Lower Prices, Stock Update, and New Rules

Dear DarkStar Customers,

I owe some of you an apology. I was going to lead with the full thing, but it’s ended up being quite long and it’s not relevant to many of you reading this, so I’ll leave it at the bottom of this article and get straight into the updates:

Most of what’s left is now on the site

This is where we now stand on stock. Almost everything we have left in duty-free is now listed and available to order. The warehouse filling was done at speed over months, across several storage locations, and some of it is awkward to get to, so we will find pockets of stock and add them back as we reach them. But for the most part, what you can see on the site is what we have.

If something isn’t listed, please assume it’s gone as far as duty-free stock goes.

If a favourite of yours has sold out, two things worth trying before you give up on it:

• Look at the same flavour in a different format. Our ranges share concentrate. If you normally buy One Shots and yours has gone, check the Bottle Shots, because it’s very often the same flavour in a different size and strength. The reverse is just as true.
• Email us. Tell us what you liked and we’ll point you at the closest thing we still have. We know the range better than any search box does, and we’re happy to make recommendations.

The good news in all of this is that what’s left is, by and large, our best. The flavours we built the deepest stock of are the ones you order most and rate highest, so the very best of DarkStar is still here at duty-free prices. September put a sizeable hole in the plan, but it took the hole out of the long tail of products rather than the heart of the range.

Lower prices on Bottle Shots, One Shots and Nicotine Shots

Now the better news. We’ve been able to reduce prices on three ranges: Bottle Shots, One Shots, and Nicotine Shots.

Two things pushed those prices up during the stock build. 

The first was cost of raw materials in the volumes we did, as fast as we did, meant paying more for them than we normally would. We were paying more than 100% the cost of the flavour concentrates on shipping towards the end. On 4-5 orders in mid-late September we used UPS Worldwide Express to get concentrates from California to Yorkshire in 2 working days.

We also hired temporary staff whose output was much lower than regular staff while maintaining the same quality, and we had to pay them well to keep them coming back reliably. In addition we had significant overtime at up to triple-time along with bonuses, additional storage costs, various rush fees etc.. Quite literally many tens of thousands of additional costs. We did not make much profit at all despite the high volume of orders and increased prices.

The second reason was deliberate. As the deadline got close, a small number of very large orders and resellers were in a position to clear out stock we wanted to protect for our regular customers through the whole grace period. Lifting those prices a little was the fairest lever we had to spread the stock out rather than see it vanish in a short period, and it worked. We were selling PG & VG for a loss during early September and had intended to keep it that way throughout September so customers could stock up on that in particular, since the £2.20+VAT per 10ml vape duty will affect high volume liquids the most. Unfortunately, other businesses began placing orders exceeding 1000L at a time, so we had to pull that early. This is the most extreme example, but it illustrates the broader issue and reason.

Both of those pressures have eased now. Costs have settled and the frantic buying has calmed down, so we’ve passed that back where we can. The flip side is, if we start seeing September type volumes again, or if costs move against us for other sound reasons, these prices may have to go back up. I’m not saying that to rush you, but because you’ve trusted us with honest updates all year and that’s what we’ll keep providing.

When it’s gone, it’s gone

The duty-free stock is finite, we can’t make any more of it, and lots of products are unfortunately sold out already. 

Everything made before 1 October carries no duty, and once a given flavour sells through, anything that replaces it must carry a duty stamp and the price that comes with it. 

We built what we hoped would be around six months of cover on the core range. September took a big bite out of that. I’m not going to put a date on when the duty-free stock runs out, because it depends on how fast customer buy it, and some things will last longer than others. There’s a good chance that some products will make it all the way to the end of March, but it’ll be a very slim selection by then.

Regardless, ‘when it’s gone, it’s gone’ is the plain truth of it, and it probably applies sooner than we’d initially hoped.

A word on Labs

A quick note for those of you waiting on our pre-made Labs range. We have some ready to go, but not as many as I’d hoped. The reason for this is that we prioritised building as much stock as possible, and also trying to reduce the enormous backlog which had accumulated by late-September.

We know Labs is incredibly important to our most loyal customers, so producing less than we’d planned was a very difficult trade-off to make, but the other priorities were so critical that we had to reduce the number of flavours.

Realistically, this means one flavour per month rather than two, and no Labs in December unfortunately. We haven’t ever done labs in December, but this time we couldn’t do it duty-free if we wanted to without taking away from another month before April.

Because duty will apply to all Labs from April 2027 onwards, and because of they’re experimental in terms of popularity (they’re all thoroughly tested internally and approved before launching), we plan to change the format to something a bit smaller so you still have enough to fully sample and enjoy without taking too much of a financial hit. 

This is the same reason we launched so many of our bestsellers in Longfill format recently. We may keep the 250ml Bottle Shot option alongside, or we may go with a smaller size only. If you have an opinion on this, please comment down below!

The rules are changing again on 29 October

One more thing to flag, separate from everything above. A new set of rules under the Tobacco and Vapes Act takes effect on 29 October, and a few of them touch how we’re allowed to sell.

The main one you’ll notice: free samples and ‘free gift with your order’ style promotions on vaping products will no longer be permitted, whatever the product’s nicotine content. Where we’ve run that sort of thing before, we’ll move to priced bundles instead, so the value is still there, just packaged in a way the new rules allow.

You may also see some changes to how our rewards and promotions work for the same reason. We plan to keep the reward points accumulating for everything you buy, but they may be restricted in terms of what can be bought with them. 

Everything vaping-related is strictly 18+, as it has l always been with us, and buying on behalf of under-18s is now a specific offence.

None of this changes the products themselves or the service you get from us. It’s the promotional wrapper that has to change, not what’s in the bottle.

An apology to affected customers

Finally, the apology owed to customers who placed an order between mid-September and early October.

As you likely know by now; September was DarkStar’s busiest month by a long way, and we spent the first half of October catching up. 

We planned for a busy period, but the volume went beyond anything I’d expected. For a couple of weeks the backlog grew faster than we could clear it, and parcels went out much slower than they should have done.

In handful of cases we took orders for items that turned out to be gone by the time we reached them. We worked hard to stop that happening, but it still happened and it was brutal in terms of customer service, especially having to let customers know that the thing they’d tried to stock up on was gone and wouldn’t be coming back. 

If you were one of the people affected, I’m genuinely very sorry for how it happened. You deserved much better. I believe we’ve now refunded or offered alternatives on every one, but it’s left some customers with a bad experience and I feel awful about the whole thing. It wasn’t for lack of trying; I’ve never worked harder over a period of 3-4 weeks in my whole life, but I should have begun preparations earlier and given some things more consideration.

To everyone who waited patiently, sent a kind message instead of an angry one, or simply stuck with us through the mess - thank you. A business our size lives or dies on regular customers who come back, and most of you have been with us for years. 

We’re as committed as we’ve ever been to getting your orders right and out the door fast now that things have calmed down.

Thank you, again

So, that’s the state of things right now.

A hard few weeks are behind us, the best of the range is still on the shelves at duty-free prices with three ranges a little cheaper than they were, and the rules are shifting under us at the same time.

We came through the busiest quarter in our history because of you, and we’ll come through the next stretch the same way. Get your order in while the stock and the prices are where they are, and leave the rest to us :)

Rob Scammell - Managing Director

DarkStar

Price reductions apply to Bottle Shots, One Shots and Nicotine Shots and are already reflected on site. Prices may change again in response to demand or cost. Duty-free stock is limited to what was manufactured before 1 October 2026 and cannot be replaced once sold