Popular vape brands such as Geek Bar might get more expensive in the US — if you can find them at all.
Shipments of vapes from China to the US ground to a near halt last month from a year ago, official data showed, hit by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a crackdown on unauthorized e-cigarettes in the world’s biggest market for smoking alternatives.
That includes Geek Bar, a brand of flavored vapes that is not authorized to sell in the US, but which had been widely available due to porous import controls.
Photo: AP
One retailer, who asked not to be named, because their business sells unauthorized vapes, said that one of the store’s vape suppliers normally receives 100 boxes of Geek Bar vapes per week, but is now getting just 10. Another supplier imposed unprecedented purchase limits.
“There were a lot of supply chain issues” during COVID-19, the person said. “But I’ve never seen this.”
The US supplier limited purchases to five boxes at a time due to “tariff-related price increases and limited market availability,” an undated notice to customers seen by Reuters showed.
Trump’s decision to impose steep tariffs on China, now at 30 percent after peaking at 145 percent in April, as well as blockbuster seizures of unauthorized vapes, have constrained the supply of Chinese-owned vape brands and Geek Bar in particular, according to five industry sources and notices from US Geek Bar wholesalers.
Between May 1 and May 28, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recorded just 71 shipments of products labeled as e-cigarettes or vapes from China, compared with nearly 1,200 over the same period last year. Such imports had fallen between 40 percent and 60 percent in February, March and April, after Trump came into office, but collapsed in May, the data showed.
“Due to increased tariffs, rising production costs and reduced supply chain capacity, the manufacturer has informed us that they will be reducing supply volume in the near-term,” one US regional Geek Bar wholesaler wrote to customers on April 22 in an e-mail.
NEED FOR NICOTINE FIX
In the meantime, vape distributors expect prices to go in one direction.
“With tariffs, it’ll definitely go up,” said one US vape distributor who asked not to be named.
However, that might not impact sales much. Unauthorized vape manufacturers enjoy hefty margins, so they can eat some of the cost of tariffs, British American Tobacco’s (BAT) US subsidiary spokesperson Luis Pinto said.
Meanwhile, consumers hooked on vapes tend to keep buying, even as the price goes up.
“If the price goes up, the price goes up. We’re talking about nicotine here,” the vape distributor said, adding that unlike other products, addicted users need their fix.
Vapes such as Geek Bar — priced about US$20 — would still be good value even with a US$5 increase, the person said.
Geek Bar manufacturer Guangdong Qisitech did not respond to a request for comment.
Pinto agreed the tariffs would increase prices, but probably not to the point “where it is a barrier to usage.”
Many of the vapes landing on US shelves are manufactured in Shenzhen, which meets the majority of the world’s demand for vapes.
Some factories there make devices for large tobacco companies with the legal license to sell their products in the US, such as Japan Tobacco International. Others fuel a booming market for unregulated devices that US authorities say are illegal to import or sell.
To mitigate tariffs, illicit vape producers can mislabel or undervalue their shipments or spoof their origin entirely to make it look like they came from a lower-tariff country such as Indonesia, Vietnam or Mexico, Pinto said.
Vapes from China are often smuggled into the US disguised as other items entirely, such as shoes or toys, to evade officials hunting for unauthorized vapes at the border, the FDA and the Customs and Border Protection said.
Geek Bar was by far the most popular unauthorized vape brand in the US last year, accounting for about a quarter of sales tracked by Circana, despite lacking a licence to sell from the FDA, which has struggled to contain illegal imports from China.
The brand, as well as thousands of other labels often made in China and lacking FDA permission, are stocked by wholesalers and retailers around the country, often sold alongside authorized labels from big tobacco companies such as BAT and Altria.
PANIC BUYING
US tariffs have driven panic buying of vapes by US buyers, higher shipping costs and increased risks at the border, the distributor, a former distributor and a person who used to work for a major Chinese vape company said.
Substantial vape seizures were also a big driver of Geek Bar supply issues, two of the sources said. The FDA announced a large seizure in Chicago in February, and new FDA Commissioner Marty Makary has pledged to crack down on unauthorized vapes.
Government notices on seized goods show further vape seizures in March and April.
The growth of Geek Bar and other unregulated vape brands have eaten into the market share of cigarette companies and was estimated to have accounted for about 70 percent of all US vape sales last year.
Altria CEO Billy Gifford told investors in April that he hoped tariffs would lead to “much more enforcement” of vapes at the border.
Trump’s trade war with China has also seen China-US air freight and shipping capacity collapse limiting shipping capacity for cargo including vapes.
The FDA’s data only capture shipments properly declared as vapes. As a result, it has recorded declining vape shipments since 2020, even as industry sales have grown.
An FDA spokesperson said the agency expects the number of shipments it captures to increase as it ramps up efforts to ensure compliance and prevent illegal imports.
Unauthorized vape makers have also been moving production to Indonesia — a shift that prolonged tariffs on China would likely accelerate, the former employee said.
Vape makers are “highly adaptable,” the person said. “Whatever happens in the US, the industry will survive.”
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