11 ms·

Say what you may of Temu, and I do think more vetting of certain goods is a good idea, but they fill a very real need. In the part of Europe where I live, the c

by dsign 4mo ago

Say what you may of Temu, and I do think more vetting of certain goods is a good idea, but they fill a very real need. In the part of Europe where I live, the choice is only between intermediaries for the same products coming from China. The local intermediaries sell a very limited picking at staggering margins. And when it comes to certain things, like electronic components, the choice is between importing (old) American stock with a German company as the intermediary, and that's $$$$ and many weeks of shipping, or using Temu or Aliexpress. There's something unpleasantly snobbish with the way business is done here, a spirit of "if you have to ask the price, our business is not for you". For example, in Instagram, "Local offerings" pop up all the time in the feed. The ones which are truly local end up in a "call us to know more" button, no pricing info disclosed. The ones that show actual prices tend to be shell companies with no employees, no doubt a thin wrapper around an importer from Asia.

whimsicalism 4mo ago
yes, i'm very in favor of the shift towards direct-to-consumer among chinese retailers, but that might be because i'm not actually all that sympathetic to small business
- ryandrake 4mo ago
  I recently bought some custom-built pool lighting directly from the manufacturer in Ningbo, and I have to say, the sales, delivery, and customer support I received was top notch. Their representatives were fluent in English and competent, the product quality was excellent (yes, I carefully inspected it upon receipt because it's going into water), and the entire process from measurement to delivery was fast and smooth. And, of course, the price was right.
  - BrtByte 4mo ago
    In a way it makes the Temu problem more frustrating
    - DANmode 4mo ago
      Because it’s not a Temu problem, it’s a problem of allowing the collapse of your own civilization?
  - markdown 4mo ago
    Isn't pool lighting low voltage (12v?) so not much of a risk even if faulty?
    - ryandrake 4mo ago
      That's right, so I wasn't that worried about physical safety. Mostly worried about damage to the product that water ingress could cause.
- londons_explore 4mo ago
  There is totally a market for a global website which instead of shipping goods direct from China by plane instead has local warehouses 1 per city and can deliver to your house within a few hours by motorbike. Aka like Amazon but with much smaller margins. The savings would come from the fact sea freight is so much cheaper than air freight.
  - Someone 4mo ago
    And the losses from having warehouses storing zillions of products that do not get sold for a long time. There’s a reason the likes of Aldi and Lidl have limited product choice.
    - 10000truths 4mo ago
      Aldi and Lidl deal with perishable goods. Temu (by and large) doesn't.
      - avereveard 4mo ago
        But they are, especially those with batteries
      - kergonath 4mo ago
        Fine, Action then.
      - dgellow 4mo ago
        Aldi and Lidl sell way more than just perishable goods. You can buy electronics from there
  - trollbridge 4mo ago
    That’s called “Walmart”
    - throw-the-towel 4mo ago
      Not in Europe.
- simplyluke 4mo ago
  I'm not all that sympathetic to small businesses that exist functionally as drop shippers for the same products with the same absence of support. Much in the same way I roll my eyes and go to 7/11 over the cute "local" markets that are supplied by the same suppliers nationwide, and you end up in a shiplap-walled coffee shop with $8 bags of chips that could exist anywhere. Small businesses that do the work of curating a niche item, doing QA work that's absent on the shipments from china, and then offering much stronger aftermarket support/replacement/repair? That is often worth a (substantial) premium over wondering if the item showing up in a month is going to work as intended.
ktallett 4mo ago
There is some validity to a marketplace selling items from a larger range of retailers, however the quality is so poor for many items that it simply is no good for society in any way.
- everforward 4mo ago
