The 6 2019 Vaping Trends That Will Shape the Industry’s Future

Guest post by Triple 7 Vaping.

There’s no such thing as a boring year in the vaping industry, and 2018 has proven to be no exception. This year, we’ve seen major changes in people’s e-liquid preferences as nicotine salt e-liquids have become more popular than ever. For the first time, we’ve seen a significant number of people trade in their cloud chasing rigs for much smaller devices. We’ve also seen a completely new type of pre-built vaping coil – the mesh coil – appear and catch on in a major way. Those trends and others will continue to shape the vaping industry in 2019 in ways that we can’t possibly predict. Since the purpose of this article is to predict the future, though, we’re going to try anyway!

These are the 2019 vaping trends that you can look forward to next year.

Lower-Strength Nicotine Salt E-Liquids Will Become More Common

Nicotine salts and pod vaping systems were obviously two of the biggest trends in vaping in 2018. Small pod-based devices such as the JUUL have been instrumental in helping millions of smokers convert to vaping, and many long-term vapers have even ditched their cloud-chasing rigs in favor of lower-output devices that don’t have so many maintenance issues. There are still many experienced vapers, though, who want to try nicotine salt e-liquids but don’t want to give up their big clouds. In 2018, a few companies released nicotine salt e-liquids at low strengths for sub-ohm vaping devices. In 2019, you’ll see a lot more of those.

Local and Online Vape Shops Will Increase in Importance

By far, the biggest news in vaping in 2018 was the non-stop controversy over the JUUL, underage sales and kid-friendly flavors. That controversy peaked at the end of 2018 with JUUL’s removal of flavored pods from brick-and-mortar stores and a statement from FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb declaring that the agency intended to restrict all flavored e-liquid sales to online stores and age-restricted retailers or specialty vape shops.

The controversy over e-liquid flavors is not over. Dr. Gottlieb’s statement made it plain that the FDA will consider banning flavored e-liquid outright – regardless of the potential health benefit for adult smokers – if the vaping industry can’t do something about the 3.6 million underage vapers in the United States. In the meantime, though, there are still millions of adult vapers who want their flavors and will increasingly find those flavors difficult to obtain from convenience stores and gas stations. With the right marketing and product positioning, local and online vape shops stand to gain many of those people as new customers.

Mesh Coils Will Replace Traditional Wound Coils

You’ve no doubt noticed that virtually every popular vaping tank now has a mesh coil available, and there’s a good reason for that: They’re great. Mesh coils have high surface area with low mass, so they have spectacular vapor production with very low power requirements. Since mesh coils also have better wick-to-wire contact than wound coils, they also tend to last longer and operate with less popping and spitting. So far, mesh coils have been a win for everyone; mainstream vapers and cloud chasers alike have been completely happy with them. In 2019, you’ll start to see mesh coils outsell traditional wound coils for sub-ohm vaping setups.

The Sub-Ohm Arms Race Will End

The vaping industry has been locked in an arms race over the past several years. We’ve seen increasingly powerful devices appear. Simultaneously, vaping product manufacturers have released one bigger, lower-resistance coil after another. We’ve reached the point, though, at which vaping devices really can’t deliver any more watts, and coil resistances can’t get any lower without becoming unsafe. Do you actually need a vaping device that delivers significantly more than 200 watts of power? Do you even need 200 watts? If anything, the lower power requirements of mesh coils will contribute to the increased popularity of lower-wattage, single-battery devices in 2019.

E-Liquid Packaging and Flavors Will Grow Up

It was inevitable that something had to change about the ways in which e-liquid makers designed their packaging and described their flavors. Over the past year or two, e-liquid makers have gone increasingly over the top in creating packages designed to resemble popular candies, sodas and other foods – anything to get attention in an industry that has become more crowded than ever. Well, that finally changed in 2018 when the FDA and FTC began to send out warning letters to e-liquid makers who copied the packaging of popular food products. In 2019, you’ll begin to see a different paradigm take hold at your favorite vape shop. Flashy packaging, parodies of well-known trademarks, candy flavors that could potentially appeal to children – you’re going to see all of that go away in 2019 in favor of more mature and understated designs and marketing language. E-liquid companies will need to find new ways to differentiate their products.

The Vaping Industry Will Consolidate Further

In any industry, one of the best ways to make your company grow is by buying your competition and adding their resources to your own. That happened in 2018 when JUUL Labs began a $1.25 billion funding round, bought competitor VMR Products – parent company of V2 Cigs – and promptly closed the financially troubled cigalike maker. Given the shifts in the industry’s trends – experienced vapers are increasingly choosing Chinese-branded devices, and new vapers are increasingly choosing JUUL – it was obvious that V2 Cigs was living on borrowed time. Nevertheless, the announcement of the company’s closing came as something of a shock. Many people still used V2’s products, and the shuttering of the company occurred without notice. Other cigalike makers quickly scrambled to claim V2’s orphaned customers – but they’re all living on borrowed time, too. The cigalike will draw its least breaths in 2019, and next year will be the first year in which the total number of brands in the American vaping industry shrinks rather than grows. The brands that do survive will do so by selling other companies’ products.

About the Author

Jason Cugle is the Owner/Curator of Triple 7 Vaping. Triple 7 Vaping offers premium vaping products at wholesale prices and specializes in Aspire tanks, mods, parts and other accessories. Triple 7 Vaping offers lightning-fast same-day shipping on orders over $30.