Curious if anyone has actually ever seen a savings overall by being ultracheap with DIY.
I see a lot of people complaining about being short a flavor or two or having to buy from 4 vendors and pay 4 shipping charges.
I can't fathom why the moaning happens. WTF are you actually mixing and vaping? Probably 80-90% PG and VG base. Which is dirt cheap.
The nicotine base is also dirt cheap over all the total ml you mix. So ignore those costs since they're fixed and last a long time and you can get everything there from one vendor.
Now you have 10-20% flavor. So if you have to pay an extra $5 or even $15 for shipping costs, but you're able to mix 3000ml of eliquid out of that total (and probably way more), WTF is the problem? Are you actually going to waste hours of time being frustrated because your eliquid now costs you a few pennies more per bottle?
I pay a shit ton for my nic and VG and flavors. My average bottle is ~$3 in costs not including the bottle. If I went cheap and tried to save some money, I'd probably save $0.18 per bottle. That's around a nickel a day in savings.
Same with the coupon hunting and waiting. 30% off sounds amazing but does it add up to actual realized savings of more than a few pennies per ml here or there?
Just curious...
If it were just up to me I would buy exactly what I wanted and pay whatever, but I have to answer to a husband. Lol he doesn't see the need in all of these flavorings as much as I do. He sees 200 hundred little bottles and can't fathom why I need to buy more.
I was sorting all my stuff during my move and put it all on a 8' long Stainless steel table in a corner that had mirrors on both walls.
A buddy walked in and said "holy shit do you have thousands of bottles now?"
He didn't realize he was looking into mirrors that multiples the reality. Lolol. Wish I took a photo!
I bet you do have a bunch. Do you ever post recipes?
No because my recipes are very poor imitations of the quality ones. I'm aiming for summer 2016 to get solid ones posted but 75% of my ingredients can't even be bought by consumers so I'm also in negotiations with multiple suppliers to offer small starter kits direct to consumers who sign an agreement that they understand wholesale service and that they aren't using the supplies for resale or human consumption, lol.
My top 5 recipes that I sell locally are really simple and tasty but would require $1000 in supplies minimum. I want to be able to bring it down to $50. Even $50 in volatiles would be a lifetime supply (although shelf life is usually only 6-24 months).
My bottle of pure Diacetyl would last me over 1600 years of mixing (I calculated). My small vial of 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine would last over 1000 years of mixing (and cost $150 for ~50 grams!).
My fiance thinks I'm crazy with my 150+ flavors and can't fathom why I would need more either. She's going to shit herself when my next orders come in lol.
Location is also a factor. I'm in Canada and our postal service is extremely over priced. Shipping from the US is also prohibitive with customs and again shipping costs.
Then there's also some of us who are on fixed incomes. Winter is coming and heating bills are looming. I've budgeted all year for the $500 spike in costs per month that may not be enough for October to March. Vaping is a replacement vice for a former habit that was much more expensive. It's one of the very few vices I even allow myself to have. So if I can save $12 on shipping costs I most certainly will every time.
Diy ejuice. Shipping is free on orders over 100 bucks. Hydavape for the nic. I have already made back 10% of my investment and it's only been a few weeks and I haven't even dented my supply. Trying to get some guys at work hooked on my home brews. Figure it will be like when I sold joints in high school. Pay my way by providing a community service haha
USPS is actually way underpriced and needs to double their shipping costs. My federal lobbyist also lobbies for USPS and I support him pushing for much higher postage fees.
I hear you on heat. I paid $900 just for February this year. Ouch.
Why higher postage fees?
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Because Chinese vendors pay pennies for something a California vendor pays 500% more to ship. Read this. Making rates market accurate will kill Chinese vendors.
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Because subsidized bankruptcy-heading cheap postal rates makes B&Ms suffer due to government market corruption. If USPS charged what they had to charge, all of a sudden a B&M's price isn't so outrageous. Right now when you buy online, you're paying $5 for shipping and sending $5 in debt down the line to your kids. I want to pay for what I use today and not send debt down the line.
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Because it will help bring balance to market forces in general. UPS and FedEx are legally mandated to not compete with USPS on first class mail. This is ridiculous as competition creates technology that makes life better for vendors and consumers both.
I just hope there isn't artificial fuckery for inflation this season again. Two years ago they over sold the propane supply to the US so they could dry fucking corn due to a wet season and the price skyrocketed. What was $250 a month turned into $1000 a month since the propane industry is unregulated. It was a complete shitshow here in Ontario.