  > the quality is so poor for many items that it simply is no good for society in any way. There are some that are genuinely dangerous and bad for society, but there are tons of goods that are "the same thing but half the price because it lasts a quarter the time" that have genuine utility. Harbor Freight has basically made a drop-shipping business out of it. I often have tools that I need but will probably use 4 times in my life, and the Harbor Freight stuff is crap but will probably work 4 times. Copy that over a bunch of verticals and it starts to make sense. Clothing for a costume I'll wear maybe twice, niche cooking gadgets for very specific things, tools to do a one-time repair on a car, a flash drive to turn over photos to family members, yada yada.
  - doubled112 4mo ago
    > some that are genuinely dangerous ... tools that I need but will probably use 4 times in my life, and the Harbor Freight stuff is crap but will probably work 4 times Forehead hit hood, but I caught myself so it was a "gentle" reminder instead of a concussion. I should have splurged that time I broke a socket tightening an axle bolt. 150 ft-lbs + 180 degrees is a fair bit of torque.
    - everforward 4mo ago
      There are definitely things I wouldn't roll the dice on from Harbor Freight. Anything that unpredictably dumps large amounts of kinetic energy on failure is one of those. I had a buddy that bought the tool for getting car suspension springs on from Harbor Freight, and I definitely wouldn't roll those dice.
  - verall 4mo ago
    I think the dirty secret is that a lot of it is not "1/2 the price that lasts 1/4 the time" but "1/4 the price that lasts 9/10 the time" or "1/2 the price for the exact same product without half of the budget going to marketing". It's not all of it. Some things are seriously worse quality. But really a ton of the "better quality" is just better marketing.
mytailorisrich 4mo ago
There is a part of conservatism and resistance to change. Online commerce has been seen as "suspicious" by some from the beginning to the point that in, for instance, France free delivery of books is banned... of course this just means that amazon.fr charges 1 cent, instead but it is symptomatic of a state of mind.
- Barbing 4mo ago
  Interesting! They tried using lockers so it could still be free: https://www.connexionfrance.com/news/amazon-is-wrong-to-use-free-locker-sites-for-book-collection-says-french-minister/692700 https://www.connexionfrance.com/news/amazon-is-wrong-to-use-...
victorbjorklund 4mo ago
Yea, worst is the retail people who clearly hated Temu/Aliexpress etc because they stand no chance at competing with them when they sell the same things but at 10 times the cost (I don’t blame them. Sucks for them) but instead of just saying the truth that they hate the competition they just make up these fake reasons ”oh it’s low quality stuff that will break” when it’s clearly the same stuff from the same factories etc.
- jeppester 4mo ago
  If you played a boardgame, wouldn't you be upset if someone won the game easily, because they decided to just break all the rules?
  - slaw 4mo ago
    what kind of board game has rules buy for one coin, do nothing, sell for 10 coins?
    - kalleboo 4mo ago
      Monopoly
      - slaw 4mo ago
        So Temu/Aliexpress fixes the rules not breaks them. OP shouldn't be upset.
        jeppester 4mo ago
        How are the rules broken? How does Temu fix then? We have rules that should prevent companies from selling broken and dangerous crap. Should I not be upset that Temu ignores those rules deliberately and floods the EU with exactly that?
    - jeppester 4mo ago
      If it was that simple, surely someone would undercut all the retailers that follow the rules - while also following the rules. Temu is just deliberately ignoring any rules.
beezlewax 4mo ago
What part of Europe is that? Is it is in the EU?
lnxg33k1 4mo ago
[flagged]
BrtByte 4mo ago
But I still think chargers and children's toys are exactly where the line should be drawn
- lopis 4mo ago
  My line is a little bit further back. Any electronics that will be plugged to a wall... Lots of appliances are not safe.
  - ben_w 4mo ago
    Yup. I've even had an (Amazon rather than Temu) power-strip-and-USB combo noticeably sparking and tripping the apartment circuit breakers when plugged in just 6 months after purchase.
