Types Of Customers Who Shop At Smoke Shops and How To Market To Them

Drop the needle on Moby’s “Extreme Ways” because we’re about to blow the doors off of this joint and reveal the true identity of the customers in your smoke shop as if we were the Massachusetts born hero of our own 2000’s era conspiracy thriller.

No more wandering around in the dark with consumer amnesia blurring the lines between individual shoppers, instead Got Vape Wholesale is here to unmask who your shoppers actually are and what they actually want out of your smoke shop.

This way you’ll be able to pair consumers with vaporizers, glassware, and accessories that are better attuned to their preferences, using this knowledge to up your margins with higher sales completion rates and increased customer retention.

Thus by the end of this smoke shop exclusive, you’ll be left feeling wicked smaht with your own inside line on how to identify the types of customers in your smoke shop and how to better market to specific needs.

Easier sales, better profits, and a more satisfied customer base - all with the power of understanding who your customers are and what they want. Now how about them apples, am I right?

Table of Contents:

What Types Of Customers Shop At Smoke Shop?
How To Market To The Different Types Of Customers In Your Smoke Shop?
How To Market To Beginners In Your Smoke Shop?
How To Market To Experts In Your Smoke Shop?
How To Market To Deal Seekers?
How To Market To Comfort Seekers In Your Smoke Shop?
How To Market To Customers On a Budget In Your Smoke Shop?
How To Market To Purpose Seekers In Your Smoke Shop?
How To Market To Thrill Seekers In Your Smoke Shop?
How To Market To Efficiency Seekers In Your Smoke Shop?
Master Your Marketing With Got Vape Wholesale

What Types Of Customers Shop At Smoke Shop?

At the very tip of this marketing iceberg, we have 8 distinct types of customers that you’ll see in your smoke shop. With each seeking something different from your business, understanding the differences between them is key to maximizing your marketing efforts.

As with all societal cleavages, there exists a large amount of overlap and cross pollination between the various types of consumers in your smoke shop.

This is where having a strong grip on the categories becomes even more essential, as you’ll know just how to mix and max preferences in order to speak to the customers in exactly the right language.

To assist with this, below we’ve provided a brief reference explaining all of the categories in order to introduce you to the general concepts, before we dig deeper into each further down in the article. 

• Beginners: New to the game, green behind the ears, and wandering around like Alice in the Smoke Shop - beginners represent a significant portion of your traffic and should always be treated with extra attention.

• Experts: Having seen, smoked, and vaped it all - the expert can be your best friend with easy sales and top shelf tastes, or your worst nightmare if you don’t treat them correctly - rarer in nature but incredibly important to your bottom line, the expert is one to tread lightly with. 

• Budget Seekers: In for a penny, out for a dollar - budget seekers are all about maximizing the value of their purchases and are increasingly common amidst more uncertain economic times. 

• Comfort Seekers: Wearing their “taking the easy way out” badges with honor, comfort seekers are laser focused on easy access, operational simplicity, and quick solutions in spite of everything else. 

• Deal Seekers: Born with a coupon in hand and an online price comparison in the other - the deal seeker sees no line too long, no drive too far, and no sale worth passing up on - all to satisfy their insatiable desire to get what they want below market value. 

• Purpose Seekers: Locked in with a goal in mind, purpose seekers are those customers who are out to satisfy a specific need. Be it ditching combustion for vaporization, medicinal treatment, or any other requirement, these customers have the strictest requirements of all.  

• Thrill Seekers: Harder, better, faster, stronger - thrill seekers are always looking for the next purchase high and will consistently be drawn to options that specialize on the more extravagant and potent side of things.

• Efficiency Seekers: Where others look to maximize their dollar, efficiency seekers are here to maximize their materials above all else. They are interested in devices that stretch their dry herbs, get the most out of concentrates, and altogether provide long haul solutions to their session needs. 

