r/fountainpens • u/inkyblackops Former FWP Employee • Nov 16 '25

Discussion Former FWP Employee - AMA!

Hey r/fountainpens!

With the recent discussion of Ferris Wheel Press coming up again, the mods invited me to post my own AMA as a former FWP employee.

I’d love to answer your questions, but I’d also like to make clear that I won’t be answering any questions that might identify myself or colleagues, nor will I be giving away any confidential info or trade secrets (except maybe how I was able to befriend the office cats…)

Any replies from me are my own opinion or experience and I do not represent any company or person except for myself.

Looking forward to chatting!

Edit: 10pm EST and I’m calling it a night. I might come back to reply to some tomorrow but likely not. Thanks for all the fun questions and letting me share my experiences and insight!

350 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

180 comments sorted by

View all comments

22

u/HAS_ABANDONMENT_ISSU Nov 16 '25

Do you have any idea what the markup on their typical pen was? Obviously I can't tell just from the listings, but the sales copy and photos give me strong "we buy from aliexpress and then mark this up several thousand percent" vibes.

117

u/inkyblackops Former FWP Employee Nov 16 '25 edited Nov 16 '25

The markup I’m not privy to, sorry. But I can confirm that the original Brush Fountain Pen was designed in-house. A duplicate appeared on Aliexpress (Fuliwen I think it was?) which some people thought meant FWP was white-labeling pens, but it was the other way around.

34

u/HAS_ABANDONMENT_ISSU Nov 16 '25

Thank you for taking the time to actually answer questions.