    - deleted 4mo ago
      [deleted]
    - aDyslecticCrow 4mo ago
      Could we interest you in some amazons choice fuses? never more be concerned about replacing a fuse! as these ones, simply wont need replacing! (they survive 5-10x their rated current) https://youtu.be/B90_SNNbcoU https://youtu.be/B90_SNNbcoU
      - Chaosvex 4mo ago
        It's a little amusing that he's seemingly linked to the dangerous fuses using his Amazon affiliate links. Hey, may well make a buck if someone's going to buy them anyway, right?
        xingped 4mo ago
        I think the affiliate links work such that any product bought when the lead into the site is the affiliate code will generate affiliate rewards. So even if you don't buy the crap that's linked, maybe you'll buy something else and that counts.
Symbiote 4mo ago
> In the part of Europe where I live I downvote comments like this, since they make the comment useless. No-one can vouch for or argue against the comment when it's some "part" of a continent of over 40 countries.
- cubefox 4mo ago
  Exactly. Europe is not a country. Some countries in Europe are more different from each other than others are from the US.
runarberg 4mo ago
My reaction to this sentiment is that they fill the same need in Europe as Uber did in the USA. They found a way to operate in a market while avoiding its regulations and are therefor able to offer much lower prices as their competitors who still follow the regulations. Europe has historically had pretty strict consumer protection laws, and ever since the end of the Cold War these consumer protection laws have been slowly chipped away. When I was a kid for example companies were not allowed to target children in their marketing material. When American media became predominant in the continent, instead of enforcing our own consumer protection laws against American advertisers, regulators just ignored it and allowed it to proliferate, effectively making ads targeting children legal in the continent. Regulators have been showing the exact same inaction towards Chinese retailers breaking our own laws as they did towards American advertisers three decades ago. I foresee that consumer safety laws getting the same fate as the ban on ads targeting children.
munk-a 4mo ago
I know your mileage may vary in different areas of Europe but in Italy and Spain you'll find a plethora of random general stores that resell Aliexpress sorts of goods at a very low markup over direct ordering. The stock variety is obviously more limited but those stores are amazing and fit a really key need.
- thesimon 4mo ago
  These stores are a big thing in Portugal as well, but doesn't really seem to be a thing in Germany. Closest I guess would be Action [1]. [1]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Nederland https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Nederland
  - leonhard 4mo ago
    What are these stores in Spain/Italy/Portugal?
    - munk-a 4mo ago
      Most of the ones I'm thinking of are just corner stores - it's not a brand or chain to my knowledge. An example might be Bazar Gran Puerto, El Puerto de Sta Maria, CA, ES.
    - Doohickey-d 4mo ago
      The ones in Spain often market themselves with their Chinese-ness: "Hyper China", "Panda Bazaar", "Maxi Barato (super cheap)", etc. would be some representative names & signage you see outside. They range in size from small shops to things with huge floor space. One thing I've found is that they seem to sell very low quality stuff: e.g. on aliexpress you can buy a flashlight which is built out of metal, has usb-c charging, for $10, whereas in the physical shop, you get the plastic one that takes AA batteries for $2. So they're not a replacement for AliExpress, Temu & co.
  - nekzn 4mo ago
    How about TEDi?
Scroll_Swe 4mo ago
Like what? The clothes are all 100% plastic polyester shit with extra chemicals. If you have proof of otherwise, show me. Yes I make enough to buy good clothes. If I REALLY need cheap clothes H&M basics are always there. Same with anything else, IT and tech parts I shop in Sweden. What else? Like, what is so needed now that you did not need before but you need to buy plastic China crap from Temu now?
- Numerlor 4mo ago