With the iceberg of customer types in sight, now you’ll be able to at least steer your ship clear of smashing directly into them and instead cruise right on by without watching your sales split in half like the Titanic.

Now dialing in your marketing efforts is going to take time, but with enough effort you’ll be able to break through with far greater efficiency. This means landing easier sales, converting far more of your foot traffic into customers, and watching your profits creep up, up, and away.

How To Market To The Different Types Of Customers In Your Smoke Shop?

With all of the usual suspects laid out in front of us, we can now take a magnifying glass to the situation and break down just what these types of customers are after and which products will stand out as most attractive to them.

This puts the principles we’ll be discussing into action and shows you the real life implications of these different types of customers manifested in the actual products they’ll be looking for in your smoke shop.

Use this as a blueprint to update your own inventory in kind, ensuring that you always have the exact vaporizer, piece of glass, or accessory that the specific type of shopper is looking for at the moment.

This will deliver a tangible edge for your smoke shop, giving you the type of in depth reactive capacity to beat out the competition and become the definitive source in your area.

How To Market To Beginners In Your Smoke Shop?

As one of the most common types of customers coming into your smoke shop, learning how to set up beginners and secure their return business is an essential part of running a successful smoke shop.

These consumers represent fresh blood for your operations, offering up blank slates in which they can progressively enjoy what your smoke shop has to offer, upgrading their set up as their tastes evolve with additional purchases, providing you an influx of profits for years to come.

But all of this can disappear before it ever starts, as beginners stand on a precipice where one bad purchase or experience can discourage them from ever coming back. Not just to your smoke shop, but swearing off the entire medium like itself, like vaping for example, after getting left with a bad taste in their mouths.

That’s why it’s so imperative to correctly market the right products to newcomers and make sure that you set them down the right path to proper enjoyment.

To market to beginners in your smoke shop we recommend focusing on low cost, high impact devices that are able to reliably deliver a quality experience, even when operated by a beginner with zero previous knowledge.

The goal is to not over-sell them, while still managing to deliver enough quality that has them actually wanting to come back for more, instead of feeling burned. Success here comes down to managing a proper inventory, with enough low cost high impact options to satisfy the major categories.

For beginner customers looking to easily enjoy their dry herbs, something like the Wulf Mods Curv Hand Pipe 15pk would fit the bill, thanks to them having both an unimposing price and elite all borosilicate glass quality that’s durable enough to withstand novice mistakes.

This perfectly encapsulates the ideal pitch for a beginner, it lets them get started for a modest investment and provides a strong foundation for them to launch their dry herb sessions that more than delivers on the initial promise of what the materials offer.

In addition to low cost quality, the “fun factor” can also weigh heavily with a beginner, as they look to enter the space with their own unique take.

Look to examples like the Wulf Mods Deck Skateboard Voltage Battery 9pk and Smyle Chapstick Variable Voltage Battery, which in addition to being fully functional cartridge vaporizers, also provide fun bonuses like a finger skateboard and faux-chapstick stealth case respectively.

No matter what you do, having items that can deliver for beginners is key to the long term success of your smoke shop, as starting a customer off right can lead you to years of sales and more streams of solid revenue.

How To Market To Experts In Your Smoke Shop?

The expert. They know prices, brands, and release dates like the back of their hands. With all of the knowledge and years, if not decades of experience to back them up, these proverbial smoke shop experts present a particularly hard nut to crack.

Much like a lion that wanders into a Fogo de Chão, it’s best to sit back and let these customers do their own thing. Instead of inundating them with questions or any sales pitches, instead focus on being a passive guide that lets them know what’s available.

In our experience the expert will arrive at your smoke shop in one of two modes, those with the explicit intent to buy a certain device and those who are simply walking in to see what your smoke shop happens to have in stock because they are enthusiasts.

If they come in knowing exactly what they want and the accessories to go, with it don’t bother trying to pitch an alternative. Just dutifully assemble the order while simultaneously letting the customer know just how much of a good time they're in for, acting as more of a hype man than a salesman.

