Considering the number of vape shops in most areas, I would suspect the trading area would be rather small such as convenience store and other support services.

Perhaps as small as one to three-mile radius or a 10 to 15 minute drive time.

This makes sense because you said new entrant whacked your sales volumes.

In other words, the new store reduced your fair share of the market.

Absent differentiation and niche, new guy is attempting to create competitive advantage with cost strategy.

However, “So he actually gets his vapes from my vape distributor…”

So, he has no cost advantage unless it’s in overhead.

Arguably, new guy strategy is lower price will capture customers from your store and consumers from greater economic distance.

I doubt this strategy will hold up for a commodity business.

I would stick to my guns, avoid price war, and wait new guy out.

Often customers leave to check out new business and then slowly return when greener pasture doesn’t pan out.

Lower your prices to match your competition.

Their mark up is not sustainable, either they’re selling for a loss to get customers in so they can jack the prices up later, they’re also a distributor, or you’re getting a shit deal from whatever distributor/s you’re using.

Can you give an example of a disposable and their price on it?

You need a parking lot sale & session. Once a month have some interactive customer games and recreational smoke sesh, food trucks, live music. Dispensary giveaways

How many new customers do you bring in per month? Has that number been decreasing? A lot of what you mentioned you’re doing sounds great for customer retention and repeat buyers, but it sounds like you may be missing the mark on acquiring new customers.

I would recommend some local SEO (I’m biased because that’s my profession) but honestly if you’re somewhat tech savvy and know how to edit your own website, you can do it yourself with enough time and research.

Any questions, I’m an open book!

He won’t be in business long.

Some thoughts:
- Paid advertising
- Some campaign that could have a lot of organic reach on social media
- Differentiate with different / higher end products / products that last longer / have better taste / better vape hardware
- Ask customers for reviews on google, maybe offer them something in return
- Run some crazy promo to get people in the door

It helps to think of it like this:
- How can I bring in more customers?
- How can I have customers buy more often?
- How can I increase the amount a customer spends when he buys?

In your case, it sounds like you are focusing a lot on existing customers, but not so much on new customers. Who are your customers? What do they do? Where do they hang out (online and in real life)? What kind of people are they? That should set you on a path to find more.

Do package bundles work for you? Maybe some lower margin items with higher ones? Things you otherwise would have more trouble moving.

You’re right, see I almost panicked and wanted to lower prices but my wife stuck to her guns and told me that it wasnt a good idea and the turn out of profit percentage would ultimately make it harder on us lol. there weren’t many smokeshops when we opened in 2021 because most of them closed during the pandemic and a couple years later theyre all over the place now