Li Jun is the founder of a large e-cigarette manufacturing company in Shenzhen. It started in Shajing Town, under the jurisdiction of Bao'an District, and slowly grew bigger and bigger.
Data shows that Shajing, Songgang, Fuyong and other places have become the world’s e-cigarette industry bases, producing more than 90% of e-cigarettes for the global market.
On November 1, the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration pointed out that at present, the domestic e-cigarette market is chaotic, product quality is uneven, and a large number of products have serious quality and safety issues such as unsafe ingredient additions, e-liquid leakage, and inferior batteries. Hidden danger. In particular, in order to increase the attractiveness of their products, some e-cigarette companies add various additives at will to change the taste and color of e-cigarettes, causing serious harm to the physical and mental health of consumers, especially minors.
Nowadays, various regulatory policies on e-cigarettes are emerging frequently, and e-cigarettes have once again reached the crossroads of history.
The golden age of e-cigarette towns
According to the World Health Organization, e-cigarettes are an electronic nicotine delivery system that delivers aerosols through heated solutions for users to inhale. The solution is generally composed of nicotine, propylene glycol, glycerin and odorants. In 2003, Chinese pharmacist Han Li invented the world's first electronic cigarette and introduced it to the market, the once-popular "Ruyan".
Due to the unverified "smoking cessation effect" and safety, "Ruyan" has been blocked and questioned by many governments, tobacco groups and media public opinion. In 2013, after successive years of losses, "Ruyan" "Cigarette" was acquired by a foreign tobacco group.
At the same time as "Ruyan" was developing rapidly, a group of entrepreneurs sensed the business opportunities of e-cigarettes and invested in and built factories in Shenzhen to produce e-cigarettes. After seeing "Ruyan" hit a wall in the domestic market, these entrepreneurs chose to export all their products.
Gradually, Shajing, Songgang, Fuyong and other places under the jurisdiction of Shenzhen Baoan District have become the world's e-cigarette industry base, producing more than 90% of e-cigarettes for the global market. According to statistics from the E-cigarette Industry Committee of the China Electronics Chamber of Commerce as of August last year, Shenzhen accounted for 86.7 of the 678 domestic e-cigarette manufacturers.
Shajing is the birthplace of this world factory. According to industry insiders, there are at least four to five hundred e-cigarette OEMs gathered in this small town with a total area of ??35.79 square kilometers and a total population of about 900,000. If you walk into any industrial park, you are likely to find a small foundry in a factory building.
Zhu Xiaochun is one of the founders of the earliest e-cigarette OEMs in Shenzhen.
"Around 2007, I brought a group of people out and started making e-cigarettes in manholes." Zhu Xiaochun felt that Ruyan's "disposal" was due to excessive promotion of the "smoking cessation effect" of e-cigarettes. Hit a wall in the market. "In fact, in the world, until today, no one says that e-cigarettes are a smoking cessation product, they are just substitutes."
In 2008, Li Jun also entered the e-cigarette industry.
Li Jun said that at that time, there was no distinction between brand owners and OEMs in the industry, and the e-cigarette factories in the entire industry "can be counted on two hands." “They are all very small, with only 20 or 30 people in one company.” His old employer was very happy to be able to produce 50 sets of e-cigarettes a day.
"The e-cigarettes sold at that time either smoked or ignited. So what? It doesn't matter, it's profitable."
I worked as a structural engineer for two months. Afterwards, producing e-cigarettes was very simple for Li Jun, "I can make it directly."
It was three years later that he established his own e-cigarette factory. According to Li Jun, the first hot spot in the industry had arrived at that time. Spending several thousand yuan to register a business license and then spending 29,800 yuan to register a platform on an e-commerce website were almost the entire cost of investing in setting up a factory. As long as you post product pictures online, overseas customers will place orders. The more pictures you post, the higher your exposure will be. Once the customer places an order, work can start, and the component supplier's payment can be settled monthly, "just swipe your face."
