The reopening of specialist vape shops in the UK won’t have a significant impact on convenience stores, retailers have told Vape Retailer.

On 15 June, vape stores in England were allowed to open again following government guidance, but Jey Sivapalan, of 1 Stop Convenience (Go Local) in Chaddesden, Derby, said he is not worried about losing new customers to them.

“Since lockdown, and the closure of non-essential retail, our vape sales have increased by 25-30%. This has been from a mixture of our regular customers and new ones,” he said.

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“Despite the vape store down the road setting up online deliveries, we’ve noticed an influx of new customers coming to us for their vapes.”

Sivapalan added that the two main reasons why customers have chosen to buy from him are because he has longer opening hours and better promotions.

Vip Measuria, owner of One Stop @ The Prior Way in Derbyshire, agreed. He explained that even before coronavirus, the vape stores near him were going out of business.

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“Even with the remaining stores reopening, people are more likely to continue shopping with us for vapes because we have longer opening hours, and they can do rest of their shopping at the same time,” he added.

A recent Newtrade Media survey of store owners representing 1,500 stores in the UK and Ireland revealed that 65% of store owners are optimistic about the future of their business.

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