Anne Baye Ericksen

For generations, cigarettes benefited from the textbook definition of brand loyalty. Smokers rarely switched from one brand to another once they landed on a product they preferred. The smokeless tobacco segment also enjoyed a similar level of customer consistency. What’s more, smokers and smokeless tobacco users traditionally represented two distinct customer demographics. Although brand loyalty…

Every year, the tobacco category gets hit with some kind of twist that convenience store owners and operators must accommodate. Five years ago, it was the deeming rule from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that lumped electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) and other tobacco products (OTPs) in with cigarettes. At the end of 2019,…

Electronic cigarettes first arrived on the U.S. retail scene in 2006, and since then, this other tobacco product (OTP) segment has gained a substantial customer base within the convenience store channel. The addition of open-system vaporizers and pod devices further expanded inventory selection of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS). Early on, ENDS of all types…

Back in 2009, the federal government issued its first flavored tobacco restriction by prohibiting the sale of flavored combustible cigarettes other than menthol and traditional tobacco. Since then, cities, states and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) all have enacted bans of varying degrees on flavored tobacco. Why are lawmakers so determined to pull these…

Altria, Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco (BAT) earned their moniker as Big Tobacco by producing the most popular cigarette brands for decades. Indeed, Altria’s Marlboro has held tight to its reign as the top-selling brand for years, even as the smoking population shrinks. Per Statista in November 2020, Marlboro was the most smoked…

What exactly are cigarillos? They’re not as large as cigars or even petite cigars, but not as small as cigarettes. They burn drier than cigars, but taste closer to cigars than cigarettes. Indeed, this other tobacco product (OTP) segment definitely commands its own identity and is a product family that fares well with convenience store…

Way before there were mass-produced cigarettes, there were pipes. Indeed, since the early days of tobacco harvesting and curing, people packed pipes with tobacco, as captured in iconic images of farmers with corncob pipes, sea captains clenching pipes, and aristocrats enjoying a pipe with an after-dinner drink. Over the years, the mystique of pipe smoking…

For non-smokers, the mention of roll-your-own (RYO) tobacco very well could conjure up images of cowboys rolling old-fashioned cigarettes beside a campfire. But that’s Hollywood. In real life, RYO tobacco sales still roll in for convenience stores because it continues to appeal to young and old, male and female. Technically, RYO is loose cigarette tobacco…

ENDS stands for electronic nicotine delivery systems. According to the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association (CASAA), the first e-cigarette-like product was submitted to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1998 for consideration as a drug delivery device. Despite the agency denying the application, it wasn’t long before e-cigarettes and other electronic nicotine delivery…

They’re both classified as modern oral nicotine products. They’re both tobacco-free. They’re both odorless and spitless. But for convenience store tobacco category managers, there are some key differences to nicotine pouches and nicotine lozenges. Nicotine Pouches Nicotine pouches hold nicotine that has been extracted from tobacco plants and crystallized into salts. The pouch measures about…