Starting an Online Vape Business: Setting Up Your Online Vape Shop

The vape industry is booming. It’s projected to be a 67.1 billion dollar industry by 2027, which is why starting an online vape business now before the gold rush begins, is a great idea. To create a business online or of any kind requires first getting a lay of the land.

In this blog, we will cover as much ground as possible and go over some of the most important things you should consider when starting an online vape business. If you’re ready, let’s dig in.

Table of Contents

1. Laws and Registering Your Business
2. Implementing an E-Commerce Platform
3. Selecting the Products to Offer in Your Online Shop
4. Dropshipping vs. Carrying Inventory
5. Customer service is imperative
6. Conclusion

Laws and Registering Your Business

Perhaps the biggest hurdle to setting up your online vape shop is finding out which laws apply to your business. Since this varies from state to state, you must do the due diligence to see what laws (local and state) apply to you, not to mention local and state taxes levied against you to sell online vape products.

To jump this hurdle, we recommend consulting a lawyer. Once you see the lawyer, they can advise you and give you an approval letter stating your website follows the laws in every state where you sell vape products.

You’ll also need to register your business, and for this, we recommend an accountant. They’ll know the specific requirements necessary in the state where you live. You can also do it yourself by going to the IRS website and researching the requirements needed to create your business on paper. Often, states will have the forms online, and all you have to do is fill them out.

Implementing an E-Commerce Platform

Now that you created your business (at least on paper) and have gotten the legalities sorted out, it’s time for the most critical part, subscribing to an e-commerce platform. An e-commerce platform, in other words, is the website where you will sell your products.

However, an e-commerce platform is not just a website. It has to have different capabilities, especially for vape shops requiring age-verification tools, among many other things. So how do you choose an e-commerce platform?

How to Choose the Proper Tool

There are three major players in the vape e-commerce platform space, BigCommerce, Shopify, and 3dCart. These three are the top e-commerce platforms for vaping, and each has unique features to set them apart.

• BigCommerce: It costs $29.95 a month for their standard plan. BigCommerce offers responsive themes that look great on mobile devices, which will help SEO. It also has apps that will take care of state taxes, provide multi-factor age verification, and integrations with payment gateways that allow the sale of vaping products online.
• Shopify: Costs $29 a month for their standard plan. It also has a wide selection of responsive themes that will help your website be mobile-friendly. Just like BigCommerce, Shopify also has a wide range of apps; for example, it uses BlueCheck to provide multi-factor age verification and has integrations with payment gateways that allow the sale of vaping products. Also, since this is a more prominent company, customer service is A1.
• 3dCart: 3dCart is perhaps the smallest of the bunch, but it does not mean it is not useful. It costs $19 for its standard plan. Like Shopify, it offers multi-factor age verification through BlueCheck, and it also has plenty of responsive templates. It also has a built-in system for vape shops to pay the state taxes. 

Whatever e-commerce platform you decide to go with, remember to do your due diligence in research and that at the very least, they should have:

• Great customer service.
• Apps or integrations to pay state taxes on vape products.
• A multi-factor age verification system for customers.
• Responsive and mobile-friendly themes.

Selecting the Products to offer in Your Online Shop

Now that you’ve decided on an e-commerce platform for your vape shop, it’s time to begin selecting the products you will sell. Ideally, you want to sell products that will be repeated purchases for your customers, like e-juice. E-juice is bound to run out, so selling it will result in repeated purchases by your customers. Here is a list of other vape items that can turn into repeated purchases:

1. Wicking material
2. Wire (for building coils)
3. Pre-made coils
4. Batteries
5. O-rings
6. Mouthpieces
7. Tanks
8. Pre-filled pods
9. Disposables

We recommended starting with these products that will turn into repeated purchases. That way, you can build a loyal customer base. Only after you have scaled the business further, in our opinion, you might consider selling less frequent items like box mods, pod mods, and vape pens.

Dropshipping vs. Carrying Inventory

Now that you have chosen the products you will offer online, you might be wondering how to obtain them and deliver them. You have two options when it comes to providing your products, dropshipping, or carrying an inventory.

Dropshipping is a retail fulfillment method that uses a third-party to ship and send products with your labeling and branding. It's ideal if you don't have a warehouse yet or plan to get one in your business's first years. Here are some of the pros and cons of Dropshipping:

Pros of Dropshipping

• Easier for starting a business.
• Lower overhead costs.
• Less risk financially.

Cons of Dropshipping

• Finding a reliable third party can be difficult.
• Lower returns since you can't buy in bulk.
• The supplier can run out of items, and you won't know, leading to backorders.

However, if you plan to rent a warehouse, you'll probably be looking into carrying an inventory. Carrying inventory also has its pros and cons:

Pros of Carrying Inventory

• You can save money by buying in bulk
• Make relationships with manufacturers
• Control the shipping and customer relations

Cons of Carrying Inventory

• A bigger investment necessary
• More risk financially
• More overhead costs

As you can see, both of these options have their advantages and disadvantages, and they depend on the kind of initial investment you want to make in your online vape shop.

Customer service is imperative

Now that you have chosen your shipping products method, you must invest in customer service whether you like it or not. Customer service is what many times sets apart online vape shops from their competitors. In an industry where everyone is selling the same products, setting you apart from the competition will be excellent customer service. There are three ways to go about doing customer service setting up a 1-800-number, having a live chat widget on your website, or using social media.

1-800-number

One of the best ways to implement customer service is by buying a 1-800 number. For example, Shopify has an app that allows you to create a free 1-800 number. Setting up store and customer service hours can help you manage the input of calls.

Live Chat

Live chat can also be a great tool to implement as a customer service resource. If you set up service hours, you can often answer customers' questions right from your computer, or if they write when you're not available, you can get back to them or send them an email (most live chat widgets require customers to input their emails).

Social Media

Finally, a cost-effective method to implement customer service is to use social media. On your “Contact Us” page, you can clearly state that you only communicate through social media. From there, you can create accounts on Twitter and Instagram and answer questions, comments, and concerns as direct messages or thru comments.

Conclusion

While this is a broad overview of starting an online vape business, we hope it puts you on the right path. Remember that marketing and advertising are an essential part of the puzzle and that there is no success without marketing your brand and shop. If you’re interested in reading more on this topic, check out our ultimate guide on online marketing for vape shops.