vape's first setback

In 2003, with the original intention of helping smoking cessation, Han Li, a Chinese pharmacist, invented a vape that uses a high-concentration nicotine solution as an e-liquid. It looks like a cigar and uses a heating wire as the heat source. It has no tar and will not burn. A year later, this patented vape went into mass production. In 2005, the well-known vape product "Ruyan" was officially launched as the earliest vape manufacturer. Once released, Ruyan attracted people's attention with overwhelming marketing. In the TV commercials, Ruyan boasts of "three no products" - no naked flames, no tar, no second-hand smoke, and even has the magical effect of "quitting smoking without knowing it".

"Quit smoking" while smoking, such a smoking advertising gimmick is very attractive. Under the banner of "health and environmental protection", coupled with exquisite and luxurious packaging, Ruyan entered the domestic market strongly. At the beginning of this century, under the guidance of "luxury goods", the basic cost of buying a cigarette was five or six hundred yuan, while the highest price of a higher tube vape could reach tens of thousands of yuan. Pull out a well-made vape in public and start smoking leisurely. It used to be an all-or-nothing status label.

Even though the consumption threshold is so high, Ruyan has achieved remarkable results with its successful marketing strategy. In the past three years since its establishment, Ruyan's annual sales have exceeded 1 billion yuan. In 2008, the sales volume exceeded 300,000 vehicles, and it was successfully listed in Hong Kong. The face of the rich was given by a gold-plated vape at that time. However, such a good situation did not last long, and the success or failure of marketing also led to marketing. The problem with cigarettes is not the high price, but public opinion’s doubts about the health of vape products.

In 2006, CCTV pointed out that the expressions such as "smoking, quit smoking" in the advertisements were suspected of false propaganda; later, the well-known anti-counterfeiting person Wang Hai pointed out the "seven deadly crimes" of vape and brought him to court. Although Wang Hai lost the lawsuit in the end, this fierce denunciation still had an irreparable negative impact on his reputation. As sales became more and more bleak, Ruyan had to reluctantly abandon the domestic market and began to turn overseas.

Yet again, history played out, even harsher. On the other side of the ocean, the development of Ruyan encountered Waterloo. This time, the pressure comes directly from policy regulation. In 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives decided to regulate vape as a drug delivery device, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a comprehensive ban on the import of vape, directly "blocking" Ruyan. This year, Ruyan’s loss reached 444 million yuan, and its business volume dropped by 79.3%. In the second year, it had to raise 87.6 million yuan through a rights issue to tide over its financial difficulties.

Vape was once popular among young people in the United States, and the "Vaping" culture that refers to vape has also developed. In the face of difficulties, the solution is not cigarettes, but SmokingEverywhere and NJoy, two major vape companies in the United States. In 2010, the two companies sued the FDA in court and won. According to the court ruling, vape is clearly classified as "tobacco product" in the U.S. regulatory system, rather than drugs or devices. As soon as the news came out, with the loosening of regulation, the vape market at home and abroad ushered in a period of rapid development. Faced with huge profit margins, Ruyan's successors poured into the market one after another to fight. Many e-liquid manufacturers and vape manufacturers were quickly established in China, and vape officially opened an era of rapid development.

What kind of product vape belongs to differs in the laws and regulations of various countries, but the concept of the so-called "smoking cessation product" mentioned in the early marketing has been ignored for a long time. As a commodity, what manufacturers have been pursuing is the continuous consumption and even addictive consumption of users, which is fundamentally contradictory to their efforts to quit smoking.

Vape is popular, a "quiet" business. After the FDA lost the case, American vape companies jumped at the chance. At its peak, there were more than 18,000 physical stores running all the way. The United States also holds a leading position in the vape market, accounting for 43% of the global market share as of 2017, and accounting for nearly one-third of the world's vape users.

In China, the upsurge of custom e-liquid and custom vape is ushering in. As for the focus on brands, there are too few, except for some vapes that operate under the brand name. As for e-liquid, they are basically doing OEM business. , even after nearly ten years, there is no famous domestic e-liquid.