These would be those experts coming in to get cutting edge tech like the Storz & Bickel Veazy Portable Dry Herb Vaporizer, often phoning in ahead of time to ensure you have the correct color and asking to have it put on hold if possible. As eager as they come, your job with these experts is made easy so long as you have the right stock.

Now when it comes to experts who are more casually looking through your smoke shop, try pointing out high quality accessories to blue chip brands they may already own.

For example many expert dabbers already own a Puffco Peak or Peak Pro, thus instead of selling them on hardware, suggest something like the Wulf Mods Web Puffco Peak Top which augments and upgrades their current experience.

Another great choice is to focus on replacement parts, as these are essential to the long term maintenance of devices and something that experts fully understand the value of. Items like the Puffco New Peak 3D Chamber which see heavy usage are always in demand and quickly scooped up by experts in need of back ups.

Always remember that experts are incredibly price savvy, so they will have a keen understanding of just how much things should be costing. This is where competitive pricing comes in to seal the deal with them and another reason why over charging can prove fatal to your bottom line.

At the end of the day experts are your friend, so treat them with the respect they deserve, inflate those egos, and enjoy the windfall of cash they can provide your smoke shop!

How To Market To Deal Seekers?

Cue the Jaws orchestra because the next set of customers swimming through your doors are Deal Seekers. These sharks can smell blood in the water from a mile, county, or even state away and will stop at nothing to satisfy their hunt for the best deals, discounts, and sales available.

Like flies buzzing the potato salad at the picnic, deal seekers are going to come to your smoke shop whether you like it or not. All you have to do is leave out the bait, which in your case would be posting effective marketing on your social media to inform the masses of your upcoming sale.

Then, just as a faithful hound cleans up scraps after dinner, these deal seekers will show up in droves to take advantage of the spiciest deals you can offer including older products going for fire-sale price points and rare discounts on top tier brands like Stündenglass.

For these deal seeking customers your marketing efforts are all in the preparation, as most of these people will be making up their minds based on your advertised prices / sales, and not in person.

Deal seekers don’t like to waste their time, so the vast majority will only be showing up if the discounts are a foregone conclusion or if there’s some sort of mystery box attached to it that could result in a rare deal.

Both of these strategies are easy enough to accomplish, with mystery boxes being an especially effective tool at getting the deal seekers out to roll the dice on savings.

Ultimately all of this comes down to how effectively you can reach customers on social media and in person. So make sure to double down in these key areas in order to maximize the benefits of having deal seekers in your smoke shop.

How To Market To Comfort Seekers In Your Smoke Shop?

Whether it’s through binging television shows, excessive flattery from A.I. assistants, or ordering from delivery apps - leading industries across the globe are increasingly dominated by the growing demands of comfort seekers.

These customers are focused on spending their hard earned cash on taking the easy way out, with easy access and simple operation at the forefront of their minds at all times.

It’s no surprise then that our sector of smoking / vaporization would have our own army of comfort seekers looking exclusively for the most seamless, stress free, and enjoyable experiences available on the market.

Defined by a focus on instantaneous tangible benefits, comfort seekers want to make their lives easier in the immediate and aren’t afraid to break open their wallets to accomplish it. As long as the device does the heavy lifting for them, the comfort seeker will be satisfied.

This presents a world of opportunity to your smoke shop, as it just so happens the vaporizing, smoking, and alternative experiences we have on the shelves offer just that.

When it comes to marketing e-rigs to comfort seeking customers, a great tact is to suggest single button operation devices with pre-set heat settings like the Puffco Peak Smart E-Rig Limited Edition Pine, as these devices are intuitive and don’t require excessive effort to operate.

Instead of having to use apps or rely on temperature knowledge, with something like the Puffco Peak, comfort seekers can simply click one button to cycle through 4 pre-approved heating options ranging from high to low.

