IVG Interview with Faheem Suleman, Sales Director – April 2021

We interviewed Faheem Suleman to find out more about IVG, how they handled 2020, and I couldn’t help but ask: what does he vape every day?

Since 2016, IVG—also known as I Vape Great—serve over 100 countries, earned more than 50 awards and helped millions of people to quit smoking. IVG was first British brand to win an award in Canada, South Korea, and many other countries. If you’re a vaper, you would (or should) know IVG, and you must have heard about Summer Blaze.

IVG has been dominant on the vaping market for the last several years.

IVG products can be found in almost every vape shop around the United Kingdom and many other countries across Europe and the rest of the world. If you attend vape conventions, you will for sure see IVG at every convention around the globe too, but what is their secret?

IVG Interview with Faheem Suleman

Would you tell us a bit about yourself?

Thank you for having me here. I am one of the directors at IVG. I am a passionate vaper myself, which makes me love my work even more…

I head the sales side of IVG business, I love travelling, and in the last 3-4 years I have travelled all around the globe multiple times for IVG and met some fantastic people from many different countries, cultures—it’s been an amazing journey to be honest.

We have received so much love from people around globe and we appreciate every bit of it at IVG so therefore we always put our end consumers first before anything else at IVG. We exist because our customers love our products—it’s as simple as that—otherwise we wouldn’t be here today.

IVG went through several name changes, I LOVE VG, I HEART VG, I CLOUD VG… What was the reason for that?

We started a manufacturing company called Acme Labs back in 2016, and at the point, our business was focused on multiple brands. We had several brands and we manufactured several other brands for other companies as well, which we still do.

I LOVE VG, now IVG, was just one of the many in-house brands we owned at the time for us in 2016, but after a couple of months, we received an immense amount of love from vapers and we decided to focus mainly on IVG, which was a great decision in my opinion and it has worked really well for sure.

Since we decided to invest heavily in IVG and saw potential in focusing on one brand, we wanted to mature the brand and ensure it’s unique and doesn’t clash with any other brand. In short, we didn’t want to be associated with another brand with a similar name and at the same have mature branding to it. In the end, we decided to keep it simple—IVG—”I VAPE GREAT,” which eventually  became a brand on global level.

What is the secret of IVG’s success?

First of all, credit goes to all the IVG team. We have some fantastic people working hard every day to ensure IVG’s success. I think IVG has been a very innovative brand; we have always strived to keep the brand as fresh as possible by adapting to the ever-changing vape industry. We respond fairly quickly to our customers’ demand as well.

We aim to be one step ahead, and again we’re always adjusting to the market needs. Whichever country we go to, we make sure that our product is a good fit, whether it’s packaging, the compliance, flavours—we adapt to every country.

Obviously, not every single country has the same taste buds, so we re-adapt for that. For example, Italy: they vape lots of tobacco flavours. So, our mixologists team made a tobacco range especially for the Italian market.

Another reason why IVG is so successful is because we have a very big marketing budget and a very big team. Compared to other companies in the vape industry, not many other brands are traveling to as many shows as we do, or they don’t have as many employees.

What is your goal as a company?

Our main goal is to keep our customers happy and satisfied with our products and service, also to help switch as many people as possible from smoking habit.

We’ve done a lot of quit smoking campaigns around globe. At the moment, we’re running a campaign on our website where smokers can get our pod system for free if they wish to switch to help them quit smoking. We also have done several campaigns for Stoptober.

You have a massive selection, which is not usual in the industry. Is there a particular reason for that? Have you ever experienced confusion from the customer’s side?

We need to cater to many vapers. We need to offer a variety of flavours for the different vapers out there.

All our flavours sell well for us, although obviously some sell more than others, but we want to provide products for every taste. Desserts, menthols, sweets, fruits… we do everything.

Summer Blaze is one of our best sellers. Why do you think it’s so popular?

Summer Blaze was our first flavour ever launched by IVG. Since day one, it’s been popular and has been growing every year. It’s a very complex mix with lots of different types of berries, plus lemonade.

I think there aren’t many flavours like that on the market. It was made with love, and we spent a long time developing this flavour!

It’s available in a 50/50, nic salt and shortfill version and it’s popular in all 3 variants. It’s our number one seller just ahead of another iconic flavour, Riberry Lemonade.

How do you create new flavours?

It’s a team effort. We have an award-winning mixologist team who brainstorm ideas for new flavours depending on the time of the year. For winter, they might mix some warm dessert flavours. For summer, they might come up with some fresh, icy, fruity flavours.

We get the flavours and test them with our testing team. We have an internal testing team, and we do external testing all over the world.

Our marketing team plays a big role as well. They design the labels. They create all the images and all the artwork needed for the brand.

Our retailers play a big role  as well, for example launching on Vape Green with a nice banner, or they post a nice dessert shot with the bottle.

We’ve been happy to leave 2020 behind; what challenges did you face last year?

The pandemic has been difficult for all the businesses around the globe, especially for vape shops, so our priority has been to help support them through these difficult times. Therefore, we have offered several loans in an attempt to help them survive the lockdown period and come back stronger post-pandemic.

On the positive side, difficult situations make you stronger, and we’ve worked hard in these difficult times and continued to manufacture great liquids for our loyal customer base.

Anything exciting planned for 2021?

We have several things to look forward to in 2021. The team is excited about the new IVG offices and manufacturing, which should be ready by the end of the year. This will allow us to expand even more; currently, the team is divided into multiple sites due to space issues, but we’re looking forward to our facility where we can work under one roof with more space to produce more great liquids.

We also have several big things planned and a lot of new launches are coming. Unfortunately, I can’t disclose too much. Some very nice and great flavours are being launched very soon. We’ve got some big hits on hold, which are ready to be unlocked.

Did Brexit affect your business?

We supply to all almost all the countries in Europe, so yes, it’s been difficult for some of customers to receive their parcels on time. Some orders have been stuck in customs for 4 to 8 weeks.

Back and forth with the courier companies trying to get them released.. Yes, Brexit has been difficult for us in terms of shipping orders. But we’ll get through it—it’s getting better.

Do you remember your first vape kit? What was it?

I don’t remember the name of it, but it was a Smok device—one of the big chunky ones. Back in the days, 4 years ago.. I got it as a gift from one of my customers.

Which device do you use these days?

Now, I’m on the Caliburn G.

What is your current favourite e-juice?

My daily vape is Riberry Lemonade.