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TOBACCO BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL
MARCH/APRIL 2015
E-Cig Report Sheds
Light on Sales Trends
Balvor report puts vaping device—also known as electronic nicotine
device—sales performance into perspective.
I
n December, e-cigarette sales in
c-stores were up by 14 percent
compared to last year, according to
Barrington, Illinois-based Balvor, which
analyzed total chain-wide sales across
participating retailers. However, that
impressive figure understates the growth
that many retailers are experiencing, says
David Bishop,managing partner of Balvor,
who points out that the Balvor Retailer
Composite (BRC), which equalizes
chain-wide data to an “average per-store
week” (APSW), reports that dollar sales
are actually up more than 25 percent
year-over-year. “[Using the APSW] helps
retailers get a more accurate view of how
the business is trending as it minimizes
the sample bias toward larger store
operators and adjusts for changes in the
store base that can distort growth rates,”
notes Bishop.
Other key findings of Balvor’s recent
report on the category include:
• Demand for systems continues
to follow innovation rather rapidly.
Disposables’ sales share has gone from
above 60 percent to under 30 percent in
just 18 months, according to Balvor data.
“Rechargeables are now the dominant
system type, while refillables have
captured nearly 15 percent of sales after
experiencing explosive distribution gains
during the last several months,” says
Bishop.
• Category dynamics are pressuring
retail growth rates.
Products that have
been on the market for more than 12
months are reporting essentially zero
price inflation, says Bishop. “However,
newer, lower-priced brands are growing
significant share of [the] market…and
refill cartridges and e-liquids are gaining
share that is also creating headwinds for
top-line sales growth.”
• Analytics and insights need to go
well beyond the category level.
The role
of flavors is showing divergent trends
across the types of vaping systems, so it’s
vital to understand this at the right level,”
says Bishop. “Even though disposables’
share continues to decline, digging deeper
into the data reveals there are latent
“Rechargeables are now
the dominant system
type, while refillables
have captured nearly
15 percent of sales after
experiencing explosive
distribution gains during
the last several months.”
VAPING DEVICES
CATEGORY MANAGER