84
TOBACCO BUSINESS
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
“There’s Gold in Them Thar’ hills”
Ron Deutsch, the product manager and co-founder of
e-cigarette retailer Brew City Vape in Muskego, Wisconsin, says
that he and his partners (his wife, Julie, and his sister-in-law,
Susanna) got into the e-cigarette business as a natural offshoot
of using the products themselves. “I used to smoke three packs
a day but I wanted to stop, and [so I] started using e-cigarettes—
now I haven’t touched a cigarette in 12 months,” he says. The
family’s slow, personal discovery of their favorite products led
them collectively to an entrepreneurial tipping point.
Without any background whatsoever in retail sales, Ron and
his partners came to the same conclusion that miners in the
gold rush of 1849 came to: “There’s gold in them thar’ hills.”
But the allure of potential profits became even more attractive
to thembecause of their belief in the effectiveness and quality of
the products they wanted to sell. That faith, in turn, gave them
the confidence to make a real go of it. “When we initially got
into ‘vaping’ for ourselves, we started buying different products
from all of the different companies, and we ran into so many
bad products that we felt like we were throwing money away,”
says Deutsch. “We did research and found good products, and
we [then] realized there was a business in it,” he comments.
“We identified the good companies and good products,
started ordering samples for a few months, and figured out the
10 different companies we ultimately wanted to work with,”
he explains. “We started doing blind tastings with friends and
family, giving people real experience trying the various products,
the different flavors of nicotine, the different e-cigs, the different
cartomizers [a component of an e-cigarette that both contains
the “juice” and the atomizer that turns it into vapor] and that’s
how we got our current mix.”
small in sTaTure, larGe in repuTaTion
Having just opened this past summer, Brew City Vape is
already a big deal on the scene despite its relatively small (720
square feet) footprint. Deutsch attributes the store’s success to a
lack of competition in the area, as well as personable customer
service, a clever design aesthetic, and an ideal location along
busy Highway 36 just south of Milwaukee.
“When you walk in our door, it looks like a bar. We have old
‘50s-style soda chairs that you spin on, and footrests. You sit
down at the bar, and behind the bar is where we keep samples
out for customers,” he says. “With this business, it’s more about
having them learn how to actually use the products, and then
getting them to try them before they buy them.
“That’s the whole key,” he adds. “When we started ‘vaping,’
we wasted so much money buying flavors we didn’t like, and
we didn’t know anything about nicotine levels. In here, we let
our customers try levels, flavors and sizes. Everyone’s different
with e-cigs. Some people are naturals [while] other people have
a hard time coming to it. But we make sure we teach them how
to use the products, rather than just sell them to them and say
‘good luck’ on their way out the door.”
Thanks to this approach, Deutsch says 90 percent of all
their new business comes from evangelical encouragement
by existing customers to new ones intrigued by the upswell
of grassroots interest in e-cigarettes. “We just finished a sign
for outside a week or two ago, and it’s been drawing in more
customers,” relays Deutsch. “We have banners out by the
road, a big, old 10-foot flag sign and two banners on the side
of our building. We’ve also been featured in a couple different
newspapers and on the radio, but otherwise we haven’t done
any traditional advertising yet, and we’re getting ready to
relaunch our website.”
sTayinG up To speed
One key to ensuring that their business stays ahead of the
competitors that will invariably spring up is keeping an ear to the
ground—largely through regular communication with suppliers
and through following Internet blogs—about new products
and trends, as well as staying abreast of news about increasing
attention being paid to the young industry by regulators. “I am
trench marketing
“When we started ‘vaping,’ we wasted so much
money buying flavors we didn’t like, and we didn’t
know anything about nicotine levels. in here, we let
our customers try levels, flavors and sizes.”
