Nicotine pouches have crossed a quiet but meaningful line in the American convenience store. New retail-scan data shows spitless tobacco — a category increasingly defined by pouches — now accounts for more than half of all smokeless tobacco dollar sales in the channel, after a 27% jump over the last year.

The numbers come from Circana, the retail-measurement firm, covering the 52 weeks ended 14 June 2026 and reported by Nicotine Insider on 20 August 2026. They paint a picture of a US nicotine aisle in the middle of a structural shift: cigarette revenue is being held up by price, vapes are losing ground, and pouches are the category pulling volume upward.

What the data says

• Cigarettes generated $50.8 billion in US convenience-store sales over the period — essentially flat year over year. But unit sales fell 5.3%, and the average price per unit rose 5.6% to $10.18. In other words, Americans are buying fewer packs; higher prices are keeping the dollar number steady.

• Smokeless tobacco reached $13.4 billion, up 12.7%, with unit sales up 10% to 1.86 billion.

• Spitless tobacco — the segment increasingly driven by nicotine pouches — rose 27.2% to $7.29 billion, with unit sales up 25.8%. That segment now represents more than half of smokeless tobacco dollar sales in US convenience stores.

• Vapor moved the other way. Electronic smoking devices generated $6.22 billion, down 6%, with unit sales down 14%. The broader vaping-products segment fell 7.4% in dollars and 15.3% in units — a slide Nicotine Insider attributes to competition from unauthorized products and regulatory uncertainty over which vapes can legally stay on shelves.

Why it matters

For retailers, pouches are no longer a side category. They are the thing offsetting declines almost everywhere else.

Weigel's, a Tennessee-based convenience chain, has already reorganized its tobacco plan around that. Jessica Starnes, the chain's director of loyalty and tobacco category manager, told C-Store Decisions that ZYN had become Weigel's No. 2-selling behind-the-counter brand — trailing only Marlboro — with four nicotine pouch products among its top 20 tobacco SKUs.

"We knew we had an opportunity to be the nicotine pouch destination in our market," Starnes said. "That way, our opportunity was 100% of the market."

Oregon-based Plaid Pantry reports the same pattern in reverse: cigarette dollar sales down 2% and units down 8% through May, moist smokeless down 7% in dollars — but modern oral nicotine pouch sales up 29% in dollars and 17% in units.

"Modern oral nicotine pouches continue to be the category offsetting those major declines," said marketing director Jon Manuyag.

The economics matter too. Other tobacco products generated an average gross margin of 29.5% in US convenience stores in 2024, against 13.76% for cigarettes, according to NACS data cited in the report. OTP's share of inside-store sales rose from 4.2% in 2015 to 7.6% in 2024. For a channel under margin pressure, pouches are both a growth and a profitability story.

What's next

The major tobacco companies are betting on it. Philip Morris International, Altria, and British American Tobacco are all investing heavily in pouches as cigarette consumption declines; BAT estimates global industry pouch revenue could reach £11 billion by 2030.

There are real risks underneath that forecast. Retailers report increased downtrading as price-conscious smokers shift to cheaper cigarette brands, and the same price pressure that is lifting cigarette dollar sales could eventually compress pouch margins as the category saturates. Weigel's Starnes said fourth-tier cigarettes and nicotine pouches are both among the chain's largest current growth opportunities — a sign that value and pouches are growing together.

Cigarettes aren't leaving the backbar soon. Starnes expects cigarettes will still be there in five years, alongside heated tobacco, expanded pouch sets and — she added — "hopefully a regulated vapor space." But the mix around them is changing faster than the headline numbers suggest: pouches are already more than half of the smokeless business, and at some chains they are the only category still growing.

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SOURCES:

• Nicotine Insider — "Pouches Reshape U.S. C-Store Tobacco Sales" (Timothy S. Donahue, 20 Aug 2026; Circana 52-week data ended 14 June 2026): https://nicotineinsider.com/2026/08/20/pouches-reshape-u-s-c-store-tobacco-sales/

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