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"Just rent a ridiculous factory and work in a private house. It has one bedroom and one living room, the monthly rent is 700 yuan, and you can hire four or five people to start production. ”
The production line in the electronic cigarette factory. Workers are injecting e-cigarette oil.
Li Jun’s first factory was located on the second floor of a car wash. He spent 1,500 I rented the place for RMB. Apart from the founding team, the factory does not need to hire any other workers. When everyone is overwhelmed, they will send some components to housewives or store owners in nearby residential areas. “They help me put simple things together.” After everything is installed, you can take it over in the morning and bring it back in the evening. You will be charged by the piece. When it arrives at our place, you only need to solder the wires and then ship the product. "This is the lowest-cost way to start a business."
In addition to cheap rent and labor costs, in Li Jun's view, Shajing, Fuyong, Songgang and other places under the jurisdiction of Shenzhen Bao'an District can become electronic The cigarette production base is a result of the times.
“Whether it is a mobile phone, a drone, or an electronic cigarette, all electronic products can be made in Shenzhen. "Li Jun said that Shenzhen has a complete electronics industry supply chain. At that time, Shenzhen began to move processing manufacturing and polluting industries such as electroplating and fuel injection to the suburbs, and Shajing and other places took over these industries.
“At the right time and place, making e-cigarettes is like picking up money. ”
A steady stream of overseas orders are coming in. Customers place orders online and transfer money directly to the company’s account. No one will ask to see where the e-cigarettes they inhale are produced. Li Jun can no longer remember where his first order came from. He only remembers that he earned 500,000 yuan in three months of the first year.
The four years from 2013 to 2016 were the best for business. , customers need to pay the full price before picking up the goods, and the factory can ship the goods half a year later. "Every day when the door opens at 11 o'clock, there are more than 70 people queuing up at 10 o'clock, but I only have enough goods to sell to 30 people, and all of them are exported. "Li Jun said.
That was an era when all OEMs were very "strong". "You want to buy e-cigarettes at that time, right? Wait!" Li Jun said, "You can sell as many products as you want. Go out and buy whatever you like. ”
Going out of private houses
After accumulating initial capital, the first generation of entrepreneurs in the e-cigarette OEM industry began to go out of private houses one after another, and the small workshop-style production method was gradually adopted. Replaced by the assembly line of a modern production workshop
Zhu Xiaochun’s company is now one of the largest e-cigarette manufacturers in China, with 1,700 employees, 3 production bases, and a production area of ??more than 20,000 square meters. has obtained the certification of the International Quality Management System and the International Pharmaceutical Production Management Standards; Li Jun’s factory moves to a larger location almost every year, from 500 square meters to 1,800 square meters, and then to 6,000 square meters. 2015 was his latest move to an ordinary factory. At that time, it was changed to a dust-free workshop.
At the entrance of an industrial park in Shajing Street, Baoan District, Shenzhen, a dozen labor agencies looked at every unfamiliar face that passed by. I heard that someone was looking for e-cigarettes. For a job in the factory, an intermediary immediately handed over a recruitment notice, "Working environment: Changbai shift, air-conditioned workshop, sitting work; monthly salary: about 5,000 yuan to 6,800 yuan."
"That's it." My back hurts after sitting for a long time. "In an electronic cigarette production workshop in the industrial park, Wang Tao (pseudonym) was wearing white striped overalls, a work cap and a disposable mask. He wore a rubber sleeve on each of his two index fingers and was refilling the cartridge on the electronic cigarette production line. And assembling the nozzle shell.
In a large e-cigarette factory, the assembled e-cigarette is placed in the middle of the work station, and he sucks 1.3ml with a syringe. For e-liquid, insert the beveled tip of the needle close to the wall of the e-liquid cup into the oil-absorbing cotton inside, and slowly push the piston downward; after filling the oil, align the nozzle shell and install it into the heating base, and the nozzle and e-liquid cup need to be aligned in the middle. One of the glass tubes is aligned and finally calibrated with an instrument.
This is a delicate job that requires a high degree of concentration. "There should be no air bubbles in the syringe when sucking oil; the hole in the suction nozzle shell should be aligned with the glass tube. If it is offset, it will cause heavy suction." Workstation operation The "Precautions" column in the instruction book reads.
