Clones

Clones, replicas, imitations, fakes, copy cats are all terms used to identify the many thousands of counterfeit vape products available on the market.

The counterfeit items look authentic, carry the exact looking brand name and the packaging is identical. The one ingredient the counterfeiters overlook is quality control. In most cases they use cheaper lower quality materials and hence they can pass on a cheaper but lower quality product. The counterfeiters use another company’s reputation and all of the benefits of their marketing to sell the inferior cloned product.

Clones are not restricted to just e-cigs but clones of batteries, tanks, mods and even e-juice are available everywhere.

The bigger majority of counterfeit vaping products are manufactured in China where there is little regard to intellectual property, copyright or patents. In Shenzhen, where most (a few dozen) of the more reputable e-cigarette manufacturers are located, there are over 600 other e-cigarette factories most of which are producing counterfeit products.

Some clones can be of reasonable quality and can be purchased at a much lower price than the original but should anything go wrong there is little chance of replacements or reimbursement.

The big problem with clones is that when the inferior product fails or is not efficient the purchaser who is often new to vaping gets discouraged and will often return to the old cigarette habit.

Most of the top quality name brands now include authenticity codes which can be entered into the manufacturer’s website to verify if the device is authentic. Trouble is if it is a clone then you are stuck with it.

Moral of the story is to always purchase from a reputable supplier. Be wary of purchasing from the weekend markets, discount web sites, eBay or the local classifieds or you could be ripped off.