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Vaping in February
If you’ve been vaping for a year or more than you probably remember what it was like to be a Vaper last February. If you’ve been vaping for less than a year you might want to pay extra attention, you’re in for a bit of a ride.
Chinese New Year Holiday (Cribbed from Wikipedia)
The Chinese New Year is one of, if not the most important Chinese holiday. It is celebrated on the first fifteen days of the year of the current Chinese calendar.
In China it is also known as the Spring Festival. Chinese New Year celebrations usually go from Chinese New Year’s Eve, with is the last day of the last month of the Chinese calendar all the way to the Lantern Festival, which is on the 15th day of the first month. This makes the festival the longest on the Chinese calendar.
The Chinese calendar is lunisolar which means the Chinese New Year is most often referred to as the “Lunar New Year“.
The Chinese New Year is centuries old. The significance of the holiday is pretty a big deal
The festival was a time to honor deities and ancestors. It is considered a major holiday for the Chinese people. Within China the regional customs and traditions of the celebration vary. For instance, on the evening preceding Chinese New Year’s Day is a day for Chinese families to gather for an annual reunion dinner.
Chinese families work together to clean their house in order to sweep away any ill fortune and to pave the way for good luck. They decorate windows and doors with red color paper-cutouts and couplets with themes of “good fortune” or “happiness”, “wealth”, and “longevity.”
Activities also include setting off firecrackers and giving money in red paper envelopes.
The Chinese calendar does not use ‘continuously numbered’ years and outside of China its years are often numbered from the reign of the 3rd millennium BC‘s Yellow Emperor.
Now you know what the whole Spring Festival, or Chinese New Year is all about, it’s time to look at how it can affect you and your vaping.
Vendors In February
Early in the month only vendors who have not made plans by stocking up on vape gear begin to shows signs that the New Year is upon us. These vendors include new ones that never learned about the Spring Festival until it was too late to get in much-needed product, or vendors who are operating at a loss or a near-break even point. But, even the most astute and profitable vendors can’t know for sure what they will need, and somewhere around the 18th of February even they will begin to show more “out of stock” labels under many products that are constantly sold during a usual month; cartomizers, clearomizers, coil head replacements, and so on.
If a new electronic cigarette happens to become popular in January or even early February you might see ‘out of stock’ label pop up very early. By the last week of the holiday, until about 2 to 3 weeks afterward, even the very best vendors will have problems maintaining stock levels.
What You Can Do
Well, you could do what the astute vendors try to do and stock up in January for vape supplies you’ll need to carry you through till mid-March. Try to keep track of what you’re using the most of, whether its cartomizers or coil replacements and place an order NOW so you’re not out of them too soon, or at all. If you’re in the market for a new mod or APV either try to get one now or expect to buy one sometime in March. Other than that, you can’t too much. Last year we were using a lot of cartomizers in our eLiquid reviews and ran out completely on the 13th of February and couldn’t find them anywhere. This year we made sure to bring in enough to last a full 3 months, just to be on the safe side.
New Products
Innokin has released their information about the iTaste 134 Mini, and have built several thousand of them in time to ship them by February 1st. If you want one and don’t want to wait you would do well to check your favorite vendor’s website every day, a couple of times a day even, so as not to miss the opportunity to purchase one. Once the initial stock is depleted you won’t be able to get one until the holiday is over and the Chinese workforce has returned to work and assembled several thousand more, and shipped them out to vendors. That takes time, so don’t expect to pick up until sometime in March.
This shortage of vape gear happens every year and will continue to happen every year moving forward. No vendor will ever manage to keep everything in stock because no vendor knows for sure what is going to sell well and what is going to sit around and collect dust. Smart vendors track their sales, and they know what they usually need to get through a month with no deliveries, but there is always the unexpected, so expect it.
You still have time to stock up on things you will need during February and half of March. Batteries, cartos, DeKang eLiquid, clearomizers, atomizers, and whatever else you use, you should prepare to have enough that you’re not scrambling on the Internet looking for a vendor that has what you need.
Fortunately, American made eLiquid isn’t affected by the Spring Festival, so you won’t notice your favorite juice vendor running low, unless they are buying the ingredients from China, and 99% of the US eLiquid companies we deal with only use American-sourced ingredients, so we don’t expect to feel anything in that department.
Oh, one last thing. You can buy products made and ‘sourced’ in Europe, and even Russia and some other countries that are not affected by the Chinese New Year, and pay a whole lot more for them… and even then there are some Americans and European companies that have their products assembled in China, they too will have stock issues.
So there you have it. At least now, if you didn’t know why your favorite vendor ran low last February you do now. Stock up!
