thoughts on starting online e-cig shop for new years?

[andrewd30]

So im thinking about starting up a online e-cigarette store and doing some flier advertising for new years to get some traffic and gain a name. Has any one done this before or know any one that has had successes with it? my main question is do you think flier advertising on new years could lead to more customers in the long run or do you think it would be a short period just around new years? let me know what you guys think please.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I don't think one flier campaign would resulted in a loyal userbase. You can buy e-cigs, refills, and accessories at just about any gas station nowadays. There's a million online stores as well. I'd think it's coming down to convenience and price at this point, like traditional cigs. People might become loyal to a manufacturer brand, but not the place where they buy the brand.

I've seen several online e-cig operations. It's fairly competitive. I've seen people tackle it from the white hat side where they also have a legit brick and mortar store, white labeling products, keeping inventory, etc. I've also seen black hat spammers going at it as well. Either way, seemed like there was a fairly high barrier to entry to pull it off well.

 

[HernanCrespo]

I don't think a flier campaign is effective use of your time. Focus on building a great site first. The other day I came across this one: https://vapeshoreditch.com/. Those guys did a great job I think and their marketing will be much more effective because they have a great site.

 

[Maxime]

I tried it and the results are really bad and I didn't have an immediate positive ROI. Another point is if you consider any media advertising be ready to hit them repetitively with your ads. Look at the price of doing it 5 to 10 times, because doing it only once won't bring you anything unless you have an unicorn offer where people dig what you offer them on that flyer.

I'd say the barrier of entry is really easy for electronic cigarettes, but by itself retail/e-commerce have a big barrier of entry compared to affiliate ect.

What I would recommend would be that you start doing affiliate for other e-cigs offers. Then you start to purchase stock of your most popular affiliate products to resell them yourself.

At least that is my experience as ecigs e-commerce and stores owner.

 

[Dankovich]

From experience I can tell you that this market is really competitive. You won't really gain a market share without some real understanding of marketing. The SERPs is ranked by blackhatters with huge networks.