Tuesday, November 25, 2014

2014: A Pretty Good Year

2014 has been a pretty good year for the vape industry. We’ve grown from a niche industry to a mainstream industry with business and consumer bases growing at exponential rates. Attention has been given to both sides of the conversation regarding the health impact of our products in comparison to tobacco and we’re seeing the results are in our industry’s favor. Adding more validation to our industry, The Oxford Dictionary titled vape as Word of the Year. Any one of these happenings alone is good for our industry, but combining all of these happenings makes 2014 the year of the vape!

Of course, there’s a long way to go for the vape industry to replace the tobacco industry. We understand that we are not as big as the Phillip-Morris and Winston-Salem’s of the world. As individual companies, if this industry stays true to its roots, we’ll likely never be that big. Regardless of size, we have been our own driving force behind the vape industry’s substantial growth in 2014. The devotion of time, energy, and money by small businesspersons and entrepreneurs to our burgeoning industry has lead to a development of a consumer base that is well-educated regarding the products they consume and who are much more comfortable spending money with their local retailers. The internet still offers a good resource for many consumers who’ve been involved in the vape industry for an extended period of time, but the establishment of small shops across the world has put vape products in the hands of consumers who would have otherwise continued to consume tobacco.

Thanks to these small shops popping up all over the world and the rise in education of vaping products the industry has also received much more attention from the scientific community. Even though the ingredients most commonly scrutinized, such as propylene-glycol, have been proven perfectly safe for oral consumption, a new wave of research is being produced in regards to the vape industry. Some of the latest research we’ve combed through came out of Belgium, with reporting that shows an increased likelihood of quitting or reducing tobacco consumption when subjects used vaping products.

It’s cool that we can all use the word vaping and feel like people will know what we’re talking about, too! We, as folks participating in the vape industry, have known and used the term for some years now. In 2014, thanks to the mainstream growth of the vape industry, and the multiple uses for the word vape, The Oxford Dictionary titled vape as their Word of the Year! The substantial increase in the use of the word, and the diverse ways in which word is used, both as a noun and as a verb, lead to that title by being appropriated by The Oxford Dictionary. No doubt, the word vape will have continued increases in usage as the vape industry continues to grow its participation.

Any one of these happenings by itself would have made for a good year in our industry, but thanks to a combination of these happenings, 2014 has been a banner year for the ol’ vape industry!