Vape shops buy from a dozen suppliers on a dozen schedules. One mistake gets stock seized.

This is how we'd set up inventory for a vape shop. It's a playbook, not a report on a client.

More rules than almost any store

A vape shop carries hundreds of small items. Devices, pods, coils and e-liquid in every flavour and nicotine strength. They come from different distributors, and each one has its own rep, order day, minimum and shipping time.

Then there are the rules. Every vaping product sold in Canada needs an excise stamp, and nicotine can't go above 20 mg/mL. Some provinces ban most flavours. Health Canada checks, and the numbers aren't kind to specialty shops.

43%

of the 546 specialty vape shops Health Canada inspected in 2024 to 2025 broke federal rules

235

of those shops had products seized

1%

non-compliance at convenience stores in the same period

One person keeps it straight

Usually it's the owner, or the employee who's been there longest. When they're off sick, orders get missed. On a long day, the same order goes out twice, or a box without stamps goes straight onto the shelf. Nobody's careless. People make mistakes, and in this business a mistake can mean an inspector taking product off your wall.

What we heard in the field

We've been talking to vape shop owners while we build this, and what they tell us matches the numbers. One person knows every distributor's order day and minimum. Checking what comes in falls on that same person. When they're out, orders slip and the checks get skipped.

Why a generic app won't fix it

Retail inventory apps are built for a shop that sells T-shirts. They don't know what an excise stamp is. They don't know one distributor sells by the case and another by the bottle, or that a flavour you can sell here is banned one province over. So they can't catch the mistake that costs you the most.

To work for a vape shop, the system has to know your distributors, your province's rules and how your counter actually runs. That takes building it for you.

What we'd build instead

• Keeps a profile for every distributor with its order day, minimum, lead time and rep.
• Watches sales by flavour and strength and spots what's running low before it's gone.
• Drafts each order on the right day and checks what's already on the way, so nothing gets ordered twice.
• Checks each delivery against the order and flags anything missing a stamp, over the nicotine limit or not allowed in your province before it reaches the shelf.
• Keeps one calendar of order days and deliveries the whole team can see.

A person still approves every order. But the knowledge lives in the system instead of one person, so a sick day doesn't stop anything.

Start small

Start with your best-selling e-liquids. Give each one a reorder point and put every distributor's order day on one calendar. Add devices and coils once that runs on its own.

Sitting on a pile like this?

Walk us through it on a free 30-minute call. You'll leave knowing what can be automated, even if you never hire us.