FEATURES
VAPING ENTREPRENEUR:
PACIFIC SMOKE INTERNATIONAL
In its five-year span, Pacific Smoke International has become
Canada’s largest distributor of vaping products and a master
distributor to some of the world’s most recognized e-liquid brands.
Sam Tam is the Business Development and Sales Director for PSI,
and this edition’s Vaping Entrepreneur. He also serves as the
Government Relations Chair for advocacy group the Canadian
Vaping Association.
He describes the beginning of PSI as a “serendipitous encounter;
luck, or some would say fate. Some of us were smokers and it
seemed rather exciting when we first encountered an e-cigarette.
The novelty of having a device that would deliver almost the same
experience without all the junk in a traditional cigarette was just
captivating.”
This vision goes back to 2013, at a time when the market looked
remarkably different. Compared to now, Sam remembers it as a
time when devices were comparatively expensive, poor quality and
generally not working very well. A shift towards open mod vape
systems changed things. Cautious at first, Sam and the team gave
the then-popular eGo device a shot and knew they had stumbled
onto a business idea.
“That’s when we decided that we would use our decades of past
business experience to become a distributor. The only problem
was, there were only four stores to distribute to, two of which
wouldn’t buy from us at the time.”
Unfazed, PSI knew this would soon take off.
“We’ve never met a majority of smokers who weren’t looking for
a better alternative to smoking. So, we thought, let’s stick to this
and see where it takes us. It paid off.”
Every company worth its salt in the competitive and busy vaping
industry has to prove the uniqueness of its credentials. Sam says
PSI’s starts with experience.
“We didn’t have to learn from scratch. Business fundamentals,
principles, and practices are generally the same, so it didn’t take
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us long to understand how to help the vape industry do better.
When we first started, vape hardware manufacturers didn’t even
utilize barcodes on their products. They discerned the colours of
various models by having someone check the colour selection box
manually, with a marker! We brought the barcode idea up to them
and they thought it was a great idea.”
What started with superior experience, was perfected by a customer
focus. PSI have seen customers’ expectations change over the
years and continue to adapt.
“OUR CLIENTS ARE BECOMING MUCH MORE
SOPHISTICATED IN HOW THEY RUN AND
OPERATE THEIR STORES. WE OFFER SERVICES
THAT THEY WANT AND WE TRY TO ‘WALK
A MILE IN THEIR SHOES’ – THIS HELPS US
UNDERSTAND AND HELP WITH
ANY DIFFICULTIES THEY FACE.”
Despite seismic progress in recent weeks, such as the official
recognition of vaping by the government and Health Canada’s
acknowledgment of e-cigarettes as harm reduction, challenges
remain for distributors. Sam describes the market size as a
prominent example.
“Our entire population in Canada is equivalent to that of some
states in the US. This makes it difficult for distribution in Canada,
especially with all the added transportation costs required for shipping
things throughout the country. The industry is also quite new,
most independent retail stores and distributors don’t have the
business technologies and mature business processes in place,
which can often mean distributors will have unique processes to