Exposed: The Ugly Side of China’s Domestic Vaping Market

 <\/p> The heated tobacco information network reports: In 1996, the World Health Organization recommended that countries adopt "nicotine replacement therapy" for smoking cessation and suggested including it in national health insurance plans. "Nicotine replacement therapy" is currently a safe and effective method for smoking control (cessation). This method has led to the emergence of e-cigarettes, which are recognized as the best choice in "nicotine replacement therapy."​​   For most smokers, the hardest part of quitting is not giving up cigarettes themselves, but overcoming the psychological need for comfort that has developed over years of smoking. This psychological state requires the act of smoking to manifest subconscious cooperation. Therefore, e-cigarettes are warmly welcomed by smokers in most countries and regions, including the EU, the US, and Southeast Asia, with some countries even establishing legal status for e-cigarettes. ​​ China is currently the world's largest exporter of e-cigarettes, with the largest high-quality e-cigarette production and export base located in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. However, the high-quality, safe e-cigarettes they produce are extremely rare in the domestic smoking cessation market. While many large, well-known e-cigarette manufacturers are busy exporting e-cigarettes to the US, EU, and other countries, they have lost most of the market in the domestic e-cigarette market. What is even more heartbreaking is that it is not a competition among industry leaders, but rather an occupation by so-called foreign brands and low-quality e-cigarettes that illegally imitate well-known domestic brands.​​ These products, relying on low prices and aggressive advertising, promise to help quit smoking within a month, and their exaggerated promotions have rapidly taken over the domestic market, making them ubiquitous in streets, markets, and small shops. With the common psychology of wanting to get a bargain, especially for products like smoking cessation that do not have a strong rigid demand, the cheaper the price, the better. As a result, a large number of low-quality smoking cessation and alternative smoking products have flooded the market, greatly disrupting the normal market order and causing people to lose trust in e-cigarettes. In a short time, e-cigarettes have become synonymous with counterfeit and inferior products. What is even more infuriating is that this low price is not based on strengthened cost accounting, improved management in production, supply, sales, and finance, reduced waste, scientific research and development, improved craftsmanship, and lowered comprehensive costs to reduce terminal sales prices. Instead, it is achieved by lowering product quality, disregarding user safety, with most battery rods being ordinary nickel batteries, and some even being modified from used lithium batteries. During charging, some may explode or pose fire hazards... The filling liquid in the cartridges is mostly unverified low-quality unknown liquids, causing direct or indirect harm to consumers' health.​​ It is well known that some even use medical waste, broken slippers, and recycled plastic materials to manufacture e-cigarette cartridges (mouthpieces), using extremely low production costs to counterfeit and attack quality products. In this situation of "information asymmetry," and in a domestic smoking cessation market that generally lacks integrity, consumers often do not base their purchasing decisions on the integrity level of companies but rather on market sales prices, leading to the inability of high-quality companies and high-quality products to realize their value, forcing them to exit the domestic market.​​ When low-quality companies operate with "slightly inferior" products and counterfeit goods, a market for counterfeit and inferior products is formed. In this potentially huge market, despite the vast development space, it ultimately remains a "prisoner's dilemma" where everyone loses. Therefore, currently, in the Chinese e-cigarette industry, there are no "real winners."​​ At present, China's e-cigarette industry is facing a serious trust crisis, which is the real curse of the counterfeit and inferior product market. Without professional interpretation of safety information in the e-cigarette product specification field, the vast majority of consumers cannot understand it and cannot know what the specific meanings of those data are. Some companies seem to enjoy this "information asymmetry" and attempt to repeatedly deceive ordinary consumers based on this asymmetry. The current smoking cessation and alternative smoking market has become a situation of "counterfeit, inferior quality, and harmful chaos," with e-cigarettes becoming synonymous with counterfeit and inferior products. The curse of consumption is evident, and the credibility of domestic brands is gradually being exhausted, while the end of counterfeit merchants is quietly approaching.   Researchers believe that the e-cigarette market has experienced nearly three years of chaotic reshuffling, and from now on, consumers can learn more about some domestic brands through formal channels such as Tmall, JD.com, and Yihaodian, many of which have been in the domestic market for three to four years, such as Jirui, Ruyan, Kangcheng Yipin, Yipin, Yipin, Lvkang, and Oufan'er, which have been established in the market since before 2010. It is hoped that smokers will purchase smoking cessation products through formal channels!​​ Looking at the vast consumer market in the country, product safety has been compromised from "PPA to gutter oil," "from Sudan red to melamine," "from lean meat powder to fake beef," "from toxic strawberries to toxic leeks," "from toxic building materials to toxic cars..." With various toxic consumer products continuously exposed, people have gradually begun to awaken. Previously, people relied too much on newspapers, television, and various media advertisements for the safety of e-cigarettes, but facts have proven that these are not completely reliable quality standards.​​ With the continuous increase in people's income levels and the widespread availability of information sources, along with growing attention to personal health, and the continuous improvement and strengthening of the Chinese e-cigarette industry and various professional organizations, we can foresee that in the near future, e-cigarettes will become a necessary alternative to cigarettes. This clear identity will highlight the independent, healthy, safe, and tasteful consumer quality brand building, which will ultimately be a broad road to winning people's hearts, gaining trust, earning respect, achieving social corporate citizenship dignity, and enhancing quality brand image.​ #p#分页标题#e#

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