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Is it just me, or is this article incredibly biased? here's a thought.. if you dont want your stuff counterfited, dont outsource it to china. The companies lo

Is it just me, or is this article incredibly biased? here's a thought.. if you dont want your stuff counterfited, dont outsource it to china. The companies loved the idea of "cheap labour" and also want the underpaid employees to be honest and loyal to them? The "high price of low cost" at play here.. In this selfiestick, china is bad here.. but for a lot of the counterfits.. you sent china the moulds, templates, specs.. hmmm... Jack Ma is correct, a lot of the counterfits come from the same factory someone outsourced to.. so what is the difference between a "counterfit" and "genuine" article other then price?

mtnGoat 8y ago
Often times the counterfeit is using cheaper materials though.
jfim 8y ago
> so what is the difference between a "counterfit" and "genuine" article other then price? The counterfeit product has no incentive to ensure their product is of high quality, as long as it passes a cursory inspection before/after being bought. If you buy a brand X product and it fails after six months, you can complain to the company about it, you can post on social media to make it known that brand X doesn't last long, and so on. Brand X has an incentive to make sure their products last as long as customers expect them to, that they're safe, etc. as to not tarnish their brand image. If you get a FakeX branded product, who do you complain to when it breaks six months later? The AliExpress seller is long gone, the FakeX brand is replaced by FakeX+1 brand, and you're pretty much SOL. If the product has a major defect or safety issue, there are no recalls for FakeX branded products. How many hoverboards were recalled for being fire hazards?
- kenned3 8y ago
  if the genuine product was doing a proper QA there wouldnt be so many counterfits from the very same factory would there? Apple being a good example.. they have strict QA controlls and you never hear of a "second shift" creating fake iphones. Ever complain to a brand and have them do something about it? most dont. usually 'brand x' is more concerned with maximizing its profit margins, which is why they went to china in the first place (cheap labour, lax environmental laws...).
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  This applies as much to genuine products as it does to counterfeit ones. If the company behind the genuine product wanted to ensure high quality, they wouldn't outsource manufacturing to China, to the cheapest plant available. Chinese plants generally give you what you pay them for. See how much crap you can buy in western shops, made by western brands, but "in China". It's not the "in China" part that's responsible for it, it's the pittance the western brand is willing to pay for manufacturing and controls.
siruncledrew 8y ago
Even simpler: If you don't want your stuff counterfeited, don't outsource it, period. Unless the company buys a factory in some cheap labor country and sends some of their employees over to "manage" (police) the foreign workers, then there is always going to be a risk of loss with being so removed from the outsourced production. (Then again, there's no guarantee the outsourced workers are going to get treated any better by foreign managers - look up the history of United Fruit Company for an example.) Counterfeiting comes with the territory of using cheap labor/production in order to get more profit into the pockets of those outsourcing the business. That's not to say counterfeiting isn't wrong. However, the validity of "wrong" becomes more of a gray area depending on which party you ask. Each party has their own motivations and those motivations have different socioeconomic impacts and ethical implications.

mtnGoat 8y ago

Often times the counterfeit is using cheaper materials though.

jfim 8y ago

> so what is the difference between a "counterfit" and "genuine" article other then price? The counterfeit product has no incentive to ensure their product is of high quality, as long as it passes a cursory inspection before/after being bought. If you buy a brand X product and it fails after six months, you can complain to the company about it, you can post on social media to make it known that brand X doesn't last long, and so on. Brand X has an incentive to make sure their products last as long as customers expect them to, that they're safe, etc. as to not tarnish their brand image. If you get a FakeX branded product, who do you complain to when it breaks six months later? The AliExpress seller is long gone, the FakeX brand is replaced by FakeX+1 brand, and you're pretty much SOL. If the product has a major defect or safety issue, there are no recalls for FakeX branded products. How many hoverboards were recalled for being fire hazards?

kenned3 8y ago
if the genuine product was doing a proper QA there wouldnt be so many counterfits from the very same factory would there? Apple being a good example.. they have strict QA controlls and you never hear of a "second shift" creating fake iphones. Ever complain to a brand and have them do something about it? most dont. usually 'brand x' is more concerned with maximizing its profit margins, which is why they went to china in the first place (cheap labour, lax environmental laws...).
TeMPOraL 8y ago
This applies as much to genuine products as it does to counterfeit ones. If the company behind the genuine product wanted to ensure high quality, they wouldn't outsource manufacturing to China, to the cheapest plant available. Chinese plants generally give you what you pay them for. See how much crap you can buy in western shops, made by western brands, but "in China". It's not the "in China" part that's responsible for it, it's the pittance the western brand is willing to pay for manufacturing and controls.

siruncledrew 8y ago

Even simpler: If you don't want your stuff counterfeited, don't outsource it, period. Unless the company buys a factory in some cheap labor country and sends some of their employees over to "manage" (police) the foreign workers, then there is always going to be a risk of loss with being so removed from the outsourced production. (Then again, there's no guarantee the outsourced workers are going to get treated any better by foreign managers - look up the history of United Fruit Company for an example.) Counterfeiting comes with the territory of using cheap labor/production in order to get more profit into the pockets of those outsourcing the business. That's not to say counterfeiting isn't wrong. However, the validity of "wrong" becomes more of a gray area depending on which party you ask. Each party has their own motivations and those motivations have different socioeconomic impacts and ethical implications.