This is intuitive and easy to digest, while still offering enough of a high quality experience to make it all worth their while. Just because comfort seekers like things easy, doesn’t mean they will accept sub par performance from their devices.

Others comfort seeking coded releases include the PAX Flow Dry Herb Vaporizer, which features the likes of haptic feedback and color coded petals to inform customers of setting and session information in a unique manner.

If you want alternative experiences that appeal to comfort seekers, check the more potent options with extra strength hemp flower like Hidden Hills Mini Mart 2g THC-A Hash Hole Preroll 20pk.

These come pre-rolled and ready to smoke, while also including a mind melting hash hole core, to provide just the type of instant satisfaction that comfort seekers adore. Plus with the added oomph of the hash hole, these Mini Mart 2G pre-rolls pack a serious punch with every puff.

As you can see the name of the game with comfort seekers is lowering the barrier to entry, without lowering the quality included. Just think of the sleek paired down experiences that turned Apple into a juggernaut and you can start to grasp just how powerful the comfort seeking market can be.

That’s why when it comes to marketing to comfort seekers you don’t just want to highlight the features, but explain just how easy it is to use them. This way you're clearing up any and all reservations in their minds to clear the way for a slam dunk sale.

Once you know how to properly reel them in, comfort seekers will quickly become one of your favorite customers to see come through the door and over time you can refine your inventory to provide a slew of go-to pick ups that make even the process of purchasing them comfortable for the customer.

How To Market To Customers On a Budget In Your Smoke Shop?

When marketing to customers on a budget in your smoke shop you're essentially performing a high wire balancing act, as you attempt to square value with a price tag that doesn’t have them running for the hills with sticker shock.

Managing this can be daunting at the best of times, but amidst an economic outlook that’s foggier than a Stephen King novel, it can become an exercise in futility if you don’t have the proper toolset at your disposal.

That’s why when customers come in looking for affordable vaporizers, glassware, and accessories we recommend that you focus your marketing pitch on reliability, versatility, and potency.

These three factors are going to be at the top of all customers on a budget mind, as they allow them to maximize their dollars spent and ensure that they won’t be back to the smoke shop in a few months needing a costly replacement.

No matter which device you're pitching, make sure to triple down on this main trio and really drive home to the customers how these provide tangible upgrades to their standard session experience.

Additionally, remember to have plenty of options as well, as customers are more likely to spend when they don’t feel “stuck” with only the cheap option. Having a wide variety helps mimic the more expensive retail experiences and ups the overall satisfaction level with consumers.

For instance there’s quality options that still manage to maintain cheap price points like the Exxus Vape Cave Hand Pipe 12pk. These provide ultra low cost entry points, while still providing the rock solid foundation of borosilicate glass for premium durability.

Other invaluable tools for those on a budget lie with devices that take a different approach to existing needs, all the while cutting out the middle man to save the customer money.

A perfect example of just this is the Wulf Mods Hot Knife Tip, an ingenious accessory that utilizes a 510 threaded connection to instantly transform any cartridge battery into a fully functioning hot knife in seconds.

This allows consumers to use their existing batteries for an entirely brand new use, stretching the value of their initial investment while simultaneously saving them big time on a hot knife, with the Wulf Mods Knife Tips costing less than a third of comparable electronic dab tools.

It's an accessory just like this that ends up making a huge difference for those on a budget. The customer gets to enjoy all the same abilities as those without monetary restraints, ensuring that everyone has the access in order to leave your smoke shop satisfied.

How To Market To Purpose Seekers In Your Smoke Shop?

Just as with the Blues Brothers, Knights of the Holy Grail, and Dominoes orders after midnight - purpose seekers are coming into your smoke shop on a mission. With a singular goal in mind and the will to see it through, the purpose seeker hunts their bounty with the intensity of a heat seeking missile.

