What Stage Is the Vaping Industry in Now?

In the blogger’s personal view, China’s vaping industry is still at an early stage at present, though it may be about to enter the mid-stage.

Of all comparable industries, the blogger feels the vaping industry is closest to the milk tea shop business, with very similar consumer groups and consumption patterns.

Both industries mainly target young consumers, and both rely primarily on offline physical stores. There is significant overlap in customer demographics and purchasing behavior.

In fact, the number of milk tea shops can roughly indicate the development path of dedicated vape stores. So it is quite clear that, by comparison, the number of vape specialty stores is still relatively small in many third-, fourth-, and fifth-tier cities.

At this stage, the key issue facing the vaping industry is whether the growth of the customer base is faster than the growth of stores across the industry, or in other words, faster than the expansion of the sales chain.

It can be said very responsibly that the vaping market still has tremendous room to develop new customers. However, intense competition within this fast-growing industry means that many brands and some store owners still do not make money, or do not make much. More people on the retail side are entering now because they see the future potential of the market.

The blogger has always felt that the side with the strongest sense of security in this industry is the supply side, because the competition faced by retailers is extremely intense. You can see this from the pace of vape store expansion over the past year—stores have sprung up everywhere, and 2021 is bound to be an even more competitive year.

Once the number of vape specialty stores approaches the number of milk tea shops, I think the industry will be close to reaching maturity.