I am gutted.
The popular online retailer Fasttech has closed down.
Hands up if you were a customer! At one point this place offered the widest range of devices, supplies and rebuildable consumables at a bargain price.
The downside was waiting a couple of weeks for delivery but I always used the mantra
“Do not buy what I cannot afford to lose”
which when it came to Fasttech served me well.
Over the years I bought all sorts from the site, not only vaping gear.
Plus they were regularly nominated in our Ecigclick awards – even winning Best Overall International Online Store in 2021.
Anyway sadly the site is no more.
An announcement in the forum pages on December 5th 2022 stated that new tax regulations were causing huge issues for the company and they had investigated ways around this. Unfortunately these hurdles appeared to be too large to overcome and the site has closed.
Sad to hear about this. End of an era. pic.twitter.com/GeqtyvJxf0
— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) December 7, 2022
The issues were the China “Consumption Tax” on e-cigarettes which was imposed 1st November 2022. All entities / individuals who produced, imported or distributed e-cigarettes were taxed. 36% tax was imposed on production or import and 11% on wholesale distribution.
I genuinely wish I had screen shot the forum posts announcing this – but I didn’t and the site is now unavailable. I was a member of the forum for years and it was often helpful – if you ignored some of the arguing!
Even their Facebook page has closed and the Twitter has not been updated since November.
Fasttech has been struggling in recent years with various legislation, including shipping items to countries with bans and different couriers refusing to transport vape gear.
In March 2022 Covid hit the Shenzhen area where one of Fasttechs warehouses were located and the whole city was shut down.
At the time they released this statement…
Dear Valued Customers,
FastTech’s warehouse is located in Shenzhen, China, where a 17-million people lockdown was announced within last night. A majority of FastTech’s staff are now confined to their homes by the Chinese government.
TL;DR Orders awaiting shipment will be delayed by 1 week. Customer service remains available throughout the lockdown. US warehouse products will ship next-day, as usual.
It felt to me that Fasttech never really recovered from this and all the restrictions placed on exporting to other countries and it did decline heavily.
Responses
US #ecig regulations never really kicked in but China implemented their own, and now FastTech, perhaps the world’s largest vendor of vaping supplies, is gone. Huge blow to open-system vaping. So many new RTAs & replacement parts i wanted to get, may never get. Vapocalypse reborn.
— Pelle (@PeterNoTail) December 11, 2022
Goodbye, FastTech.
By Jim McDonaldhttps://t.co/UHWGIP7DL7
— Vaping360 (@Vaping360) December 21, 2022
Posting “FastTech’s story ends here” on its forum, the Chinese wholesaler has announced that changes to Chinese legislation means the end of the road for the businesshttps://t.co/Gq29BhjDem #vape #vapingnews #fasttech #vapebusiness #china pic.twitter.com/gkpHbdxxSi
— Planet of the Vapes (@PVapes) December 12, 2022
Well, that sucks. I used Fast Tech
They carried a lot of odds n end pieces.
Sad to hear.
Well Skip there is another add
So many have had to close.
— Rawg Slinkard (@Rawgster) December 8, 2022
Very sad to hear this, for me and the hardships of their citizens! We all need to protect people by allowing regulated vape be sold freely and encouraging All to switch to better their lives. This is much bigger than only smokers!
— Southernvaper (@Southernvaper1) December 10, 2022
End of an era 😢 Thank you for everything, @FastTech_ 🙏❤️ https://t.co/VhiMgHnGif
— Jen 🇺🇦 (@Jen_Turista) December 8, 2022
