Smoke Maven — Local services in Independence

Started shopping here because shipping vape supplies online become cumbersome, instead of dealing with that, decided to support a local store. Was spending money here regularly and sending friends here too. Last month or so they're constantly out of stock of our preferred pods. Constantly. We have been buying them regularly here and call ahead to check if they get shipments because they seem to perpetually not order enough supply. Found them at other businesses locally though.

Today my husband called ahead to see if they have pods in stock, "yes we have a few." No mention of rationing... Great, drive to the store. Going to ask for probably 2 - two packs, my regular purchase. These pods come foil wrapped 2 pods to a pack. They say I can only buy one. Ok fine, so my trip isn't wasted, one pack is fine. To my surprise... Clerk lady grabs scissors and cuts the foil two pack in half. " We can only sell one pod, there's a shortage." I ask please double check with whomever is allegedly in charge. Yes, the authority figure confirms, "there's a shortage!! One pod per person per day!!"

I told them to keep it and went online and immediately ordered 10 packs (20pods) with no problem, cheap shipping, got a few disposables somewhere else on my way home. They can't keep supply ordered and made up a whole shortage to cover for their poor management that's been going on for weeks. Good...

EDIT 09/2024 -- Things seemed to have changed! New management, lots of problems solved, much better staff. Only issue now seems to be they don't have a lot of stock. I tend to go elsewhere and only stop here only when I'm nearby. VM is still a questionable business though.

Never seem to have popular items in stock, will scream at employees in front of customers, has a manager who wont do her job and pawns off her responsibilities to associates. HR will not accept feedback, and the second an employee gets frustrated at any number of problems HR and MANAGEMENT created, they turn their back on that employee. After working here, I do not trust a SINGLE thing that they sell. Watch the weight of the Kratom bags, some are wildly off, the bulk gummies come in ziplock bags with maybe a flavor, strength and rarely a batch number. Items from warehouse are often open, a few dozen items were used (talking full mods, coils etc) and its up to the employees to do a final 'quality' check, disposables and juices come ALREADY EXPIRED and they know it, some devices they send to stores are discontinued so good lock trying to get coils/pods for them. Maybe other locations are better, but until the manager here gets off her high horse, actually gets a drive to do work, and gets anger management, things wont change, especially when the regional manager is...

I would rather withdrawal from nicotine than ever step foot in this business again. We switched here during their grand opening because their prices were cheaper than Aqueous. That is not the case now. They don't even offer real customer points anymore. You get to buy a cheap mass produced Vapor Maven hat with your reward points instead of the juice or price off purchase. Big F U to the loyal customers. We don't want a hat or shirt to promote you for free, we want to be valued and get a deal for spending money continuously at your business. The customer service over the last year has been atrocious. You can walk into the empty store with 5 employees sitting around vaping, and no one acknowledges you. They just sit around cussing and talking about people, even other customers that like just left, and act like your presence is a burden. To make it worse, they NEVER have coils in stock or conveniently stop stocking them so that you need to buy something totally new. They say something will be on the truck, never offer to let you know when the truck is there, and then the coils are never on the truck. This place did not use to be like this. Again, the last year has been ridiculous. I will be back to Aqueous. Vapor Maven isn't even a better deal, now that all your points get you is "cool merch."...