30 / 51
56
TOBACCO BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2015
electronic product has yet to take hold.
Jomo Technologies General Manager Lu
Nanfang Robinson told
TBI/VCI
about
China’s “first vape shop,” established by his
company—a contemporary and handsome
facility resembling a pharmaceutical shop
versus one selling electronic cigarettes and
vapor devices.
Supplementing its electronic product
sales, the store offers a variety of GNC
health-type items. In China, the Chinese
tobacco monopoly controls the
sale of all tobacco
p r o d u c t s .
Howe ve r,
e l e c t r o n i c
cigarettes and vapor
devices are not categorized as tobacco,
which means that Shenzhen is free to
practice dynamic and entrepreneurial
electronic product development sans
regulation by the government.
Given the value of brand cache, branded
mod-type vapor devices exist largely as
a nascent concept here and worldwide,
offering huge opportunities to establish
recognized popular brands. This may
seem an opportunity for the “Bigs” only.
However,in reality,we live in a niche world.
The gigantic Chinese market, a frontier
for vapor device penetration, represents
opportunities for companies of all sizes
and, certainly, for American distribution
partners. “Build it there, sell it here; build
it there and sell it there.” The idea strikes
at the commercial importance of Chinese/
American mutuality. Agreed, redundant!
Consider the prediction that the next
decade or two will see electronic nicotine
delivery surpass that of traditional
cigarettes in the U.S., the development
a $90 billion, 540 billion Chinese yuan
market. As the Chinese market, with five
times the population of the U.S and
a greater consumption per capita of
cigarettes, develops, the opportunities
are seismic.
It’s more difficult for the Chinese
to secure a visa to the U.S. than
for Americans to secure a
visa to China. The Chinese
must present themselves for
interview at the American
Embassy in China.Americans
can obtain a Chinese visa on
the Internet, no personal
interview required. Prior
to mid-November 2014,
entrance visas to both
countries were valid for one
year. However with the new
mutual trade overtures and
easing of tariff restrictions that
President Obama announced in
conjunction with the Chinese on
November 10 came a reciprocal
agreement on a 10-year visa for
tourism and business, is anticipated
to facilitate across-nation commerce.
Can you see the future?
The visit to China took
TBI/VCI
to
eight top electronic product manufacturers
in Shenzhen. Wherever we went, we were
greeted cordially by the manufacturers. It
was not uncommon for the Chinese to
request their picture be taken with the
visiting Americans.
Factories pay special attention to battery
safety, utilizing state-of-the-art panels
to voltage test batteries and to assess
battery life under varying conditions of
temperature and humidity.
The manufacturing process is largely
organized using an assembly line.
Component parts are sourced from
subcontracted
factories.
Following
exhaustive incoming quality control,
the components are assembled and
component assemblies are tested and
retested along the fabrication line,
subsequently joined together like a
mechanical puzzle. The final product is
laser’d with a brand logo and marked with
the fabrication lot, information which can
be used to identify the production batch
in the event of a product failure. This
allows the factory to pin down the source
of the problem, concluding the failure as
individual or batch-related. Automation is
slowly being built into the fabrication lines,
but for the foreseeable future, fabrication
will remain a people-intensive assembly
line process.
We noted the extensive quality control
Innokin employs rigorous product quality control,
including battery safety inspections.
Chinese vape shop
Jomo Technologies
supplements its
electronic product
sales by offering a
range of health-
care products.
Cindy O’Connor with locals