You are right, and that's why mass production is the answer. Once u have invested time to create a mix you put that into mass production, assembly lines, automated mixers which can produce tankers of eliquid with the same quality. Plus when u buy the raw materials in bulk u get it at a lower cost.Not wanting to start an argument but comparing costs of DIY to that of commercially made juice is somewhat unfair. Not saying juice is not expensive but one has to compare facts.
I DIY about 600ml of juice per month. In total i spend about 8 hours per month on mixing DIY ADV's and experimenting with new mixes. I do so at home, after work. Total cost are in the form of base and concentrate liquids only.
Were I to do this for a living say 186 hours per month, I would need to add an income for myself to these costs. Seeing that I would be selling these commercially, I would need a clean room and most probably one much bigger than the space I now use, so add the cost of a lab with adequate controlled climate storage on top of that. Since this is now my only source of income, branding, marketing and distribution either by myself or an employee (or outsourced) becomes very important. Pile on the bills...
Transport and vendor profits.... I can carry on but think the message comes across pretty well already.
So, when a "compeditor" pops up and sells me juice at half the cost of the genuine article, I wonder where did they cut their overheads to do so. No clean room? Child labor? Ingredients stored in a shed? Do they even clean their equipment and bottles? Those savings can not be achieved by stealing branding from an existing product alone.
Cheap juice... Aikona!
Regards
But the equipment won't come cheap and some businessman should be ready to make an investment.
An example it takes around 12 to 16 hours to build a Toyota as it's mass produced, but 6 months to build a rolls Royce because it's mostly made by hand.