After The Boom Of The E-cigarette Industry Came To An End, The Industry Began To Learn To Be An Enterprise.

In 2025, the e-cigarette industry is experiencing a subtle turning point:
The boom has passed, the dividends have dissipated, and all the "shortcuts" have failed. But at the same time, a more genuine and mature phenomenon is emerging.
After the noisy frenzy, e-cigarette practitioners have finally begun to learn - to run a business.
From "making quick money" to "building a system", the awakening of e-cigarette practitioners is taking place.
1. The tide has receded, and those who are left are finally seeing clearly what happened in the past few years. The growth rate of the e-cigarette industry was almost "unnatural" in the past few years.
From the technological dividends in 2018, the capital dividends in 2020, to the overseas dividends in 2023,
each wave of boom led practitioners to mistakenly believe:
"The market is too big, as long as you catch the trend, you can win."
But when policies were implemented, capital tightened, and overseas regulations became stricter,
the industry began to face the stark reality:
The same as making e-cigarettes, some make money through systems, while others survive by luck.
The dividend era was an era of screening people.
It pushed "doers" onto the stage, but also exposed who lacked systems and bottom-level management capabilities.
2. A shift in industry mindset: From "making money" to "doing long-term" The most worthy reflection of the e-cigarette industry is not the product, but the mindset.
In the past few years, this industry was too easy to make money, to the extent that many people forgot:
The end goal of an enterprise is not profit, but the sustainability of survival.
In the current situation of high policy pressure, saturated channels, and increasing uncertainty in overseas expansion,
the e-cigarette industry was forced to think calmly for the first time - "How big do we want to be?"
"How long can we sustain?"
"What else can we leave behind besides selling?"
When more and more bosses began to pay attention to team building, brand accumulation, system capabilities, and compliance strategies,
the true maturity of the e-cigarette industry has just begun.
3. Starting from "system building" What does "learning to do business" mean?
It's not more effort or more diligence, but more systematization.
01 Organizational system: From "boss's personal ability" to team collaboration ability In the past, a common phenomenon in e-cigarette enterprises was: the boss was too strong, the organization was too weak.
The boss would select products, negotiate channels, understand supply chains, and everything relied on himself.
But when the enterprise grew, all problems would become "people" problems -
Slow decision-making, chaotic communication, execution relying on shouting.
Learning to do business means turning abilities into systems, experience into mechanisms.
To make the enterprise have a "self-operating" structure, rather than relying on one person to "stay up all night and hold up".
02 Product system: From "best-selling logic" to "user logic" In the dividend era, products were driven by "easy sales",
Now products need to be driven by "usability" and "being trusted".
Brands need to learn to understand users' emotions, culture, and habits,
No longer focusing on sales volume, but on "reorder rate, satisfaction, and compliance life cycle". 03 Brand system: From "advertising" to "penetration" When advertising was banned, traffic channels were closed,
The brand's communication methods must shift to non-marketing. This means the enterprise needs to understand content, communities, and narrative systems.
Users are not attracted, but understood.
04 Compliance system: From "avoiding regulation" to "coexisting with rules" In the past few years, many enterprises regarded "regulation" as a threat,
But now, compliance is precisely a part of competitiveness.
Whoever can first meet the standards can survive the longest.
4. From fast to steady, from making money to doing: The second growth curve of the e-cigarette industry The first half of the e-cigarette industry was "run fast",
The second half is "live long".
This means that the real competition is no longer price wars, distribution wars, but system wars.
Whoever can build brand trust, supply chain resilience, organizational efficiency,

Can survive the cycle.
Now, more and more e-cigarette enterprises are starting to do three things:
Internal cultivation: Do brand standardization, organization digitization. Outward expansion: Build a global brand and provide localized services. Upward growth: Move from "producing products" to "creating platforms and ecosystems". This is not idealism; it is the only answer to survival.
The dividends are addictive, but the system is what keeps people alive.
V. Future: The "Long Value Era" of the e-cigarette industry When short-term opportunities fade away, long-term value has room to grow.
The so-called "Long Value Era" refers to enterprises beginning to replace short-term bursts with systematic growth:
Replace channel dividends with brand assets; replace price wars with technological barriers; replace individual heroes with organizational capabilities.
In the future, e-cigarette enterprises must be more like true "enterprises" -
with governance, culture, standards, and patience.
This is precisely the current industry transformation: From "doing business" to "doing enterprises";
From "fashion logic" to "operating logic".
Conclusion: The ebb of dividends is not an end, but the rebirth of the industry.
It drives those who only chase trends out of the game,
and allows those who are willing to settle down to do things to stay.
As the e-cigarette industry has reached this point, it no longer needs "explosive power", but "constructive power". The true future does not belong to the fastest runner,
but to those who can gradually build systems, create brands, and generate value over the course of the cycle.