My e-Cigarette Experiences…

Posts Tagged ‘blu’

that I’m more than a little disappointed in Blu.  If you’ve seen their website today you know that they have opened their system to taking orders once again.  The downside is that they are actually warning clients that they are looking at 4 to 6 weeks to SHIP the order.  The upside is that will only reserve a one dollar pre-authorization on your credit card until they are able to ship your order.  Now… I appreciate the honesty here folks – really I do – but it just seems pointless at this stage to proceed.  I might be wrong – and hope I am – but I don’t see a bright future here. 

Further – by the time things are all smoothed out at Blu, and perhaps a few other sellers of e-cigs online in the US, the rest of the world will already be using the 3rd or 4th generation of e-cigs.  I’m finding that I really like the disposable cartridges.  But I do need to find something better than the E8.  I’m watching my short battery die already (yes I’ll be testing their Customer Service!) and I’m also finding that there is a slight taste of burning plastic when I hit the end of a cartridge.   So I’ll be trying something else for the next round.  More reading to do this week!  Stay tuned for what I buy and from where as we go further down the road to find the perfect solution for my needs.

Cheers!

Well, the month of July 2009 is nearly over, and so is my first week of being tobacco free!  It’s been a very easy week, and I’ve had my E8 close at hand and ready for use at a moments notice.  The first week has taught me a few things that I will share with you in this post, so be sure to read the whole thing to ensure that you get the most benefit from my findings so far.  Also, I have an update from our friend Glenn.  You may recall he is the one that was waiting for his Blu order – and actually received it 10 days ago.  Well…  I received an email from Glenn this morning, and I’ll share some of his thoughts with you as well.  So…

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and still I’m a smoker.  It’s not for lack of trying.  But now I know that I can’t buy from Blu any time in the near future, as they are no longer able to ship into Canada.  And it appears that this will be increasingly true of vendors in the US – and likely other vendors as well.  But I don’t want to get into the whole Health Canada thing right now…  I’ve got a lot more to say on that one later.

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I was advised earlier today, and have just confirmed it, that the Blu e-cig products are no longer being shipped to Canada.  So…  after a three week wait (and if you’ve not noticed, they have extended their catch-up shutdown to August 1), and now this, it’s a REALLY good thing that I cancelled that order.  I’d have waited for more than a month and would just now be told that I can’t get the product, OR worse, I would have received my Blu kit and just found out that I couldn’t get more cartridges or parts from them.

Now… the question that remains is;  will I receive my other order?  Or will the Government that feels that Tobacco is safer force me to be unable to receive ANY e-cig product?  I see SOOO much potential for improvement in my life and health and overall well being by changing from tobacco to e-cigs, and am being told that I can’t.  Starting to smoke was my choice – EVEN WHEN WE WERE BEING TOLD IT WAS DEADLY!  So why are these any different?  Come on Health Canada!  If you want to see Product Safety sheets and such, I can send you to the links – just drop me a line and I’ll be glad to share.

Meanwhile… I’m hoping for some good news soon.  Fingers crossed… as they’ve been for four weeks!

njw

I just re-read my July 15th post entitled ‘The Deadline Approaches’ and realized that I included some information that is not entirely consistent with the end result.  I had spoke of a product that contains NO Propylene-Glycol, when in fact the product I did order DOES contain PG.  So I wanted to let you all in on what happened there if you were curious…

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I just got off the phone with Blu Customer Service, and I’ve elected to cancel that order.  It’s been 26 days and the order is still pending, so I’ve gone to another source to get started on this journey.  The story is no good if there’s no action, and I just can’t wait any longer to move on.   Now…  I do want you all to know that I STILL like the offering that Blu have come up with, and the price point as well, so there is still a chance that I may try again later when I’m not as anxious to get started vaping instead of smoking.  But that day will be a month or two down the road when I’ve tried it for a while and am convinced that it’s worth the time to try more than one product.  It’s just a shame that I’m not holding my Blu right now (which is about the length of time it SHOULD have taken based on ordering day information). 

Now I know you’re all wondering WHAT I’ve ordered and from WHERE!?