These consumers arrive with a variety of different requirements ranging from specific medicinal capabilities, all the way to the reduced odor profiles for discrete material enjoyment. No matter the reason, the purpose seeker will very quickly lay out just what they need.

Purpose seekers approach devices with a binary coded black and white mindset. It either works or it doesn’t. There’s no room in between and anything less than exactly what they want will result in the loss of any potential sales.

This is where it gets both easy and, as ultimately you’ll either have the correct items in stock or you won’t. With no in between available here, making a sale will largely be out of your hands once the purpose seeker approaches the counter.

In order to counter this and ensure you can land as many purpose seekers as possible, we recommend diversifying your inventory with a wide variety of specified devices capable of delivering the most common consumer requirements.

The best products for purpose seekers will be those that can accomplish specific tasks without fail, offering the same uniform level of quality on the first use, as on the 500th. Quality, reliability, and consistency are going to be key to landing any of these sales, which is why having the right stock is more than half the battle.

To help you out we’ve created the following example, a purpose seeking consumer comes into your smoke shop looking for a vaporizer that can facilitate their medicinal ingestion of concentrate materials.

This means they’ll need something both high quality and accessible, which is where a device like the Dr. Dabber Switch 2 Concentrate Vaporizer arrives to save the day.

With a temperature range from 250˚ - 650˚F, this provides the level of control required to satisfy specific medicinal requirements. Letting them dial in to specific heat ranges that bring out the best possible effects from their concentrates, all with the ease of an app on their phone that makes control even more accessible.

The clinical precision offered via the Switch 2 checks the purpose seeker boxes for reliability and consistency, followed up with its XL 3,000mAh battery coming in to guarantee a level of quality that makes these excellent choices for medicinal consumers.

Now purpose seeker requests aren’t confined to the most complex requirements, but also to more simple things like having grinders with a kief catching level in order to harvest all of the finest materials from their dry herbs.

This specific purpose can easily be solved with top quality grinders like the Wulf Mods 4pc 65mm Bevel Grinder 6pk, which comes with all 4 levels and a bonus top with indents to rest still burning materials / ash burnt herbs.

No matter what the ask happens to be, when it comes to purpose seeking customers your best strategy is to invest in a layered inventory that covers all of the bases and is able to cast as wide a net as possible with your smoke shop.

How To Market To Thrill Seekers In Your Smoke Shop?

Across industries far and wide there exists a type of customer whose sole intention is to surf the bleeding edge of experiences. In search of the most exotic, hard hitting, and sky high possibilities as part of their pursuit of taking things to the max.

Referred to as thrill seekers, these consumers will inevitably come through your doors looking for smoking, vaporizing, and alternative experiences that pack enough punch to smash through regularity and into mind blowing exceptionality.

Thrill seekers tend to have larger budgets and are less worried about the specifics, with their eyes focused more on the larger picture. “Is this vaporizer, glassware, or accessory strong enough” is a question that’s constantly running through these customers' minds.

Thus when it comes to marketing to these customers, focusing on the higher settings and more extreme output options like pre-heat settings is going to be far more effective.

Another strong marketing tactic is to ask them what types of devices they have used and which ones they thought were the strongest. This way you can get a baseline for their experience level, recommend a device that has enough power to eclipse their expectations, and deliver the thrills they’re seeking.

Customer come in seeking a strong alternative to their dab rig? Point them towards something like the Wulf Mods Nova Stack Water Filtered Nectar Collector, standing at 11” tall with dual percolators, a choice of 3 different nectar tips, and enough raw potency to stun.

Thus by utilizing the basic information you got from the customer, you can market the Nova Stack by focusing on how it’s just as smooth as their dab rig thanks to water filtration, but is even more powerful on account of its straight shot raw intensity.

Thus you're speaking exactly the language that the thrill seeker wants to hear, letting them know they’re in for a substantially upgraded experience that’s actually worth the price of admission.

