make money unless you have customers. Wholesale vapes, after all, are incredibly expensive if no one is buying them. The more money you save by comparing wholesalers and finding the best one, the more you’ll have left over to invest in marketing. Don’t neglect that side of your business because a vape shop is nothing without customers.
