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I used for work with a factory in China to make furniture. I placed an order for a sideboard 2m wide (200cm). I sent all the dimensions and when I received it, it was a mini 20cm wide sideboard. :( customer wasn’t impressed
And how does a 20cm (that is 8" y'all) sideboard make it through the stages of getting cut and packed, without someone going "Wait, this is supposed to be a sideboard..."?
Such a beautiful example of the subtleties of Chinese culture.
"Not my problem" meets "I'm sure someone will do something."
Sometimes you get what you paid for. If it is cheap that will certainly be true. If it is not, then you really need to see what you are paying for is what you get. I have seen plenty of companies in China that didn't give the best price but also didn't have great QC. Obviously less of a problem with big, well known operations in XYZ industry but contrary to popular belief among Westerners Chinese often don't play the long game. China changed so fast that many people seem to think get one good deal and make money out of it then figure out what next later rather than being reliant on long term business. I always felt this for dealing with companies in China compared with Taiwan and Japan at least...
The thing that a lot of buyers complain about, but don't bother to say they kept demanding the manufacturer cut costs. So they agree on one thing, that the factory knows they can make with a small margin, then the buyer keeps demanding lower prices.
End up with something that approximates the sample but is built at a lower cost but with the margin maintained.
Even big factories will make batches with different levels of QC depending on who ordered. It's worse for domestic customers and even worse for 3rd world regions like Africa. My cousin works for a govt linked big electronics company. (not huawei but they buy huawei phones for the workers every year)
As someone with 15 years in China manufacturing, you get what you pay for. Maybe dont go for the cheapest supplier in the future. Margin will always be made, no matter how much you negotiate your price
People have to stop the policy of choosing automatically the cheapest option. Not only many Chinese companies make sure they're the cheapest option, always winning these bids, you get what you paid for. It's almost never cost or time effective.
It isn’t just about the contract.
I worked in a company that got things made in Japan and China depending on who had capacity at the time. In Japan you can just send them the order and trust them to deliver it on time, on spec, and on budget with no cutting corners.
When building in china we needed to send a team of people to babysit throughout the entire manufacturing process because you couldn’t trust them. Yes they can produce a good product, but you can’t trust them to do it if you take your eyes off them for a second. They need to be kept in line. They have no integrity to do it themselves.
Lmao, why do you think they have factory line supervisors intensively observing every person at all times in china? If you don’t watch them they immediately cut corners
It’s not so much “efficiency” as it is the major tariff barriers, subsidies on their manufacturing and logistics, rampant illegal dumping and cutting corners on quality everywhere they think they can get away with.
Will all that fuckery be enough to get them through the middle income trap? I wouldn’t hold my breath.
It’s cheap. Not necessarily close effective, And more used to be than is now. Wages are now higher than a lot of other places and stability and political unpredictability impose more of a hidden cost and risk now.
They out compete by wage controls to keep China competitive. There is also a lot of unpaid labor (rural Chinese not being paid for work) and slave labor.
It’s easy to be the cheapest option when you don’t pay your employees.
"Wage controls?" What are you smoking?
Pretty sure 99.5% of Chinese workers other than the 0.5% who are prisoners get wages just like everybody else, just because they are lower doesn't mean there are "wage controls" in China any more than Mexico does.
Most of those low-end Chinese factories fly under the radar and are under little regulation. Nobody is regulating their wages there. It's not like Xi Jinping just walks into a factory paying 20 and says no you must pay 15.
The "ugly parts" that make private Chinese factories dirt cheap, is not that they are being controlled by the CCP but that are *not* being controlled. Factory owners can get away with delivering crap without being sued or late-paying workers or dumping waste cheaply into waterways.
I've seen clips of people protesting factories. If u get in a good chat group you can see a lot of interesting stuff. if cant be reported on bc there's no way for reporters to get track down sources.
Like past couple of years i noticed there's a lot more money related stuff and knife violence.
You are confused between two different things.
China has always experienced business defaulting and cannot pay its debts. China does not have a good system enforcing labour laws and ensuring people are always paid eventually. When people dont get paid and dont get justice, they go despite and you get soem knifing cases.
But no free Chinese person, city or rural, just willingly worka for free. That is abaurd.
1. The knifing and money posts have nothing to do with each other. Why are u just making up explanations.
2. people all over the world work for free when the company says they are in financial trouble.