Additionally alternative experiences are a great choice for thrill seekers, as they offer something completely off the beaten path for the thrill of something “new”.

Just look at the edible fun offered by Hidden Hills Mini Mart Double Troublez 1000mg Gummies 6pks, each one of these delicious chewables has 1,000mg of D8, D9, and THC-P for a truly next level legal hemp based experience perfect for the thrill seekers in your store.

As you can see the ultimate goal when sourcing products for thrill seekers is to lean on the “bigger is better” mentality and ensure you have a healthy supply of products that really go above and beyond.

This way when thrill seekers come marching into your smoke shop, you’ll have just the repertoire of uber powerful devices in order to make sales fast, easy, and profitable.

How To Market To Efficiency Seekers In Your Smoke Shop?

Rounding out the various types of customers arriving in your smoke shop, we have the clear minded efficiency seekers looking for cost efficiency above all else.

While they may look like your ordinary customer, the efficiency seeker is anything but as their mind is a buzz with a complex matrix of factors game theorizing out which vaporizer, glassware, or accessory is going to stretch their dollar and materials to their fullest.

By taking advantage of the upgraded tech available today, the efficiency seeker aims to cheat the system by getting more from the materials, all the while saving money along the way.

This mentality results in efficiency focused customers to search with unparalleled breadth, considering entry level devices for cheap access, all the way to industry defining powerhouses that sit on the top shelf.

Nothing is off limits for the efficiency seeker, so long as the device has a unique function that reliably maximizes their dry herbs, concentrates, and cartridges - it’s go time. This presents you with a ton of opportunity to meet their needs and move your inventory off the shelf.

Affordable heavy hitters like the Exxus Vape STAX 510 Variable Voltage Battery 12pk fit this bill perfectly with their expanded 650mAh battery allowing for much more efficient heating, while still coming in at a bargain price point.

For elite strength that would appeal to the efficiency seeker, we recommend something like the Puffco Peak Pro Concentrate Vaporizer with 3DXL Atomizer with their real time temperature control ensuring the consumer has 100% control of their concentrates all times for maximum potency.

Now as opposed to many other types of customers, the efficiency seeker is also okay with complexity in their device so long as it results in a more effective experience. Dialing in settings and working through maintenance is no issue for these shoppers, so long as the means justify the ends.

An excellent example of this complexity / efficiency blend would be the Storz & Bickel Evergreen Edition Hybrid Volcano Vaporizer with their filling vapor balloons taking more time, but subsequently trapping every last bit of vapor for 100% effectiveness.

Where other vaporizers will inevitably lose some vapor in the process, the sealed nature of the Volcano Vaporizer’s balloons and whip system guarantee that not a single drop will ever be wasted - aka the efficiency seekers dream.

Thus when it comes to efficiency seekers, focus your marketing on how the device will save them money. Whether in the short term with a great price, or in the long term with materials being stretched to their fullest, the end game will always be focused on how spending to save is not just viable, but smart…wicked smaht.

Master Your Marketing With Got Vape Wholesale

Now that you have the inside scoop on who is shopping at your smoke shop and what vaporizers, glassware, and accessories appeal best to them - it’s time for you to put these tools into practice with your own customers.

Always be aware that significant overlap exists between the types of shoppers, so make sure to pivot to meet them exactly where they are. This way no matter what specific type of customers comes through your doors, you know exactly how to handle them.

The end result will be far easier interactions and sales with customers, as you know exactly how to grease the wheels to ensure the train pulls into station with the shopper satisfied, your smoke shop richer, and the potential for future purchases high.

For more articles written specifically for smoke, vape, and hybrid shop owners like yourself, check out the Got Vape Wholesale Smoke Shop Business Blog right here.

In the past few weeks we’ve explored how to stock better glassware, best methods to easily grow your smoke shop in the new year, and a forward thinking piece explaining why smoke shops won’t just survive the A.I. revolution, but thrive.