  More niche hardware has been impossible for me to find in the EU marketplaces I got to with searches, with only availability from US ebay, and then Chinese marketplaces. Or if it does exist here it's the same used part but it costs 500€ instead of 40
  - Scroll_Swe 4mo ago
    ah okay, I was more raging on the people buying fast fashion crap clothes, chargers and household items. All crap, all landfill quality.
    - kergonath 4mo ago
      At least crap clothes do not risk setting your building on fire, unlike crap chargers. Some things are definitely more dangerous than others.
kergonath 4mo ago
> but they fill a very real need. That is not a good reason to fudge certifications and sell dangerous goods. I sympathise with your use case, but the solution is not "let’s just import whatever, as long as it’s cheap".
- selcuka 4mo ago
  The GP also said "vetting of certain goods is a good idea".
registeredcorn 4mo ago
> The ones which are truly local end up in a "call us to know more" button, no pricing info disclosed. I cannot speak for the specific part of Europe that you are in, but in the professional Photography community, it is common practice to not list prices and instead have a "contact us" option. The reason isn't a, "Look at us, we're so exclusive and fancy!" Rather, if you list a price for various packages, people get scared off or think they are a master negotiator and can essentially get the work done for free. All of the professionals I've spoken to are happy to work with customers to find a package at an affordable price for them, or at least recommend other professionals in whatever price range they have in mind. The issue is that its exceptionally hard to convey that in a sincere, real way because if someone only sees a price of say $10 000 or whatever, they are naturally going to assume that you cannot possibly get anything for $100-$1 000. In truth though, many are glad to try and accommodate and get people something that they will be happy with. Perhaps it ends up being 1 or 2 photos instead of an album of photos or whatever, or perhaps the photoshoot is a little bit more "low budget" than a standard one, but there is still lots of opportunity to get the client something they will be happy with. People tend to get wrapped up in the bottom line though, and just assume that they can't afford to capture a happy memory because of the cost - that's something that photographers really want to avoid because (aside from scaring off paying customers! :) ) it means less photos existing, or making it feel impossibly hard to ever show an interest in photography, which is very sad for people who live and breath it.
- dingaling 4mo ago
  > Rather, if you list a price for various packages, people get scared off Yet somehow other businesses manage to convey tiered pricing without scaring customers. Imagine trying to book a hotel room but were told to contact them because they have a range of rooms from single bed to honeymoon suite. "We couldn't possibly list all the packages, it would confuse you!" Or try to buy a car, but the dealer refused to list a base price because "we have so many options it's meaningless". Withholding guideline or indicative pricing is a deliberate obfuscation designed to increase friction and reduce choice.
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
stdatomic 4mo ago
Really hits hard when you have to go to Home Depot to buy 6 spade connectors for $7.99 to use in a project with 3.3V 300mA max, when you can buy about 500 of them from Aliexpress for the same price.
- theshrike79 4mo ago
  And this is how I ended up with bags full of resistors, transistors, leds etc. I can buy 3 from the local store or a BAG OF ONE HUNDRED from Aliexpress. Not a hard decision tbh.
  - bombcar 4mo ago
    It’s not a hard decision - and I was making it wrong for many years. Now I gladly pay Home Depot or friends to maintain stock for me so my house isn’t filled with bags of shit I’ll never practically use.
- handle584 4mo ago
  Until you learn the hard way that they are not up to the standard advertised, if they happen to be rated in the first place. It is common knowledge that Chinese manufacturers maintains at least three configs of the same product, the best one sent off for rating, the middle for knowledgeable buyers, the worst being the 500-for-$7.99 shit for the mass market, who buys nothing but the cheapest.

