If you’ve decided that it’s time for you to stop smoking and make the switch to vaping, you deserve congratulations. Smoking is an incredibly hard habit to quit, and that’s true even if you have an alternative form of nicotine supplementation available. Switching from smoking to vaping is a major decision that can have a profound impact on the rest of your life.
Before you can switch to vaping, though, you need to buy your first vape kit. Although you can buy vaping devices at traditional tobacco outlets such as supermarkets and convenience stores, those usually aren’t the best vape kits to buy because the vaping devices sold in tobacco outlets are often lacking in both value and flavor selection. You’ll have a much easier time finding a device you’ll love if you buy it from a vape shop.
Vape kits are specialist products, and that means vape shops differ from traditional retailers in a few important ways. It’s a good idea to understand what the experience will be like before you go, and it’s also wise to have a general idea of what type of vape kit you want. Visiting a Missoula vape shop for the first time, though, is about much more than simply choosing which product you want to buy. Here’s what you need to do before you go.
Understand Montana’s Vaping Laws
The first thing you need to understand about visiting a Missoula vape shop is that the prices for vape gear in Montana are actually more reasonable than in many other states. That’s because at the time of writing, Montana has no excise tax on vaping products. In some states, vape taxes are so high that consumers pay nearly double when they buy vapes. Thankfully, Montana is very consumer friendly in this regard.
The other thing you need to know about buying your first vape is that Missoula vape shops aren’t allowed to sell vapes or e-liquids in any flavor other than tobacco. This rule also applies to all retailers within a five-mile radius of the Missoula city limits. That means if you want to buy flavored vapes locally, you’ll need to be prepared for a bit of a drive. However, there is another alternative that you can consider instead.
Consider Buying Vape Gear Online for Better Prices and Selection
Are you having trouble finding the vaping products that you want in Missoula? If you are, you shouldn’t be terribly surprised since the Missoula flavor ban severely limits the products that you can buy. In addition, it can sometimes be hard to find recent products like the SMOK Novo 5 because the biggest retailers tend to get the first shipments of new products. When it comes to prices and product selection, online retailers beat local vape shops almost every time. You should strongly consider buying your vapes online if you want your experience to be as good as it can be.
Make Sure You’re Comfortable with the Environment
Before you visit any vape shop for the first time, you might want to drive by the shop to make sure that you’ll feel comfortable spending some time there. Do you feel safe in that neighborhood? Does the vape shop look well-lit and inviting? Would you feel as welcome there as you would at any other retailer? If you don’t feel great about a particular vape shop, you should move on because there are plenty of other options.
Make Sure You’re Comfortable with the Employees
The next thing you need to know about any Missoula vape shop is whether you feel comfortable when you enter the shop for the first time. If the employees greet you and offer to help you find what you want, that’s a great sign. A vape shop should always have employees who are knowledgeable enough to answer your questions and friendly enough to answer those questions without acting annoyed. As a new vaper, you’re likely to have a lot of questions. It’s much easier to find the answers at a local vape shop than it is to search through online forums.
If the employees at a vape shop are too busy watching TV or looking at their phones to help you, it’s probably best to consider shopping elsewhere.
Know the Shop’s Return Policy Before You Buy
Before you buy vape gear from any online or local vape shop, you need to know what the shop’s return policy is. At minimum, you want to be sure that the vape shop will allow you to return a product that’s not working out of the box. Defective products are rare, but they do appear from time to time. You need to know that you can buy without risk.
Note that a vape shop usually won’t allow you to return a bottle of e-liquid simply because you don’t like the flavor. That’s because vape juice can’t be resold once the bottle is opened. If you do find a vape shop that allows you to return products you don’t like, that’s a huge benefit.
Find a Shop with a Buying Process that Works for You
People don’t always want to buy products in the traditional way. Some people would rather browse products online and place orders for in-store pickup. Other people like to buy from stores that offer curbside pickup. If you prefer to buy vape gear locally rather than going online, it’s a great thing if you can find a vape shop that lets you shop the way you prefer.
Always Check Product Authenticity
The last thing you need to know about buying vape gear – whether you’re visiting a Missoula vape shop or buying online – is that product authenticity is a real concern in the vaping industry. Every day, fake vapes flow out of secretive factories in China by the thousands. Don’t assume that there are no fake vapes at the vape shops in Missoula because counterfeit products are everywhere. When you buy a vape kit or disposable vape, you should always go to the manufacturer’s website and run the product’s code through the manufacturer’s authenticity checker before you use it.