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For Blu, that great sounding little company that I have supported with positive comments and blog posts for the better part of the past month, I have to say that I’m running out of time and patience.  First it was a two week delay… then three, and now we’re coming up on four weeks and still no order, even after the company has been basically shutdown for ten days trying to catch up on their backlog.  Here’s my position as of this post…  I’ve selected another brand of product.  Sure I don’t get the cool Blu pack, and perhaps the cartridges are not as convenient as the Blu ones.  But from what I’m reading, this product contains no propylene glycol, and offers a pretty attractive packaging and kit prices.  Not QUITE as cheap as Blu either, but as I’ve said in the past, even the BEST product is useless if it’s not able to get to the consumer.  So stay tuned – if I don’t see my order flipped to shipped by Friday, I’m pulling my order and placing the new one.  If that happens, I’ll be letting you all know more about the product I’ve selected.

And who knows… I may get a basic kit from this other vendor either way to see if they are reliable, and meet the expectations.  After all…  I have a feeling I’ll need to test at least a few of the many varieties of e-cig that are out there.

More coming soon – so stay tuned!

I just received an email from Blu President, Jason Healy, addressed to their affiliate network, advising that orders for Blu products will not be taken between the 7th of July and the 21st of July.  It is their hope that slowing down the incoming orders from their rapidly expanding affiliate network will ease some of the pressures around supplying their customers, and get things back on track for their shipping department.  So I will be taking down the banners on my sites for now, and putting them back online on the 21st to support this action, and stand by for word that my order has been shipped.  As I’ve said before, I do have some faith in this little company and now see that they are taking a solid action which will most certainly lower their incoming orders, meaning lower revenue.  This is, to me anyway, a VERY interesting move as it proves that they are seriously making efforts to fulfill the orders, and they ARE aware of what I’ve been saying all along…  even the best products will fail if you can’t ship the product.  If you too are waiting, this is a positive move and one that I hope will have the desired impact and get them all caught up.

More to come I’m sure… and Bravo Jason!

njw

PS:  I just hit the website to check my order status and I’m SHOCKED!  They’ve stopped taking orders COMPLETELY until the 21st so that they will be able to catch up!  You can read the message from Jason on the Blu Site.

It seems that the backlog situation is one that might haunt Blu for a while.  With the combination of their unique product, excellent reviews so far, and widespread marketing/affiliate campaign, they have reached a point where they are delivering over a thousand orders a day, while receiving closer to TWO thousand orders daily.  I’m told that they are working on things in shipping to be able to meet the much higher than anticipated demand, and certainly hope that they are able to do so quickly.  When I contacted customer support yesterday to check on things, it took a full hour to get a CSR on the online chat, so I know they are busy down there.  And from the chatter online about them, there are quite a large number of people that are hoping, like me, to receive their product in time.  So…  When I receive my starter kit, and if I’m completely thrilled with the format, flavour, experience overall and so forth, I’ll be making sure that I order to have a full month supply (or more) on-hand at all times to ensure that any delays are not going to be a factor in my enjoyment.  And, if you’re thinking about placing an order and also live here in Canada, I’d recommend that you consider the same planning.  When you place your order for your starter pack, be sure to include at least an extra 25 cartridges in your order.  The start pack ships with 25, but I ordered 50 to ensure that I have a good starting supply.  Once I know that Blu is the right product for me, I’ll be ordering to keep 50 or more cartridges on-hand, and at least two spare atomizers and two spare batteries.  Again, the starter pack come with 1 spare of each, so I’ll be likely to order 1 of each to ensure that I am fully covered.

I feel that this new company will quickly have to learn how to meet the shipping demands, and hope that the owners are near resolving this matter already.  From the sounds of things, they’ll have the volume to support a better delivery system, and will need to spend some money to ensure that they will continue to make money at all.  After all, smokers are a hard lot to please, and if we run out of our e-cigs and have to go elsewhere, we’re not that likely to come back.  But I have faith… they seem to be smart in their product offering, their pricing and their marketing… so I’m hopeful that they are also smart about growing up and meeting the demand they’ve created.  My order should be shipping later this week, so it’s getting closer, and I’m looking forward to my kit arriving.  And from what I’ve read, it should be worth the wait.  Of course… we won’t know that for sure until I get the kit, but stay tuned as things unfold here, and you’ll know the results as soon as it happens.

Cheers!

Consider if you will some numbers.

Assume that each ‘smoker’ in these numbers consumes 15 cigarettes per day.
Assume that each e-cig cartridge delivers on the specs and replaces 15 cigarettes per cartridge.

if 1 smoker is 15 butts per day; that is 5,475 butts per year per smoker.

if there are 47 million smokers in the US alone (2006 stats); they generate 257 BILLION butts per year. 

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