You know it’s serious when the Oxford English Dictionary names it word of the year. And so was the case with “vape” way back in 2014.

Since then, the popularity of vaping has only soared. The vape industry is estimated to be worth $2.5 billion, with some estimated it will grow to a whopping $32 billion by 2021.

More people are vaping now than ever before. When you see naughty schoolkids smoking vapes instead of cigarettes, you know there’s been a massive cultural shift. It’s been estimated around 10% of American adults use a vape. Popstar Drake even hired a vape trickster to fly to his Calabasas mansion, so he could learn some cool vape tricks himself.

As vaping becomes cooler with the young and rebellious, who are more health conscious than the rebels of days gone by, there seems no better time to capitalize on the trend on go into the business of vaping yourself. But please, no selling to school kids!

If you’re passionate about vaping for whatever reason, because it helped you quit smoking and you turned your life around, or you just like the cool tricks, the secret to your fortune could lie in the profitable vaping business.

How to Enter The Vaping Market

1. Prepare for the Costs.

Like any business, opening a vape shop means spending a lot of money. First, you need to secure a premise. Then, make sure you have adequate stock.

This is costly, but to make money, you must spend money.

Be prepared to invest all the capital you’ve saved so far. But getting ahead of a trend in a growing industry – and establishing yourself on the ground early – means securing customer loyalty and reaping high profits in the years to come.

Getting funding through conventional banks can be difficult when opening a vape shop. Banks are still lagging behind the curve, and put vape shops owners in the same high-risk category for loans as irreputable businesses like pornographers.

However, you can get grants from small capital investment organizations like Fundera and Ventury Capital, who have funded a fair few vape businesses. It’s often smaller startups who see where the trend is going, so funding is not out of reach.

2. Get Knowledgeable.

If you want to go into this field, you hopefully already have some kind of passion for vaping. If not, you should develop a passion quickly, because the likelihood is that some of the people who visit your shop will be real vape enthusiasts.

The vape shop can become a sort of social hub for the vape enthusiast. And they’ll want to be able to discuss all the new developments in vaping, like rising vape stars, new flavors, new devices, and features like the best box mod. If you don’t have a genuine interest in this, your business will suffer.

You need to know what you’re talking about to be able to convince those who come to your shop because they’re curious about trying vaping as an alternative to smoking. To convert these would-be quitters, you need to be able to sell them on health statistics, as well as being passionate about the experience.

If you believe vaping is just as pleasurable as smoking, you’ll be able to sell it.

3. Be Business Savvy.

It’s been said “If you build it, they will come” – but really there’s no guarantees.

If you invest the time and money into opening your shop without doing any publicity for it, your grand opening won’t be that grand, and you will be disappointed.

Make sure your shop is active across social media channels even before opening, to build a hype around your business.

Committed vapers love attending vape conferences, so make sure you go to as many as possible and publicize your shop. If you can sell yourself and your shop as a community hub to the vape community, people will travel far and wide for a slice of the action.

Make sure you get your business into the public eye in every way you can, all the while promoting the health benefits of vaping in contrast to smoking, and you’re onto a winner. Combine passion with business savvy and be prepared to reap the financial rewards of this growing industry.