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If you’re a foreign company selling on Amazon, even through a shell, you should be bonded and insured or whatever the equivalent that home contractors are requi

by dd36 8y ago

If you’re a foreign company selling on Amazon, even through a shell, you should be bonded and insured or whatever the equivalent that home contractors are required to have. If an electrical contractor can burn down my home and so can your shoddy product, they should require the same minimum insurance. Edit: all companies, forget foreign.

baybal2 8y ago
>If an electrical contractor can burn down my home and so can your shoddy product, they should require the same minimum insurance. You think companies like Google and Amazon don't buy from the same cheapest deal manufacturers? At the very beginning of my career in 2008, I worked in a trade agency in Singapore, where I was an exchange student. Once, we came upon a client who was bragging to be the sourcing company working for all big named Co's around, Amazon and Google included. We were doing a very simple thing for them - getting USB ac/dc converters. At first, we were truly surprised why such a "serious company" is not up to the task to do this trivial thing by themselves. The catch was they were demanding price just below $1 for a unit, packaged.... We found one miserable factory in SZ that was ready to do it for 87 cents, sans packaging. On our request if they do get an idea what this involves, the client said yes. Not only they went forward with that, they continued to fight for the price, and turned to thing as ridiculous as demanding use of cardboard PCB, shaving microns of plastic from the casing there and there, and, the most ridiculous, demanding "use two cheap diodes instead of this beefy one." Two years later, I heard people were reporting that half of people buying Google Nexus were the lucky receivers of this usb charger batch.
- coaxial 8y ago
  Reading the book poorly made in China was eye opening.
  - baybal2 8y ago
    The company I was talking about was an entirely American business.
    - coaxial 8y ago
      You said the manufacturer was in SZ (so I assumed it means Shenzhen). The book is about international companies contracting with Chinese manufacturers, and talks about manufacturing in China. The resulting products are not sold in China but in the US.
      - baybal2 8y ago
        Yes, the factory was in SZ, it was the US client who wanted to push down even those measly profit margins of ours and a factory
- dd36 8y ago
  Yes, but Google and Amazon take on the liability. Do you think general contractors don't use the same cheap uninsured contractor that you could? They do. The difference is they're taking on responsibility for problems.

by dd36 8y ago

baybal2 8y ago

>If an electrical contractor can burn down my home and so can your shoddy product, they should require the same minimum insurance. You think companies like Google and Amazon don't buy from the same cheapest deal manufacturers? At the very beginning of my career in 2008, I worked in a trade agency in Singapore, where I was an exchange student. Once, we came upon a client who was bragging to be the sourcing company working for all big named Co's around, Amazon and Google included. We were doing a very simple thing for them - getting USB ac/dc converters. At first, we were truly surprised why such a "serious company" is not up to the task to do this trivial thing by themselves. The catch was they were demanding price just below $1 for a unit, packaged.... We found one miserable factory in SZ that was ready to do it for 87 cents, sans packaging. On our request if they do get an idea what this involves, the client said yes. Not only they went forward with that, they continued to fight for the price, and turned to thing as ridiculous as demanding use of cardboard PCB, shaving microns of plastic from the casing there and there, and, the most ridiculous, demanding "use two cheap diodes instead of this beefy one." Two years later, I heard people were reporting that half of people buying Google Nexus were the lucky receivers of this usb charger batch.

coaxial 8y ago
Reading the book poorly made in China was eye opening.
- baybal2 8y ago
  The company I was talking about was an entirely American business.
  - coaxial 8y ago
    You said the manufacturer was in SZ (so I assumed it means Shenzhen). The book is about international companies contracting with Chinese manufacturers, and talks about manufacturing in China. The resulting products are not sold in China but in the US.
    - baybal2 8y ago
      Yes, the factory was in SZ, it was the US client who wanted to push down even those measly profit margins of ours and a factory
dd36 8y ago
Yes, but Google and Amazon take on the liability. Do you think general contractors don't use the same cheap uninsured contractor that you could? They do. The difference is they're taking on responsibility for problems.