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Disposable Vapes Are Taking Over the European Vaping Industry – Here’s Why

West Coast Vape Supply

If you are a smoker in Europe who is considering making the switch to vaping, there’s a good chance that a disposable vape will end up being your first vaping device. What’s more, you’ll probably be so happy with your experience that you’ll see little need to ever switch to another type of device. That’s how great today’s disposable vapes are.

In the beginning, disposable e-cigarettes existed primarily as a way to introduce people to vaping. Disposable vapes were generally only available in two flavors – tobacco and menthol – and they were significantly more expensive than tobacco cigarettes. People bought them because they wanted to find out what vaping was like before they invested in full-fledged e-cigarette starter kits, which were very costly at the time. 

After the vaping industry had a few years to grow and evolve, though, it became clear that the pricing structure had completely changed. Companies were no longer trying to earn the highest possible profit margins from their vape kits. Increasingly, manufacturers priced their starter kits cheaply so they could sell more refill pods and cartridges. Since there was little reason for people to buy disposable e-cigarettes when they could get full vape kits – which included refill pods – for, around the same price, disposable vapes fell by the wayside. For a while, very few manufacturers even bothered to produce them.

Over the past couple of years, though, that trend has completely reversed itself. Disposable vapes have come back in a huge way, and people are buying them by the millions. In particular, disposable vapes like Elf Bar have become some of the most popular vaping products in Europe. By 2022, it’s likely that European vapers will be using more disposable vapes than any other type of product. 

How did disposable vapes rocket back into the mainstream after spending so many years as an afterthought? That’s what you’re about to learn.

Nicotine Salt Made Disposable Vapes More Satisfying Than Ever

Along with the cost – which we’ll discuss in a moment – one of the biggest factors keeping disposable vapes from achieving mainstream popularity during the early years of the vaping industry was the fact that they simply weren’t as satisfying as tobacco cigarettes. They typically weren’t available in high nicotine strengths because the freebase nicotine e-liquid that all vaping product manufacturers used at the time tended to cause throat irritation at higher nicotine levels. In those days, the only way to have a truly satisfying vaping experience was by buying a refillable device that produced bigger clouds.

That changed with the invention of nicotine salt e-liquid. Because nicotine salt is less alkaline than freebase nicotine, it doesn’t irritate the throat even at very high nicotine strengths. That has enabled all small vaping devices – including disposable vapes – to be more satisfying than ever before while remaining completely enjoyable to use. It’s no longer necessary to buy a larger device if you want vaping to be as satisfying as smoking.

Improved Production Methods Made Disposable Vapes Cheaper Than Ever

The second reason why disposable vapes have become so popular in Europe and elsewhere is because they’ve become significantly cheaper than tobacco cigarettes. Since vaping was first introduced to the world, one of its primary selling points was the fact that it cost less than smoking. If you could eliminate smoke from your life and save a bundle of money at the same time, what smoker in their right mind wouldn’t want to switch to vaping? As we mentioned above, though, the potential for saving money didn’t exist with disposable vapes because they were more expensive than cigarettes.

Today, however, the price structure for disposable vapes has changed completely. They haven’t just become less expensive than conventional cigarettes; they’ve become significantly cheaper. One of the reasons for that change will probably be obvious to you: Cigarette prices have increased dramatically over the past decade. The manufacturers of disposable vapes, however, have also played a role by developing automated production methods. While disposable e-cigarettes were once largely assembled by hand, automated equipment now does much of the work.

Disposable Vapes No Longer Need to Look Like Tobacco Cigarettes

Another thing that has made today’s disposable vapes so much better than the products of the past is the fact that they no longer need to look like tobacco cigarettes in order to provide a visual cue to consumers explaining what they are. Everyone now knows what a vaping device looks like, and that’s enabled manufacturers to transition from the cigarette-shaped devices of the past to the “vape bar”-styled devices of today. 

The fact that today’s disposable vapes are slightly larger than tobacco cigarettes means that they have larger battery cells and larger atomizer coils. It also means that they hold more e-liquid. In the early days of vaping, disposable e-cigarettes were so small that you’d have difficulty using one for an entire day. Today, though, a disposable vape easily provides as many puffs as you’d get from multiple packs of tobacco cigarettes. It makes more sense than ever to be a full-time user of disposable vapes because it’s no longer necessary to replace the devices as often as it was in the past.

Legal Changes in the United States Made Disposable Vapes Relevant Again

The final reason why disposable vapes are so popular in Europe actually has a great deal to do with what’s happening elsewhere in the world. Specifically, legal regulations in the United States have had the effect of removing almost all flavored pre-filled vaping products from the market. Recent regulatory changes in the United States prohibit pre-filled products from being sold in flavors other than tobacco and menthol. 

The US ban on flavored vape pods, however, has a loophole: As the law currently stands, it only covers products containing nicotine derived from tobacco. Manufacturers saw the loophole, and they rushed to fill it with an enormous variety of flavored disposable vapes using synthetic nicotine. Because they’re available in many different flavors – and pre-filled pod-based e-cigarettes aren’t – there’s enormous demand for disposable vapes in the US. 

Although it’s entirely possible that the US government will one day close the flavor loophole, the manufacturers have already geared up to produce disposable vapes in every flavor under the sun and distribute those products around the world. Regardless of what may happen in the US, disposable vapes in Europe aren’t going away – and they’re only going to become more popular in 2022.

Blake Brown
Blake Brown

Blake is the owner and creator of the Guide To Vaping blog. He has expressed his passion for the vaping industry through his deeply rooted and highly informative content. Being a writer and content provider for the vaping industry for year's, Blake has also gained experience from working with multiple blogs and well respected companies.

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