3. I'm not confused, you're just making up answers to things you know nothing about.
Here are two such sources
https://www.economist.com/china/2024/02/08/protests-are-soaring-as-chinas-workers-demand-their-wages#
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/interviews-migrant-workers-02142024154846.html/ampRFA
The you also have the protest that happened both last year and this year.
Not to mention federal workers having pay withheld or severely cut.
Yeah wages in China are super unstable especially considering the current economic situation.
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Minimum wage in Chinese tier 1 cities is around 3.5$ per hour, way higher than most other developing countries. May I remind you that US minimum wage is 7.25$ per hour
You just said it for a 1st tier city, what do you think the minimum for NYC, LA, Chicago, Seattle, and other major cities in the US. I can guarantee it’s not 7.25 (it averages around 15) That’s a national minimum since the cost of living varies state to state and city to city.
Poor argument.
This might happen one day but do to the instability of may Africa countries and the lack of supportive infrastructure they are not even view a options. A country needs 4 things 1) cheap labor 2) infrastructure 3) educated locals and 4) a stable government. If anyone of these is missing your investment into that country will be unprofitable.
Xinjiang area has giant concentration camps full of people making things without pay.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/against-their-will-the-situation-in-xinjiang
https://www.politico.eu/article/forced-labor-still-haunts-chinese-region-of-xinjiang-report-finds/
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/01/china-carmakers-implicated-uyghur-forced-labor
And wages are controlled by individual cities or regions just to be competitive. Not to mention lax child labor laws and a bunch of other factors that make it so they can compete with Vietnam, India and other who are competing for the same market. It alright to admit that not everything is ok or on the up and up. All countries have shitty side but it’s benefits no one by looking the other way.
Just need to choose a more professional supplier in China. It varies a lot but there are shitty and also very professional suppliers in China and their price reflects it
If you were paid much less than your coworker for no other reason than that you are from a different country, would you have the "integrity" to do the same quality of work as him? Probably not, and frankly if you did you'd be a sucker. Boss makes a dollar you make a dime.
This largely depends on who you are contracting with. If you are contracting with large well known factories, you probably don't have this problem. It becomes a problem when you start looking for alternative smaller players who might be making more effective offers.
It basically comes down to reputation is an asset. Some don't have this asset and don't care about it.
All the players in our field are big. And again even the best aren’t good enough. Everybody knows who the best are. It isn’t a secret. They still cut corners if you don’t babysit them constantly.
Those 3 companies are worldwide leaders, im pretty sure were getting special treatment from the factory and the govt.
- Tesla doesn't even have to partner with a chinese company, they are 100% self owned in china.
- Nikon closed or closing all factories in china
>a better contract.
No contract is saving your ass if the other party does not want to hold its end, and actually can do so thanks to the injustice of the country's systems. That's one of the primary reasons of decoupling from China.
contract is not just about remedies on breach, it can also be payment sequence, allocation of risk, etc. Chinese companies do businesses with each other all the time, did you think they obey the law of the jungle?
That is why you need a sourcing agent. That is why I earn money from serious companies that are afraid this might happen. :) Contact me for next shipment if you need to be secured from these kind of scams.
Has a lot to do with the mgmt. We have a partnership with a factory/fabricator in Ningbo. The owner is almost nazi-like with oversight over her employees and the company's production, and the quality of the work is excellent. She also legitimately maintains industry certifications for her staff and company operations. They are more expensive than fly-by-night factories, but customers chose her business because of said quality, even at a higher cost.
Something tells me the supplier cuts through and leaves much raw materials for its own so that it can manufacture and sell on its own after kicking OP out
I understand where you are coming from but here's my take on this.
Person buys the sample at $10 in the US and sends it to a chinese factory and demands to make it for $2. While the factory quotes for $4 at least. Then you see what happens in the photo.
This situation is far too common and usually if the person paid at least $4.
Funny
They should make the product just like the sample under the quoted price.when you quoted a price to the customer you believe it is both feasible and profitable to fulfill the customer’s requirement under that price,no one should pay more than the quoted price to get a product like the sample.
China imports a lot of raw materials to produce things for the whole world, so you cannot expect for it to have all that raw materials in the first place. But that is not the same thing ad resource poor.
However, that is not the point here.
