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Alternatively you could buy from a dollar store where it’s 12 times the price but in a smaller package so it seems cheaper.
Why underpay and exploit labor in China when you can also underpay and exploit labor here, too, and pay more for the privilege?
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From what I remember, the difference is quality control. Western companies are usually much more restrictive, accepting only every 10th or 100th item from the producer. The subpar items are then sold by the producer somewhere else such as Temu or AliExpress. I also know this to be true for microscopes. Motic produces in China for Zeiss, but Zeiss refuses most of their units due to QC issues, which are then sold by Motic under their own name for a fraction of the Zeiss price.
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For some stuff, like that, it makes sense. For other stuff, like children’s toys, the reason it doesn’t pass QC is because of contamination with lead, cadmium, and other toxic stuff. And if you have young kids, you know how much stuff ends up in their mouth.
I turned one of my coworkers on to knockoff shit on Wish, and he is heavily into fishing and pretty much agrees with all of your sentiments listed here. He’s been buying knockoff lures like mad ever since.
I will further add that a lot of fishing gear is consumable. Not just line, but also hooks that can just plain break or wear out, and especially lures and so forth in that they are inherently prone to getting lost, irretrievably snagged in a tree, outright eaten by a fish and dragged to the depths never to be seen again, etc.
It is therefore bonkers to pay a premium for most of this stuff which is ultimately disposable.
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Although chinese goods are famous for crappy short lifespan products but in the end we loved it because no one in this god green earth (except china) can make something cheaper & sell it at ridiculously cheaper…only china can do that thing.
I say this not to mean I am defending them, I hate that many products on the market today seem cheap because they flood the market with very cheap stuff. Yes… even though in the end we as consumers find it difficult to distinguish which goods are premium and which are crap.
We should learn from them, if they can do it, why can’t we?
Protectionism in the “land of free market” (irony)
There’s probably a degree of protectionism going on but these platforms sell unsafe products
Which is something that can, and often does happen in unregulated free markets. The invisible hand is not necessarily very good at things like consumer protection, among other things.
If that was the issue, they’d take steps to ensure safety, ask for certifications, etc. rather than more tariffs and lower “de minimis” exemption. Clearly these decisions are made for economic reasons, not to ensure higher quality products and protect consumers.
Does this mean fewer duplicate white label items?
If anything it means the duplicate white label items will be harder to spot
I don’t love em…I just have no damn choice because greed always wins
Many times I’ve wanted products. Could see it comes from Asia and don’t want to risk the quality. It’s flooded online. Difficult to find a true seller and one that isn’t just reselling that same shit I’m avoiding. It’s so irritating.
Fine, we’ll get a bidet! TP is just way too expensive now.
get it on temu while you still can
The horror.
“Cracking down” is among the worst newpaper propaganda phrases.
It’s meaningless and it implicitly justifies the “cracker”.
Oh no I love my RUXIBTAN earbuds and my HURQIO keyboard.
That particular strain of nonsense is actually specifically an Amazon thing, because you cannot sell “non branded” merchandise on Amazon, a policy that’s in place allegedly to combat generic whitebox goods from flooding the site. Your product has to be sold under a registered trademark, but the loophole is that said trademark does not actually have to make any sense whatsoever.
Now there are brokers who will assist anyone in registering a trademark that is literally just a random string of letters for this express purpose. All you have to do is concoct a combination that no one has used yet, and register it with the USPTO.
Therefore the entire scheme falls flat on its face, and manifestly fails to make any impact in the problem it purports to solve. But it does probably give Amazon a legal escape hatch to accusations of being a dumping ground for Chinese knockoff products, because they can point to all those trademark registrations and say, “No, see, everything sold here is all totally from a 100% legitimate brand!”
dyisland brakesor pigeon whistle at all
Love my pigeon whistle
I love it, too. Your pigeons are always so well-behaved!
I wasn’t aware there were alternatives not made in china.
I’m pretty sure nobody loves cheap Chinese goods. It’s more people love to be able to afford eating, having a roof over their head, and maybe some shitty, but cheap, headphones.
Hello, fellow citizen! Nice to see you. Are you well? How is the wife/husband/partner/thruple/keyboard today? Ha. Ha. 😶