Canada Post is over priced for how shitty the service is. Hell they just reduced one of the services for no reason. Registered International mail no longer has tracking updates once it lands in Canada. It shows no information but you can see the dates update as it moves. So it's still being scanned and tracked just that they aren't providing it to the consumer any longer.
WHAT THE EFF?
ok, who hacked abdada's account?
because he did NOT post this. I didn't have to google search a single thing. something seems fishy. it sounded like a normal everyday post. not an abdada post.
what's life anymore.
edit: next I'm gonna find out there is an "average joe" side to abdada...my entire life would be a lie. LMAO
Read it again and you'll see it's still a douchey attitude.
$50/carton/week * 84 weeks is $4200
I have under $1000 into hardware, tools, consumables (including mixing supplies), so if I buy a bottle of every single flavor I can find everywhere, I'm probably still ahead.
It's all about perspective... :)
Not really. Some basic shopping around for flavors is smart, like buying bulk directly from TFA and what not, but I think spending hours trying to find the bestest best price for flavors is a waste of time. I think the people being frustrated over buying from 4 vendors and paying 4 shipping charges are really just angry about not being able to buy from one vendor who has everything in stock at all times with great prices. But that ain't happening, at least not anytime soon.
To add to this, here's some math. Assuming you buy the lowest options possible, one at a time, 30ml of Bronuts would cost you $5.32.
Ingredient | ml | Drops | %|ml purchased|Price|Shipping|price/.01ml|vendor|Cost of recipe ---|---|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|---- Nicotine juice 100 mg (100% PG) |0.9|32|3|30|7.99|2.74|0.003576|ECX|0.3219 PG dilutant |5.28|185|17.6|30|1.49|2.74|0.00141|ECX|0.74448 VG dilutant |21|735|70|30|1.49|2.74|0.00141|ECX|2.961 Biscuit (INAWERA) |0.21|8|0.7|10|2.99|3.04|0.00603|BCV|0.12663 Cake (Yellow) (FW) |0.3|11|1|10|1.75|3.04|0.00479|BCV|0.1437 Chocolate Glazed Doughnut (CAP) |2.1|74|7|13|2.5|3.04|0.004261|BCV|0.89492 Joy (FA) |0.21|8|0.7|10|2.99|3.04|0.00603|BCV|0.12663 Totals |30|1053|100||||||5.319263
Now none of us do that, so the price would be dramatically lower. I did the math on my purchases & bronuts would cost me $2.73 for a 30ml (and i bought small qty as well).
So basically 9c per ml more if you ordered one tiny bottle at a time. And no one does that.
Awesome math, thanks! Super helpful to prove my point.
wait. my portion was wrong. its $1.80 based on everything i ordered (including shipping). All the blank spaces mean that it was ordered along side something. so .06 cents per ml
Ingredient | ml | Drops | %|ml purchased|Price|Shipping|price/.01ml|vendor|Cost of recipe ---|---|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|---- Nicotine juice 100 mg (100% PG) |0.9|32|3|50|8|6.45|0.00289|Nudenic|0.2601 PG dilutant |5.28|185|17.6|120|2.5||0.000208|BCV|0.11 VG dilutant |21|735|70|480|7.25||0.000151|BCV|0.317187 Biscuit (INAWERA) |0.21|8|0.7|15|5|3|0.005333|Gremlin|0.112 Cake (Yellow) (FW) |0.3|11|1|15|3||0.002|Gremlin|0.06 Chocolate Glazed Doughnut (CAP) |2.1|74|7|13|2.5|2.54|0.003876|Wizardlabs|0.814153 Joy (FA) |0.21|8|0.7|10|2.99|3.04|0.00603|BCV|0.12663 Totals |30|1053|100||||||1.80007
I like tables =)
Edit: /u/enyawreklaw: for your reference: the cost of a new DIYer making 30ml of bronuts. This will lessen over time because the only thing you would have to refill (after 6 batches) is Chocolate Glazed Doughnut. Now, lets assume that this time, you buy 4oz worth, at $12.49+2.54 shipping. Your cost just dropped to $1.08 per 30ml!
I'm one of the cheap people. I don't spend an enormous amount of time looking for promo codes etc, but I do like to buy flavors for the cheapest amount possible while trying to keep it to 2 or less vendors per order when possible.
For me, it really does come down to saving "pennies per ml" as you said. I only sell locally but my customers buy 5-6 120ml bottles every weekend. Those 2 pennies per ml translate to $2.40 a bottle or about $14 extra dollars a week for me. That's my coffee money for the week pretty much. Who doesn't love free coffee?
Do you waste time hunting the deals that could be better spend bringing in more money than you save? Just curious.
