Online vs Brick
Making a choice between online vs. brick-and-mortar vape shops isn’t always easy. The conventional wisdom would suggest that you’ll get your vaping products at lower prices if you buy online, and you’ll get better service if you buy locally – but that, of course, is an oversimplification.
In reality, you’ll find when you compare online vs. local vape shops that neither is clearly better than the other, and you’ll probably end up using a combination of the two throughout your evolution as a vaper.
You work hard for your money, and you deserve to get the most out of every vaping purchase. In this article, we’ll shed some light on the complexities that make online and local vape shops so different from one another but still both valid choices for any vaper.
Online Vape Shops Give You the Best Prices
It may seem cliché to say that you’ll always get the best prices by buying online, but that cliché exists for a reason: It’s true. Brick-and-mortar stores need to pay building rents, power bills and staff salaries. They need to buy display racks and cabinets to present products attractively.
An online vape shop, in comparison, has far lower overhead costs – and much greater competition. If you don’t like the prices at one online vape shop, it takes seconds to go somewhere else. Price research is easy on the Internet, and online vape shop owners know that they’ll get no sales if they don’t price their products attractively.
Local Vape Shops Keep Your Money in the Community
Whether you buy vaping gear online or locally, you’re supporting real people. You’re feeding and clothing real families. The only difference is that when you buy vaping gear locally, you know who those families are. The employees at your local vape shops are parents saving to pay their bills and students working their way through college.
The owners of your local vape shops are taxpayers who contribute the funds necessary to keep your city’s police and fire departments running. Everyone likes to live in a city with clean parks, safe roads and well-funded emergency services. Helping your city maintain the budget to fund those services begins with spending your money locally.
Online Vape Shops Have the Best Product Selection
An online vape shop doesn’t need to build attractive product displays and can use its physical space for bulk storage instead. Online vape shops that lack the space for bulk product storage can utilize the services of drop shippers with enormous warehouses. Whether you buy from an online vape shop that has its own storage facility, works with a drop shipper or utilizes a combination of the two, you can expect a consistently larger selection of vaping gear when you shop online.
Online vape shops can stock niche vaping mods and coils for obscure tanks. Local vape shops can’t afford to maintain large stocks of unsold inventory – they have to stock what’s hot right now and sell stale inventory at clearance prices to make room for new products.
You Can Find a Great Deal at a Local Vape Shop
The fact that local vape shops need to have frequent sales to make room for new products means that you can often catch a great deal locally if you aren’t too choosy about what you buy. If you don’t mind using last year’s hot mod or trying an e-liquid that you might not be able to find again, it’s worth the effort to keep an eye on the clearance sections at your local vape shops.
An Online Vape Shop Is a Great Informational Resource
A great online vape shop invests significant time and resources into creating informational content that helps customers choose the right vaping gear for their needs and get the most from the gear they have. You can find an extensive vaping blog right here at Easy Puff.
You can read our blog for hours without running out of interesting things to learn, and we’re only one website. As much as the people at your local vape shops might enjoy a good chat, no one has hours available to devote to an individual customer. Our website is available to answer your questions 24 hours a day.
A Local Vape Shop Is a Great Place to Discover Something New
When you buy vaping gear locally, the people at your local vape shop will eventually begin to learn about your tastes and make product recommendations. The attendants at your local vape shop might learn that you enjoy cereal e-liquids, for example, and they’ll let you know when new e-liquids that fit your preferred flavour profiles come in. Online vape shops can use software to generate automatic product recommendations, but nothing is more accurate than a person who knows your preferences.
A Local Vape Shop Is There in an Emergency
At one time or another, every vaper experiences a breakdown or loss of a critical component in their vaping setup. What do you do if you run out of e-liquid unexpectedly or break the glass of your last tank? What happens if your mod’s charging port stops working?
All of those things can happen without warning, and that’s a pretty big emergency if you haven’t taken the time to ensure that you have backups for everything. Are you going to buy a pack of cigarettes while you wait for your favourite online vape shop to mail replacement parts to you? No way. Local vape shops are always there when you need something immediately.
An Online Vape Shop Lets You Browse With No Sales Pressure
Vaping products are small and easy to stuff into your pockets – and the employees at local vape shops often have little to do while they wait for customers to come in. At many local vape shops, that combination of circumstances means that you’ll often have someone hovering near you while you browse.
Even if a hovering salesperson isn’t actively pressuring you to buy something, that’s still not the greatest shopping environment if you aren’t sure what you want. When you shop at an online vape shop, there’s no one watching what you’re doing and no one pressuring you to choose a product. It’s the perfect environment for browsing when you aren’t sure what you want to buy.
A Local Vape Shop Can Offer Value-Added Services and Advice
Do you need someone to show you how to build an atomizer coil or rewrap a damaged battery? Are you completely new to vaping and looking for someone who can show you step-by-step how to set up a new mod, prime a coil and fill a tank? For some people, there’s no substitute for one-on-one attention – and the only way you can get that attention is by dealing with someone face to face.
Recently, the New Zealand Parliament introduced legislation that would prevent standard retailers like dairies and gas stations from offering advice about which vaping products to buy or how to switch from smoking to vaping. Standard retailers will be allowed to discuss product prices only. Vape shops, on the other hand, will be allowed to provide full advice about which products are best and how to use them. Eventually, almost every person who switches from smoking to vaping needs a bit of personal attention. You’ll always find that at a brick-and-mortar vape shop.