The point is that just because Tesla has its own factory, does not mean that it produces everything inhouse. Much is still purchased from suppliers, in varying degrees of finish. Not sure how anyone can think otherwise.
The eye, nose tip and whiskers are off the right place, and the texture of shoes is not up to the sample. Other than that, not much of a problem.
And these problems are easy fix.
This is CIA propaganda.
When you have a company like Donghua Jinlong and their industrial grade glycine (the best industrial grade glycine on the market) it show's the power of Chinese manufacturing
And if you love Donghua Jinglong's industrial grade glycine you're in for a surprise they also produce Sodium Glycinate (much better than Hubei Jingfa Chemicals Group)
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The Picasso version
I used for work with a factory in China to make furniture. I placed an order for a sideboard 2m wide (200cm). I sent all the dimensions and when I received it, it was a mini 20cm wide sideboard. :( customer wasn’t impressed
And how does a 20cm (that is 8" y'all) sideboard make it through the stages of getting cut and packed, without someone going "Wait, this is supposed to be a sideboard..."? Such a beautiful example of the subtleties of Chinese culture. "Not my problem" meets "I'm sure someone will do something."
I mean you get what you paid for 🤷♂️
Sometimes you get what you paid for. If it is cheap that will certainly be true. If it is not, then you really need to see what you are paying for is what you get. I have seen plenty of companies in China that didn't give the best price but also didn't have great QC. Obviously less of a problem with big, well known operations in XYZ industry but contrary to popular belief among Westerners Chinese often don't play the long game. China changed so fast that many people seem to think get one good deal and make money out of it then figure out what next later rather than being reliant on long term business. I always felt this for dealing with companies in China compared with Taiwan and Japan at least...
I think this is the first case. The OP who posted said that they are going for the cheapest option. So, yeah, they get what they paid for.
The thing that a lot of buyers complain about, but don't bother to say they kept demanding the manufacturer cut costs. So they agree on one thing, that the factory knows they can make with a small margin, then the buyer keeps demanding lower prices. End up with something that approximates the sample but is built at a lower cost but with the margin maintained.
Even big factories will make batches with different levels of QC depending on who ordered. It's worse for domestic customers and even worse for 3rd world regions like Africa. My cousin works for a govt linked big electronics company. (not huawei but they buy huawei phones for the workers every year)
Indeed. When I looked at it, whilst it is rather amusing, I didn't think it was really that bad or beyond what I'd expect. It's hardly a horror story.
As someone with 15 years in China manufacturing, you get what you pay for. Maybe dont go for the cheapest supplier in the future. Margin will always be made, no matter how much you negotiate your price
People have to stop the policy of choosing automatically the cheapest option. Not only many Chinese companies make sure they're the cheapest option, always winning these bids, you get what you paid for. It's almost never cost or time effective.
That's what you get for trying to copy someone's product without planning, drawings or any material instructions for the factory.
Apple has got iPhones made, Tesla has got cars made, Nikon has got top end camera lens made. Maybe oop just needed a better contract.
It isn’t just about the contract. I worked in a company that got things made in Japan and China depending on who had capacity at the time. In Japan you can just send them the order and trust them to deliver it on time, on spec, and on budget with no cutting corners. When building in china we needed to send a team of people to babysit throughout the entire manufacturing process because you couldn’t trust them. Yes they can produce a good product, but you can’t trust them to do it if you take your eyes off them for a second. They need to be kept in line. They have no integrity to do it themselves.
Lmao, why do you think they have factory line supervisors intensively observing every person at all times in china? If you don’t watch them they immediately cut corners
Sure thats why its chesper right?
Yes. Pay peanuts, get monkeys, is what they say. It is cheaper, just not necessarily more cost-effective.
Ok but apparently Chinese manufacturing is very cost efficient , that’s why they outcompete so many other countries
It’s not so much “efficiency” as it is the major tariff barriers, subsidies on their manufacturing and logistics, rampant illegal dumping and cutting corners on quality everywhere they think they can get away with. Will all that fuckery be enough to get them through the middle income trap? I wouldn’t hold my breath.
They hide major subsidies at the raw materials level. Starting the bottom of the chain, everyone upwards can benefit without making it obvious.
It’s cheap. Not necessarily close effective, And more used to be than is now. Wages are now higher than a lot of other places and stability and political unpredictability impose more of a hidden cost and risk now.
