Customer segmentation is a less discussed aspect of the vaping world. There are many older smokers who vape for personal and health reasons. They do not have the goal of trying out new vapes like younger people. For long-time smokers, they want a natural, simple and compact form of tool, which is why they mainly choose compact, but high nicotine devices such as pod mods.
The customer group is directly related to the concept of vape economy. In other industries, it is often the young customer group that chooses cheap products because of financial limitations. The adult customer group has work experience and can spend more freely. The most intuitive example is the sports car group, you can hardly see a group of people under twenty playing with cars like Ferrari or Lamborghini.
But with vaping, the pattern is reversed. Younger customers are often drawn to the newest or most feature-rich products on the market, while an older group, often long-time smokers, stick with simple, compact devices.
The reason for this is that a mid-range or near-high-end vape device only costs a few hundred dollars. So even the mid-range group can save that much. Maybe just by saving on the little things (like weekend coffee trips, small parties...) can help you buy a new vape sooner than planned.
Combined with enthusiasm and a few quick decisions, young customers are easily attracted to vaping. They are eager to learn more about the design and operation of the device, and the technology of today's devices is mostly suitable for modern life. For example, many devices can be charged via USB ports, very convenient to carry outside.
The older crowd is different, as they have experienced most of the devices. They may not have the time or interest to get involved in vaping culture. While most younger vapers are interested in community events like vaping competitions or vaping fairs, older people are often too busy with other things to engage with these channels.
Combining art and science
As those who join the vaping community quickly discover, vaping is a combination of science and art. To get the best experience, vapers must consider many factors. Coil temperature, wattage, and coil resistance are all important factors that can change the outcome. Vapers must not only understand the components of their device, but also how they work and interact with each other.
In a competitive environment, no detail is overlooked. One of the highlights of vaping is the combination of science and art to create changes in many features and functions. For example, the ability to heat up quickly is something that vapers value. The challenge is that there is almost no fixed standard, vapers have to experiment to find the type that suits them best.
For professional vapers, they don't care much about the machine's features. Having all the advanced features but not knowing how to use them is useless. Changes in display, chip, circuit board and heating must meet two requirements, one is the application as advertised, two is how to use that application.
To understand better, let’s compare old devices with modern devices today. Old devices like vape pens can only notify users through light signals. Maybe in the early years, this was enough, but as the times progress, vapers need more interaction between users and devices.
A few years ago, devices with LCD screens were introduced to the market. This was a huge leap for the industry as it allowed for better user interaction. Features like precise power adjustment are the biggest advantage of LED technology. Vapers can customize the device’s power precisely without having to guess blindly.
The latest display technology today is OLED. The biggest advantage of OLED over LCD is that it has no backlight.
LCD screens also have a major drawback: they emit a lot of blue light, which can cause eye strain, while OLED screens don’t. LCD screens also perform poorly in bright light environments, such as outdoors in the sun.
For vapers who often participate in smoke competitions, OLED screens are even more popular. OLED screens have a nearly 3D floating effect, which is very beneficial in competitions when they have to quickly change modes in thick smoke.
Vape technology for everyone
Vaping has a pretty big market. Vapers see a certain change in the community and industry, wanting to be able to experiment with new product lines. This attracts players from other segments and makes them interested in the constant development of vaping.
Vaping represents a self-sufficient industry. Professional vapers are the driving forces that attract the masses. In turn, new people buy the devices they recommend, which generates profits for the manufacturers, allowing them to continue investing in research and development as well as advertising. This cycle repeats itself, only each time it will be bigger and better than the last.
This is what makes the vape industry outperform Big Tobacco. Vape is a dynamic industry, constantly moving and seeking higher limits. Big Tobacco has not changed much since then. Vape operates under the protectionism and is beneficial to the environment.
The unique thing about the vape industry is that it can integrate modern technology into personal vape devices. Almost no one thinks about installing OLED systems or advanced circuits into a device for smoking, for them, smoking is just smoking.
Luckily, vape engineers and product designers are more creative than the average person. It’s no exaggeration to say that vaping customers are one of the most creative groups out there.
In short, vape and all its related products can be changed based on the lifestyle and preferences of the user. Those who like simplicity and compactness can be satisfied with simple devices such as pod mods and vape pens. Those who want to be more adventurous and comfortable can use advanced devices with many features.
