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I buy all my stuff from fasttech.......free shipping, great prices and good customer service. I havenot seen anything better.
+1. Yes, Fasttech. Several orders from them now. My experiences have averaged 2 days to ship and 9 days more for delivery. Pretty good I thought and quicker than I expected. Their prices cannot be beat, and Yes, all of these devices are made in China now.
As an American, I would very much love to support American products and American businesses. I think most of the ECF community feels the same way. I would even consider paying a slight premium to buy American, particularly if there were a tradeoff such as faster shipping. Again, I think most of the community here would follow along a similar path. Here's where we begin to differ. Much of the gear that appeals to me and works fine for me is made only in China. In these cases, I'm buying Chinese. Firms such as Fasttech, who offer both genuine and knockoff gear, sell at wholesale prices that are generally 1.5 - 2.5 times less than I can buy the identical item for here in the U.S. The tradeoff is that I have to wait an average of 11 days to receive the item. The advantage is that Fasttech has Worldwide Free Shipping. Additionally, Fasttech has no minimum purchase. So, I'm able to buy wholesale with no minimum quantity. They also take PayPal, which further protects my online purchases., Unbeatable proposition in my way of thinking.
I spoke to a local vendor here about the new iTaste 3.0. I had one, and he hadn't seen one. He mentioned that he spoke to Innokin about this APV, and Innokin required a minimum 100 piece order. The Innokin pricing on this item is fixed in the U.S., i.e., either sell at MSRP, or future purchases will not be available. The going price for the iTaste 3.0 Express Kit is about $50. I bought two on sale from iVape for $34.95. I recently ordered a white one for $24.95 from Fasttech, or roughly half the MSRP. It's an excellent ego size battery with vv and vw with a nice display, ohm meter, puff counter, etc. A no-brainer ego replacement that I use as an out and about mod on Friday nights out with the wife. She loves hers too and takes it to work. The iTaste comes with a retractable usb, micro connection charging cable. Pretty excellent. In the U.S., you can buy a kit that adds 4 IClear 16 clearos for about $65 (or see ........'s who recommends Fasttech on this item for $39.95). Any way I look at this, I come out with Chinese product, Chinese Vendor, Chinese Distributor, etc. at about one-half the cost of purchasing from an American Vendor.
While I may prefer to buy American, I literally can't unless I'm so stupid as to pay twice what I can purchase it from at Fasttech. I'm willing to be a little stupid, but not 100% stupid. I have a family, so I'm really not allowed to be stupid with our money, at least the way my wife explains it to me.
Quality Control is irrelevant as that same iTaste at Fasttech is a genuine Innokin product, and while Innokin has said it's not an authorized product (long story on other threads about this), they don't deny that it's not an authentic product, unless authentic means "authorized" by Innokin. Fasttech bought these devices through a shell and that's how they got around the MSRP issue. The point is that the quality is exactly the same, made by the original manufacturer at half the price, or less. All of them come from China.
These products, at these price points, cannot be made in the United States today. Not because they have cheap labor, but because our labor costs are too high to compete in these small electronic piece niches. Most of these Chinese parts are made by the Chinese middle class in first rate manufacturing facilities in Shenzhen, China. The problem that annoys me is that they are often doing capitalism better than we are. A good example of this FACT is that GM sold more cars in China last year than in the United States, and those same cars cost almost twice as much in China. Not only are they not cheap, they're quite expensive by American Standards. It's been a long time since the Chinese made only cheap drink umbrellas, and "made in China" was a good reason not to buy something from there. They are beating us at our own game, and it's our fault, not theirs. Competition is global now and we're losing out big time. They deserve some credit.
You may get the impression that I'm pro-Chinese, and that's not the case. I am pro-capitalism, and the U.S. has forgotten what made us globally competitive in the first place. Anyone in the know already knows this, and inexpensive foreign products are helping us maintain our standards of living. I don't want to get too much off topic (sorry OP), but I want to refute your assertions which may be heartfelt, the circumstances may be unfortunate - in many ways detrimentally affecting our economy and jobs, but they're also largely not factual. I do feel your pain. I do. I want to change things here, not blame the Chinese for beating us at our own game, and they're quite good at it today. They cheat by not honoring our trademarks, patents, reverse engineering, etc. and that's deplorable, but since they're also the largest third party purchaser of our Treasuries, they are getting away with it, and they understand all of this, in spades, and so does our government. I want to see us change and adapt, because I only see them playing a better game than us for the foreseeable future in certain niches, like e-cigarettes, cell phones including the Iphone, tablets, etc. The America I love is better than that, and now we're structured wrong, not supported by our government, and regulated out of a competitive position in these and many other niches. I find that deplorable. Sure, we kick .... on the high-end stuff, and on innovation, mostly in areas outside of this forum's interests.
So, I will buy Chinese and enjoy my gear. I will continue to shop at Walmart, which buys 90% of their products from other countries, primarily China (American made products disappear | Walmart products made in China | buy American), and be willing to do whatever I can, whatever makes sense to support America, its workers and businesses, to the best of my ability. I don't know what else I can do, and I'm certainly not going to be stupid and spend twice as much on gear because someone thinks it's un-American. Bottom line is that I have to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. Good luck, thanks for the interesting discussion, food for thought, and Vape On!
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