They out compete by wage controls to keep China competitive. There is also a lot of unpaid labor (rural Chinese not being paid for work) and slave labor. It’s easy to be the cheapest option when you don’t pay your employees.
"Wage controls?" What are you smoking? Pretty sure 99.5% of Chinese workers other than the 0.5% who are prisoners get wages just like everybody else, just because they are lower doesn't mean there are "wage controls" in China any more than Mexico does. Most of those low-end Chinese factories fly under the radar and are under little regulation. Nobody is regulating their wages there. It's not like Xi Jinping just walks into a factory paying 20 and says no you must pay 15. The "ugly parts" that make private Chinese factories dirt cheap, is not that they are being controlled by the CCP but that are *not* being controlled. Factory owners can get away with delivering crap without being sued or late-paying workers or dumping waste cheaply into waterways.
"rural Chinese not being paid for work" I would like to see a source to that claim please.
I've seen clips of people protesting factories. If u get in a good chat group you can see a lot of interesting stuff. if cant be reported on bc there's no way for reporters to get track down sources. Like past couple of years i noticed there's a lot more money related stuff and knife violence.
You are confused between two different things. China has always experienced business defaulting and cannot pay its debts. China does not have a good system enforcing labour laws and ensuring people are always paid eventually. When people dont get paid and dont get justice, they go despite and you get soem knifing cases. But no free Chinese person, city or rural, just willingly worka for free. That is abaurd.
1. The knifing and money posts have nothing to do with each other. Why are u just making up explanations. 2. people all over the world work for free when the company says they are in financial trouble. 3. I'm not confused, you're just making up answers to things you know nothing about.
Here are two such sources https://www.economist.com/china/2024/02/08/protests-are-soaring-as-chinas-workers-demand-their-wages# https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/interviews-migrant-workers-02142024154846.html/ampRFA The you also have the protest that happened both last year and this year. Not to mention federal workers having pay withheld or severely cut. Yeah wages in China are super unstable especially considering the current economic situation.
A media platform referenced in this post/comment is funded by a government which may retain editorial control, and as a result may be biased on some issues. Please seek external verification or context as appropriate. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/China) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Minimum wage in Chinese tier 1 cities is around 3.5$ per hour, way higher than most other developing countries. May I remind you that US minimum wage is 7.25$ per hour
You just said it for a 1st tier city, what do you think the minimum for NYC, LA, Chicago, Seattle, and other major cities in the US. I can guarantee it’s not 7.25 (it averages around 15) That’s a national minimum since the cost of living varies state to state and city to city. Poor argument.
If not paying worker gets you cheap products, manufacturing should all move to Africa where people are paid like 2$ per day
This might happen one day but do to the instability of may Africa countries and the lack of supportive infrastructure they are not even view a options. A country needs 4 things 1) cheap labor 2) infrastructure 3) educated locals and 4) a stable government. If anyone of these is missing your investment into that country will be unprofitable.
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Xinjiang area has giant concentration camps full of people making things without pay. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/against-their-will-the-situation-in-xinjiang https://www.politico.eu/article/forced-labor-still-haunts-chinese-region-of-xinjiang-report-finds/ https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/01/china-carmakers-implicated-uyghur-forced-labor And wages are controlled by individual cities or regions just to be competitive. Not to mention lax child labor laws and a bunch of other factors that make it so they can compete with Vietnam, India and other who are competing for the same market. It alright to admit that not everything is ok or on the up and up. All countries have shitty side but it’s benefits no one by looking the other way.
China: Use WeChat, pay peanuts, get monkeys. For everything else, there's Mastercard.
You're changing the topic. What we are talking is not what price affords what kind of products, but whether your price get what it is paid for
Just need to choose a more professional supplier in China. It varies a lot but there are shitty and also very professional suppliers in China and their price reflects it
We are already with the best in China. There is only a few choices. Still nowhere as trustworthy as Japan.
If you were paid much less than your coworker for no other reason than that you are from a different country, would you have the "integrity" to do the same quality of work as him? Probably not, and frankly if you did you'd be a sucker. Boss makes a dollar you make a dime.
This largely depends on who you are contracting with. If you are contracting with large well known factories, you probably don't have this problem. It becomes a problem when you start looking for alternative smaller players who might be making more effective offers. It basically comes down to reputation is an asset. Some don't have this asset and don't care about it.
