E-cigarettes lights up a growing market

Among the forgeries, a manufacturer of electronic cigarette lights up a growing market Great Awakening Steve Milin occurred one day in September 2008. Life-long chain smoker whose parents died of smoking-related causes, Mr. Milin looked at the trash and cigarette butts found four packs of cigarettes. What shook him was the math: Purchase five packs a day, plus medications, smoking-related problems cost him $ 30,000 a year. "I knew that I die not only from my smoking," he says, "I was actually paying to kill yourself." Eight months later, Mr. Milin started Vapor4Life LLC Northbrook-based distributor of "personal vaporizer e-cigarettes." He was initially put in $ 30,000 from savings, but more than three times their investment, as he explored the suppliers in China and the U.S., sales at its site is now up to $ 10 million a year, he says, and employment jumped to 40 with four. The company is profitable, he adds. E-cigarettes were invented by a pharmacist in China in 2003 as a tobacco-free alternative to conventional cigarettes. The device consists of a thin metal cartridge contains a battery. Inside the coil heater "cartomizer" approved by the FDA turns a liquid into a vapor. Users or "vapers" inhaling aromatic vapors as if they were smoking, but there is no smoke, no carcinogens. There is nicotine in the juices, however, at levels set by the user. The electronic cigarette market is highly competitive. So many imitators popped up was that Mr. Milin was forced to fend off imitation flattery, selling their product as the original pair of the King. What distinguishes one from another, Mr. Milin his well-stocked website, where you can buy dozens of flavors of vapers toffee, pancake, and Margaret with menthol, cherry and vanilla, mocha ice. Starter Kits, which include battery, charger, case and electronic cigarettes, cost $ 49.95 to $ 105. He said that he had bought and tried 600 different products before they come up with their device, which, unlike others, did not require a bottle of juice or a backup battery. It uses the same battery manufacturers like Apple, in China, where he spent six months in the modernization of its production last year. Mr. Milin, 53, a graduate of Agricultural Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has sold almost all his career, jewelry, high quality audio equipment, mortgages, and stocks. While still a teenager, he says, he even helped to sell the Florida swamps in the boiler room, which became the inspiration for David Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross." Bill Godshaw, executive director of tobacco smoke in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, welcomed the product, Mr. Milin. "The anti-smoking activist, I have worked to ban smoking for 25 years, and the problem is that the core of the 33 million daily smokers in need of help," he says. "E-cigarettes are a good substitute." Mr. Milin switched to full-time vaping a few weeks after his "trash now." His last two Kool cigarettes are now framed in his office.