E-Cig Sales Surge in Britain!

It's great to hear that we vapers are becoming more than a niche market, and in recent months sales have grown very rapidly indeed.

According to a new report by market analysis firm Nielson, Supermarkets and grocery outlets have seen e-cigarettes, dairy free foods and sports nutrition bars become their fastest growing products, with overall sales growth of 50% in a year. Tellingly, Nicotine Replacement products like gums and patches - and this is backed by research showing that vaping is more effective than these forms of Nicotine Replacement Therapy - have dropped by 6% over the same period. At the current rate of growth by the end of 2015 the market will be at £340 million a year. It's not impossible to imagine the market topping £1 Billion a year by 2017.

This huge growth is almost entirely at the expense of tobacco sales, as almost all vaping is conducted by existing or previous tobacco smokers. This market is large, in 2012 alone we spent £15.1 billion on tobacco products (estimated), about 85% of which were cigarettes (source).

Because vaping is cheaper, and because the research suggests people give up more readily on vaping products, this huge market would translate to a smaller overall revenue if people switch over to vaping. That's bad news for the government since about £10 Billion of that was pure tax, but it's GREAT news for the majority of citizens who are struggling with the never ending cost-of-living crises. Let's keep up the pressure to resist the classification of vaping as a form of tobacco which presumably is intended purely to raise taxes, which will directly hit hardest the future ex-smokers who demographically tend to have the lowest disposable incomes.