Store location focus: high street/parade

Nishi Patel, who runs Londis Bexley Park in Dartford, Kent, explains how he makes the vape category work for his store location

Keeping a handle on our range

We have had to be really careful because we get a lot of reps coming in offering to give us free stock which then doesn’t sell and ends up being a dead weight, cluttering up our counter. Instead, we have one unit from Liberty Flights and that holds their stock, alongside other big brands such as Vype and Logic.

Adjusting our offer with expert advice

Getting your range right means tweaking it regularly and our Liberty Flights rep comes in every few weeks to adjust our range and bring in new flavours. For the bigger capsule brands, the range is more limited but Liberty Flights has a lot of flavours, all at different strengths, and we make sure we always have something new for vapers to try.

Using my first-hand knowledge

I am a vaper myself and I use that knowledge and pass it on to my staff. If any of them ever have any questions about the category they know they can come and ask me. For new vapers this can be quite a daunting category and having that knowledge really helps. If someone is new to vaping, I will usually suggest they try one of the capsule brands like Vype to start with.