E-Cig Sales Slumping in Convenience Stores

Convenience store e-cigarette sales have slumped over the past 10 months in the United States, according to Nielsen. The segment has been in retreat since the Food and Drug Administration restricted flavors in cartridge-based e-cigarettes on Feb. 6, 2020.

Overall e-cigarette sales-volume growth has declined steadily since Nielsen’s Aug. 10, 2019, report, when it was up 60.2 percent year over year, according to a story in The Winston-Salem Journal. Nielsen does not track vape shop sales.

Top-selling Juul’s four-week dollar sales have dropped from a 50.2 percent increase in the Aug. 10, 2019, report to a 15.6 percent decline for the latest report. By comparison, Reynolds’ Vuse was up 87.3 percent in the latest report and NJoy down 31.5 percent.

Juul’s market share dropped from 54.3 percent in the previous report to 53.8 percent. It was at 55.1 percent a year ago. Vuse’s market share slipped from 28.5 percent to 28.1 percent, while No. 3 NJoy was unchanged at 5 percent, and Fontem Ventures’ Blu was unchanged at 3.6 percent.

Goldman Sachs analyst Bonnie Herzog observed increasing consumer demand for lower-priced traditional cigarettes during the pandemic, which she attributed to downtrading. That trend could be offset somewhat by the scheduled $600 federal stimulus payments to most Americans, which are expected to arrive in many households soon.