Wang Tao is from Guangxi and is 21 years old. About half a month ago, I was introduced by a friend to work as a part-time worker in the current electronic cigarette factory, earning 20 yuan per hour.
Under the guidance of the "old worker", it took him two days to basically master the entire process of "filling the cartridge with oil and assembling the nozzle shell". Now, every 30 seconds or so, he Will pick up a new cigarette cup and go back and forth more than a thousand times a day.
"He hasn't gotten used to it yet. We've all gotten used to it and don't feel the pain anymore." Sister Chen said jokingly when Wang Tao complained about "back pain." Sister Chen is from Meizhou. She came to the e-cigarette OEM factory three years ago and is responsible for the same job as Wang Tao. "The monthly salary is four to five thousand."
"This batch of orders is not expected to be completed on time." Jiang Xiong said , due to the unstable supply of materials, the production capacity of the foundry is also unstable. Sometimes it can produce 60,000 pieces a day, and sometimes it can only produce 20,000 pieces. If the material supply of one brand is not in place, workers will produce another brand first. of electronic cigarettes.
"The era of warlord rule"
"There are still a lot of small workshops. If I take you to look for them, you can easily find 70 or 80 of them." Tong Dong said that such factories do not control raw materials, and they will also use defective batteries eliminated by battery manufacturers.
A cheap e-liquid that was previously on sale. Industry insiders said that after smoking this kind of e-liquid, you will feel "thirst, nauseous, and your tongue will feel tingling."
Take some disposable e-cigarettes on the e-commerce platform that are "9 yuan and 9 free shipping" as an example. According to him, this type of cheap e-cigarettes "just cut corners in all aspects." "We choose the worst materials for both tobacco and tobacco rods," and the production cost is only about four yuan. Specifically, the average e-cigarette battery costs more than three yuan, but the cost of low-quality batteries is only about 80 cents; e-liquid from large manufacturers costs more than 300 yuan per kilogram. Use e-liquid that costs more than 30 yuan per kilogram.”
“I don’t dare to use it.” Tong Dong said that the manufacturers of this type of e-liquid are not even small workshops, they can only be considered black workshops. But some people who want to smoke e-cigarettes, but cannot afford one that costs tens or hundreds of dollars, may choose cheap e-cigarettes with low-quality e-cigarettes added. "It can only be said that it also produces smoke, but after smoking it, you will feel thirsty, nauseous, and your tongue will feel tingling." "Sellers will also post e-liquid test reports online, but in fact they are all purchased."
“We can only arrange more employees to rub alcohol on the parts and then package them immediately.” Yu Qiang feels that this can make up for the impact of the “poor environment”.
Yu Qiang said that his factory only does OEM, and suppliers of raw materials such as e-liquid, batteries and cigarette rods are generally selected jointly by him and his customers. "There are good and bad materials. It depends on what price you want. For example, copper, there are 'environmentally friendly (referring to food-grade material) copper' and junk copper. You will definitely not get good things at low prices."
A certain In a large electronic cigarette factory, a batch of completed cigarette cartridges are displayed.
"Because there are no standards, the quality of products of various brands on the market is uneven. Inaccurate labeling of nicotine, excessive benzene series, and excessive aldehydes and ketones are the three most common problems." Wu Jie said , some e-cigarettes also have problems such as excessive heavy metals and excessive nitrosamines. “One of the coffee-flavored e-cigarettes of a certain brand exceeds the formaldehyde limit dozens of times. Formaldehyde is a strong carcinogen and has a great impact on lung function after being inhaled into the lungs. "
"We have also tested fake products that imitate our products, and the quality of the e-liquid is a mess." Wu Jie said that the counterfeit products have almost all the above problems, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons have been detected. "This is. The most carcinogenic among Class A carcinogens."
