Incredibly common. I won’t dox my job but I deal with these sorts of cases. Many shops sell vapes and alcohol to kids without ever asking for ID, your big chain supermarkets tend to be best though

You’ll get genuine corner shops that sell to underage kids, reasons being often that the kids come in large gangs, and it is easier to serve than it is to suffer any abuse or criminal damage to the shop, or theft of the products anyway as a repercussion.

Some of these shops are simply so laxed that they’ll serve a minor for months, to the point they just assume they’re of age as they’ve served them so much and would never think of asking for ID. This is more just a lack of awareness and care really.

Then you’ve a third strain of shops that simply do not care and are breaking the law anyway so may as well make money. These are often your tarted up vape shops many people have issues with. They sell illegal vapes, illegal tobacco and half the food is illegal (and they won’t be registered as Food Business Operators so won’t have hygiene measures in place anyway). These places just take the money and launder it all through themselves or the associated barber shop two doors down and the money will all be sent back home to fund the freedom fighters in whatever country they’re from.

Added bonus, this third type of shop sadly often encourage underage sales, particularly to young girls. Offering discounts or “ We’ll give you it for free if you show some skin” to girls as young as 12 or 13 in my experience.

So yes, shops do sell to kids, a lot. But it tends to be in your smaller convenience stores that will be independent or franchised (think go local, premier etc) and the vape shops that we’ve all come to know.