An open letter to you, our customer:
Please take a few moments to read this - as much for our benefit as an e-commerce business, as it could be for your satisfaction as a consumer.
As with anything new - the exploiters, scammers and 'quick buck' peddlers have all jumped into e-cigarette sales.
Unfortunately there is a lot of 'noise' out there in the e-cigarette, or 'Smokeless
Cigarettes' market as its becoming known.
This 'noise' includes:
Poor, or Questionable Quality
Numerous lines of poor quality products that either direct ships to consumers or bulk ships to warehouses in the US without quality control
- from China. Is this ultimately a cheaper price to you, the customer? Absolutely. Is it always safe, and/or worth it when the product either performs so poorly that you never want to use it, or it fails two weeks after you start using it? Absolutely not. The quality control in place in some Chinese manufacturing plants is shockingly poor, to say the least. Yes, China manufactures and exports most products we purchase and use here in the US every day but in some cases there is no US company representation on site in the plants that manufacture those goods (and even when there is it still hasn't prevented poisoning and toxic material issues in all cases) and in other cases, the product ships directly to you without any quality control.
Generally speaking, the raw materials used in China are inferior (which has been shown in the various scandals involving lead in paint, toxins in milk and commercial waste in toothpaste). Secondly, much of the work that should be automated is done by hand, which creates a huge problem for quality control. Remember when "made in Japan" was considered to be an indication of poor quality? Well, attitudes have changed since the Japanese have improved their quality control over the last 20 years. China too can improve the quality and safety of their products - but they'll need to spend money and time to do it. In the meantime, choose the products that you ingest that are made, assembled and packaged in China carefully or, choose a company that quality controls, assembles and tests the products coming in from China themselves before they offer it to you.
Scams/Pass Through
Numerous web scams that offer 'free trials' of smokeless cigarettes,
e-cigarettes and personal vaporizers. You 'sign up' (first sign of most scams) for a trial offer in exchange for a free e-cigarette unit. it arrives 2+ weeks later, followed by cartridges you didn't actually order (that's somewhere in the fine print), then multiple charges show up on your credit card for purchases you haven't made (this is also somewhere in the fine print) and when you attempt to cancel the trial and dispute the charges you're faced with red tape, delays and more charges.
The second version of the typical scam is a pass through site. These sites pay large fees to get the fanciest graphics and best ad placements on product searches to get you to their sites, but they don’t actually sell anything. They strictly put up links to other sites that pay them a finder’s fee to redirect you to them. So while you may have thought a reputable seller is where you were going, in reality you could end up at a scam site, or a clearinghouse for low quality products.
Misinformation
Just key in a Google news search for e-cigarette and you’ll find all kinds of bogus information out there. Several different companies generate their own press releases and news. It was in fact suggested to me that I use it as a method to promote this site as part of a web strategy launch campaign, so it’s becoming a standard practice evidently.
Here today, gone tomorrow.
With almost no start up capital you can have an e-commerce web site up and running, or you can simply insert your product line directly into Google products (or several other similar e-commerce megastores) and use their infrastructure to sell on the web. Couple that with the readily available cheap and abundant products with no quality control out of China (see point above) and for a few thousand dollars, anyone can be pushing product they know nothing about, with no intention of supporting or maintaining it. Order 1000 units, sell 1000 units, close up shop and move onto the next item - leaving no trace of your old business. This is done every day - and you know what? More power to the people putting cash in their pockets, right? Isn't that what this country is all about? You bet. Somewhere along the line though, the elements of customer service and quality of product were eaten alive by low cost, volume sales, inferior products being peddled without warranties, outsourced support and - you know the rest.
Be on the lookout for all of this ‘noise’ and navigate carefully. Your hard earned dollars should be matched with a quality, supported and safe product.
Now, feel free to stop reading here, as the 'public service announcement' aspect of this article is done. But, if you'd like to read on, please do.
We took the points above, and decided to focus on the exact opposite themes
when we launched our business focusing on Smokeless Cigarettes.
We're a small outfit that focuses on the details.
We select products carefully.
We know who we're buying from.
We test every aspect of every product thoroughly.
We only choose quality products, because we stand behind them.
We don’t offer programs designed to 'trick' people into spending money on things they don't want or need.
We never hide fees.
We disclose everything.
We use our products, daily.
We're in this because we believe in it.
Thanks for reading.
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