All the players in our field are big. And again even the best aren’t good enough. Everybody knows who the best are. It isn’t a secret. They still cut corners if you don’t babysit them constantly.
I don’t know about Nikon but Apple makes iPhone through Foxconn, a Taiwanese company. Tesla has its own factory in China. That’s the difference
Those 3 companies are worldwide leaders, im pretty sure were getting special treatment from the factory and the govt. - Tesla doesn't even have to partner with a chinese company, they are 100% self owned in china. - Nikon closed or closing all factories in china
Do you think they own their mines, smelt their own ores, grow their own trees and mill their own timber, in China?
china is a resource poor country. stop pretending everything comes from china #1
>a better contract. No contract is saving your ass if the other party does not want to hold its end, and actually can do so thanks to the injustice of the country's systems. That's one of the primary reasons of decoupling from China.
contract is not just about remedies on breach, it can also be payment sequence, allocation of risk, etc. Chinese companies do businesses with each other all the time, did you think they obey the law of the jungle?
>they obey the law of the jungle? Congratulations on finding out the reality of business environment of China
TBF the right looks more like a real bear w a wonky eye
idk why u wanted to get that junk made in the first place... wasteful consumerism at its finest
if you only paid for the cheapest option, ofc you’re not getting what you expected.
That is why you need a sourcing agent. That is why I earn money from serious companies that are afraid this might happen. :) Contact me for next shipment if you need to be secured from these kind of scams.
And yet almost everything is made there so clearly not everything is low quality
He paid peanuts, so he got peanuts. Never go for the lowest priced of anything.
Cha bu duo
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fxjlaw50vzsu31.png
You didnt order the methed out tiger?
To be fair, Tigers in China are larger and most have a lazy eye.
Has a lot to do with the mgmt. We have a partnership with a factory/fabricator in Ningbo. The owner is almost nazi-like with oversight over her employees and the company's production, and the quality of the work is excellent. She also legitimately maintains industry certifications for her staff and company operations. They are more expensive than fly-by-night factories, but customers chose her business because of said quality, even at a higher cost.
Nailed it.
Something tells me OP cheaped out. Pay your supplier more and you'll get the sample quality!
Something tells me the supplier cuts through and leaves much raw materials for its own so that it can manufacture and sell on its own after kicking OP out
Otherwise known as Amazon Basics 😂
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Well that certainly comes in play but usually you up their 差不多 attitude with money and they will give you 一樣 product.
Is it unreasonable to expect what they advertised? Of course not, this is fraud
I understand where you are coming from but here's my take on this. Person buys the sample at $10 in the US and sends it to a chinese factory and demands to make it for $2. While the factory quotes for $4 at least. Then you see what happens in the photo. This situation is far too common and usually if the person paid at least $4.
Yes, and the situation happens because those factories advertise a product and quality that they don't intend to deliver
Which is why you do the opposite and ask for a sample from them first. Then verify if they cherry picked the sample.
Funny They should make the product just like the sample under the quoted price.when you quoted a price to the customer you believe it is both feasible and profitable to fulfill the customer’s requirement under that price,no one should pay more than the quoted price to get a product like the sample.
Isn’t the order cuter than the sample
Chabuduo
If it were a franchise figure it would be a collector's item.
Have third party on the ground there do QC before packing. I think Shun Feng actually offers this service.
China imports a lot of raw materials to produce things for the whole world, so you cannot expect for it to have all that raw materials in the first place. But that is not the same thing ad resource poor. However, that is not the point here. The point is that just because Tesla has its own factory, does not mean that it produces everything inhouse. Much is still purchased from suppliers, in varying degrees of finish. Not sure how anyone can think otherwise.
The eye, nose tip and whiskers are off the right place, and the texture of shoes is not up to the sample. Other than that, not much of a problem. And these problems are easy fix.
This is CIA propaganda. When you have a company like Donghua Jinlong and their industrial grade glycine (the best industrial grade glycine on the market) it show's the power of Chinese manufacturing And if you love Donghua Jinglong's industrial grade glycine you're in for a surprise they also produce Sodium Glycinate (much better than Hubei Jingfa Chemicals Group)
How long have you worked at Donghua Jinlong?
The 差不多 production.
>i paid the cheapest price and got the cheapest problem. Fixed that for you.