Is FastTech going SlowTech?

Once in a while the planets align and it happens. I received an order in three days once from FastTech (ordered and shipped Friday, arrived and received Monday).

Holy cow, thatā€™s faster than local shipping inside Korea!

They put it on a plane the same day they got it, it landed in CA a few hours later. Why is that unusual? Happens pretty regularly exactly that way with packages from FT. Except when they spin the wheel of chance and it lands on SingPost...

I have an order through HK post from June 20th that still has no tracking. 16 days now and no tracking. HK post isnā€™t all thatā€¦

That is interesting. I needed to use up a couple of coupon codes so I split about $100.00 worth of items into 2 orders on June 17 (no batteries in either order). FT order page says they both shipped June 19. When I enter the tracking into Trackchecker, the first entry says item left HK on June 26. Next and last entry: arrived Canada June 30.

The other shipment for the second order placed about 2 minutes after the first one, just one entry dated June 20: ā€˜The item was postedā€. When I go to the Canada Post tracking page the first shipment shows as being in Canada, and there is no record whatsoever for the second shipment. As both tracking numbers start with ā€™RTā€™ and end with ā€˜HKā€™ I assume they both went out via the same method.

So from this I am taking away some rules of thumb:

- You might get lucky, or you might find your order remains in Hong Kong for up to a week and a half before it leaves, and expect holidays to ensure a longer than normal wait. Where it sits is anybodyā€™s guess, but I suspect this stuff just piles up at the HK Post office while it waits to get onto a plane.

- You cannot rely on the tracking system. I have one order that I got last month after a wait of about 20 days, the tracking system had it leaving Hong Kong on May 28 and then it completely dropped out of their system forever (although I had to sign for it, it never even appeared in the Canada Post system as ever making it to Canada). It would appear that the second order mentioned above is going to fall into that category as well, and it would seem to indicate Canada Post never got it into their system for some reason.

- When you order from FT, put the tracking info into your tracker program, and then sit back and forget about it until it either arrives or 3 weeks passes by. If the latter comes first, start a ticket on FT. If another week goes by and you still do not see it, start a Paypal ticket as your backup plan.

  • Santaā€™s helperā€™s belong to a Union, FT workers donā€™t: start your Christmas shopping in September and have it done by October.

order placed 6/28, order shipped 6/29, order received today (7/6) so 1 week shipping exactly from sending. FT has always been good for me :smiley:

My package mysteriously showed up today in great condition and seems to work well.
Will try tonight.
FastTech, all is forgiven :slight_smile:

Later,
Keith

I have never considered Fasttech fast, just overall quite good compared to other similar stores selling all various types of products.
But it is a bit annoying when they say they will answer within 24 hours, or donā€™t manage to ship stuff within 2 business days that are in stock.
If they cant keep their word, its better to just donā€™t say anything about response or shipping timesā€¦

I have placed 35+ orders from them.Due to a few very slow packages , average arrival time have been 18 days. (combination of registered and unregistered)
In comparison, intl-outdoor packages have arrived in an average of 15,5 days. (all unregistered)
Wallbuys, 13 days (mostly registered packages)

Shipping time include weekends too, sometimes holidays have made a few packages arrive slower. I have placed a lot of orders from all those vendors in 2013.
I like Fasttech, but I feel they are overrated when it comes to how ā€œfastā€ they are. Packages from them are very inconsistent compared to several other vendors I have used a lot.

Edit: Did a huge slip when it came to the FT calulation, it was 18 days average.

Xtar chargers come with a scratch sticker attached to the charger itself. Scratch it like a lottery ticket and underneath is a code number. Go to the Xtar sight and there is a place for you to submit your code and it will instantly tell you if you have an authentic Xtar charger.

Xtar announced that the chargers in question dropped that ā€˜featureā€™ around the same time that the so-called fake ones started appearing.
At this point, itā€™s difficult to conclude anything about that whole debacle, if there were fakes or not.

As far as fast deliveries go. Fasttech have been average for me. As a percentage of packages arriving in two weeks or less from ordering:

  • FT, maybe 60% (a mix of HKPost and SingPost, all registered)
  • WB, maybe 80% (all HKPost, almost all registered)
  • DX, maybe 50% (most HKPost, almost all registered)
  • MF 0% (one order, HKPost registered)
  • FFL 33% (one Fed-Ex, other two SingPost)
  • I-O, 0% (all SingPost, all but one unregistered)
  • IS, 100% (all USPS Priority Intl)
  • various eBay sellers, maybe 30% (mostly China sellers, mostly ChinaPost or SingPost, a few local sellers)

Note: Hank from I-O has indicated he is switching US/Canada to HKPost, which should help with delivery times.

Lately my orders have been taking 3 or more days to ship from ft. I used to get shipping notifications within a day. Once shipped ft canā€™t influence what happens at that point.
I also had an issue with a tank007 e09 with a badly off center emitter. I was offered a discount on my next order but it took them over a week to generate the code for me. Ft is still my go to website but if there is competitor that springs up overnight like Fasttech did and offers the service that ft once had I will have no problem spending my money elsewhere.

I've noticed that lately too, and then noticed that items I've ordered have a note next to the "Buy" button that says there will be a delay before shipping. Take the nanjg105c. 4 business day shipping delay. Solarstorm K2 listed two days ago has a 3 business day delay. I really should pay attention to that better and break up my orders accordingly.

i hada a problem with shipping via HK post, (it seems they lost my order)ā€¦ 1 month and a half, and still FT says to me ā€œplease, wait till we have an answer from HK postā€ā€¦

sigh.

Time for a PayPal claim before your 45 days are up?

Got my order yesterday after 26 days, 2 more days and it would have been 4 weeks.
I used to get them in about a week or so from FastTech.

My two orders from June 27 and 28 are still on their way to Canada. I really do hope they do not ship via SingPost again, as they said they would blacklist it on my account. They said that once before too thoughā€¦ :expressionless:

My most recent order was placed on July 2, marked as shipped on July 4 & 5 (split order), arrived on July 13 & 15. Took longer than normal because of falling across two weekends...

My last order was shipped fast, as in next day. BUT, it still took 19 days total including the weekends. So my 20 day average still holds to Alabama. Looks like the US customs slowed it down this time.

I wonder if FastTech is red flagged or maybe its the batteries. I do know that I have gotten batteries from other sellers in China much quicker. 10 days or so usually. Customs is holding my FastTech orders longer. One order sat with HK post over a week due to customs. No complaints of the batteries though, the last batch appear to be genuine, charging them now. Still a great deal, they canā€™t control the mail.

Good point. From now on I think I will order my batteries alone with nothing else in the order.

My last 5 packages from them took an average of 8.6 days from date of order to arrival at my office. The fastest was 6 days and the slowest 12. I live in San Francisco so perhaps that cuts a day or so out of travel time to other parts of the US.