Sometimes I'll take an extra few minutes on an order and compare stock/prices between BCV and ECX. Other than that, I'll just do a quick google search for any promo codes that might be available. Last week, I needed bronuts flavors. The only place that had them was RTSVapes (that I could find) and their prices were outrageous to me. So I waited a few days for Gremlin to get them in stock. I guess I'm more thrifty than a dealhunter.
On average I'd say I spend an extra 10-15 minutes on a weekly order. Saving ~$14 for 15 minutes of my time is worth it to me personally.
I've thought similar thoughts when I see people complaining about multiple shipping costs. I have gotten so jaded toward shipping costs at work that I'm always pleased to only pay $3-$8 for shipping.
Wanna see appalling shipping costs? Go work in the water industry. About half of what we buy has hazmat shipping or is something you can only buy at one company, who conveniently charges really high dollar "shipping and handling."
I had the intention of going into DIY to save money. I found 4 recipes to start, which have some overlapping flavor concentrates but they're varied enough to keep my taste buds entertained. Spent ~100$ so far: $85 or so on flavorings, 500ml VG, and syringes and bottles all from Bull City Vapor (great store for U.S. peoples) and $16 or so for 50ml nicotine from NN (good nic, customer service seems to be falling apart).
I made about 9 bottles of delicious juice so far and still have half my VG and nicotine, and my flavor bottles are still mostly full. So that's ~$200 worth of in-store priced juice, and I can get at least 8 more bottles with this amount VG and flavorings.
So yeah, it saved me a whole bunch so far because I haven't been playing around with 50 different flavorings, just sticking to and tweaking recipes
EDIT: whoops, I ELI5'd this, didn't realize who you were
I don't think its worth it to buy cheap flavors and the only option for nicotine in my mind is highest quality possible. I can't stand any juices that use cheap nicotine and I can personally taste it right away. HOWEVER, I do love me some sales and will always try to buy with coupons or codes, or during sales.
I am turning this into a company so some of the things I am going to say many not be possible so some.
The only way to save money is to buy in bulk. When I did this as a hobby for myself I went out and bought 20-30 flavors at once most in 4 oz. Why? because it saved me the most money in the long run. If I needed a sample of something I waited till i needed to order some thing and bought it then or I took the hit bought it or found othr stuff to sample so it would make it worth it. If you do you math and your per bottle cost is ~3 dollars your doing well...
If you do want to complain this is my last purchase for some base. http://imgur.com/gallery/mSsAW7s.
That's what it takes to make the product cheap is by not being cheap.
If you're spending 20% of your COM budget on fast shipping, you may want to invest in a production planning system. That's going to eat away at your margins viciously.
I made my birthday order the Wednesday before Labor Day :( RIP my savings.
Nah you'd have been pissed at all the sold out shit.
I always order before holidays and in the customer notes mention to thank me for ordering before their rush weekends lol.
Got me a batch of freebies that week. Didn't need any of them but I vaped it forward.
It's just annoying to have to deal with several different companies to buy flavors because they either don't have the brand/flavor you're looking for or they're out of stock constantly. One issue I can think of right off the bat of dealing w/ multiple vendors is the higher chance of problems you can run into while ordering. I recently made a purchase with ECX that was never resolved properly because they sent me the wrong flavor and tried to tell me that it really was the same flavor but it was a reformulation. (long story) A similar issue with another company because they sent the flat out wrong flavor. Neither company has made it right/offered a replacement or anything. Had I dealt with one company, I would have only had to deal w/ the problem once. Now I'm trying to resolve two situations w/ two sets of people. It's annoying and tedious. Not to mention the processing times/shipping times you have to wait for each.
I have over 300 flavors, 4gal of pg/vg a liter of nic, and a shitload of bottles... I've still saved a ton of $ when compared to smoking (and when I was buying vendor juice).
I buy whatever I feel like, but try and save where I can (coupon codes, bulk orders, and sales).
I did thw match after my firsr diy order. Which included bottles, pipettes, all the equipment. It came to about 6 cents per ml, including equipment... Opposed to around 60-70 cents per ml average at local shops. Even if you get real crazy, and spend a ton on shipping, we are still saving. And i dont know about you guys, but im having fun mixing, making my own stuff, making great juices, making garbage juices. Its really one of the only hobbies i have where i am saving money instead of constantly throwing it away.
And ive also placed orders every handful of days for just one or two things. I kind of beat myself up about it, but really, as mentioned here, how much were we spending on cigarettes? I rationalize with that, i was on the fence on getting a new tank, but figured i just dumped about 120$ into diy stuff. Then i realize im good on juice for the next 6 months lol.