"This is true not only for e-cigarettes, but also for food and medicine. The principle of adding an ingredient is to 'have a positive effect, not have excessive risks, and at the same time have the possibility of being introduced into the body', and the above ingredients are "It doesn't comply with this principle," Wu Jie said. Some small manufacturers are "ignorant and fearless and add everything." They will publicize it if it will bring gimmicks to product marketing, and they will secretly add if it doesn't sound like gimmicks but will change the taste of e-liquid. .
"Some small factories are very disorganized." Peng Hui (pseudonym), the head of R&D and supply chain of an e-cigarette brand, believes that under normal circumstances, when choosing a foundry, the brand should check whether the factory has Without ISO certification, GMP certification and other qualifications, raw material suppliers should be inspected to see if they have the qualifications to provide food-grade materials. However, in the past two years, he visited many foundries in Shajing and other places and found that "only two or three out of ten have the above qualifications" and that many factories "basically have no control over raw materials."
“In the e-cigarette industry, many things can be controlled or ignored by a company. For example, for a product, you can use a hundred people to control all aspects including the size of the parts, but You can also produce this product with just one person checking it," Peng Hui said.
Looking forward to the implementation of national standards
Zhu Xinfang said that in the absence of national standards for e-cigarettes, the market supervision department has no basis for supervision and law enforcement and cannot conduct quality supervision on them. "Even if we go to investigate, we can only check whether the manufacturer has a business license or whether it has used other product trademarks, and then enforce the law according to other laws."
People familiar with the matter said that the "National Standard for E-cigarettes" includes " Two documents, "E-Cigarette" and "Determination of E-Cigarette Liquid, Nicotine, Propylene Glycol and Glycerol, and Gas Chromatography", respectively put forward specifications for e-cigarette smoking accessories and e-liquid. According to the official website of the National Standardization Administration Committee, the competent department of the "national standard" is the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, and the Zhengzhou Tobacco Research Institute of China Tobacco Corporation, China Tobacco Standardization Institute and other institutions designated by it are responsible for drafting. The project was established in 2017. The project cycle is two years.
For e-cigarette practitioners, once the national standard is implemented, it means that the industry has been officially recognized by the country, instead of living in the shadow of legality after "Ruyan" was dumped.
"If there are no national standards and no legal basis to supervise practitioners in this industry, something will happen sooner or later." said Ou Junbiao, chairman of the e-cigarette industry committee of the China Electronics Chamber of Commerce. The E-cigarette Industry Committee was established in 2017, and the output of member companies accounts for more than 90% of the e-cigarette export share. In the first year of its establishment, the association formulated the "General Specifications for Electronic Cigarette Apparatus Products" and the "Specifications for Electronic Cigarette Atomization Liquids."
"But later I found that what we did was of no use, because what we set was a group standard without legal support." What made him even more disappointed was that during the formulation process of the national standard, the Electronic Cigarette Industry Committee and its Many e-cigarette companies represented were unable to participate. "No one cares about us! Even if we are asked to make suggestions."
In addition, some people in the industry also criticize the specific provisions of the draft national standard. "There are many problems in it." An unnamed person in charge of e-liquid research and development of a certain brand said that the draft lists 119 types of e-liquid additives that are allowed to be used, but it does not explain why these 119 substances can be added, and there are no regulations. What kind of products are considered unqualified and how to deal with unqualified products.
"For the industry, national standards are only part of it. Before that, the regulatory authorities and access standards should be determined first." The person in charge believes that access thresholds are as important as national standards. "I hope This threshold can be reached by medium-sized enterprises with hard work, and enterprises that are unwilling to improve will naturally be eliminated."
Li Jun's company office is currently on the sixth floor of a building. Not long ago, he I rented the first and second floors and wanted to continue to expand the company. But now he doesn't dare. “If the national standard is not released, there will always be a knife hanging over our heads. We don’t know when to cut it off. This is the most uncomfortable time.
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Due to the tightening of e-cigarette regulatory policies in the United States, Li Jun's production has been affected, with only one order in October.
"Confused. Confused, very confused now. "He felt trapped in the house. "There was sunshine outside the window, but I couldn't fly out, so I could only lie on the glass. ”