by dsign 4mo ago

whimsicalism 4mo ago

yes, i'm very in favor of the shift towards direct-to-consumer among chinese retailers, but that might be because i'm not actually all that sympathetic to small business

ryandrake 4mo ago
I recently bought some custom-built pool lighting directly from the manufacturer in Ningbo, and I have to say, the sales, delivery, and customer support I received was top notch. Their representatives were fluent in English and competent, the product quality was excellent (yes, I carefully inspected it upon receipt because it's going into water), and the entire process from measurement to delivery was fast and smooth. And, of course, the price was right.
- BrtByte 4mo ago
  In a way it makes the Temu problem more frustrating
  - DANmode 4mo ago
    Because it’s not a Temu problem, it’s a problem of allowing the collapse of your own civilization?
- markdown 4mo ago
  Isn't pool lighting low voltage (12v?) so not much of a risk even if faulty?
  - ryandrake 4mo ago
    That's right, so I wasn't that worried about physical safety. Mostly worried about damage to the product that water ingress could cause.
londons_explore 4mo ago
There is totally a market for a global website which instead of shipping goods direct from China by plane instead has local warehouses 1 per city and can deliver to your house within a few hours by motorbike. Aka like Amazon but with much smaller margins. The savings would come from the fact sea freight is so much cheaper than air freight.
- Someone 4mo ago
  And the losses from having warehouses storing zillions of products that do not get sold for a long time. There’s a reason the likes of Aldi and Lidl have limited product choice.
  - 10000truths 4mo ago
    Aldi and Lidl deal with perishable goods. Temu (by and large) doesn't.
    - avereveard 4mo ago
      But they are, especially those with batteries
    - kergonath 4mo ago
      Fine, Action then.
    - dgellow 4mo ago
      Aldi and Lidl sell way more than just perishable goods. You can buy electronics from there
- trollbridge 4mo ago
  That’s called “Walmart”
  - throw-the-towel 4mo ago
    Not in Europe.
simplyluke 4mo ago
I'm not all that sympathetic to small businesses that exist functionally as drop shippers for the same products with the same absence of support. Much in the same way I roll my eyes and go to 7/11 over the cute "local" markets that are supplied by the same suppliers nationwide, and you end up in a shiplap-walled coffee shop with $8 bags of chips that could exist anywhere. Small businesses that do the work of curating a niche item, doing QA work that's absent on the shipments from china, and then offering much stronger aftermarket support/replacement/repair? That is often worth a (substantial) premium over wondering if the item showing up in a month is going to work as intended.

ktallett 4mo ago

There is some validity to a marketplace selling items from a larger range of retailers, however the quality is so poor for many items that it simply is no good for society in any way.

everforward 4mo ago
> the quality is so poor for many items that it simply is no good for society in any way. There are some that are genuinely dangerous and bad for society, but there are tons of goods that are "the same thing but half the price because it lasts a quarter the time" that have genuine utility. Harbor Freight has basically made a drop-shipping business out of it. I often have tools that I need but will probably use 4 times in my life, and the Harbor Freight stuff is crap but will probably work 4 times. Copy that over a bunch of verticals and it starts to make sense. Clothing for a costume I'll wear maybe twice, niche cooking gadgets for very specific things, tools to do a one-time repair on a car, a flash drive to turn over photos to family members, yada yada.
- doubled112 4mo ago
  > some that are genuinely dangerous ... tools that I need but will probably use 4 times in my life, and the Harbor Freight stuff is crap but will probably work 4 times Forehead hit hood, but I caught myself so it was a "gentle" reminder instead of a concussion. I should have splurged that time I broke a socket tightening an axle bolt. 150 ft-lbs + 180 degrees is a fair bit of torque.
  - everforward 4mo ago
    There are definitely things I wouldn't roll the dice on from Harbor Freight. Anything that unpredictably dumps large amounts of kinetic energy on failure is one of those. I had a buddy that bought the tool for getting car suspension springs on from Harbor Freight, and I definitely wouldn't roll those dice.
- verall 4mo ago
  I think the dirty secret is that a lot of it is not "1/2 the price that lasts 1/4 the time" but "1/4 the price that lasts 9/10 the time" or "1/2 the price for the exact same product without half of the budget going to marketing". It's not all of it. Some things are seriously worse quality. But really a ton of the "better quality" is just better marketing.

mytailorisrich 4mo ago

There is a part of conservatism and resistance to change. Online commerce has been seen as "suspicious" by some from the beginning to the point that in, for instance, France free delivery of books is banned... of course this just means that amazon.fr charges 1 cent, instead but it is symptomatic of a state of mind.

Barbing 4mo ago
Interesting! They tried using lockers so it could still be free: https://www.connexionfrance.com/news/amazon-is-wrong-to-use-free-locker-sites-for-book-collection-says-french-minister/692700 https://www.connexionfrance.com/news/amazon-is-wrong-to-use-...

victorbjorklund 4mo ago

Yea, worst is the retail people who clearly hated Temu/Aliexpress etc because they stand no chance at competing with them when they sell the same things but at 10 times the cost (I don’t blame them. Sucks for them) but instead of just saying the truth that they hate the competition they just make up these fake reasons ”oh it’s low quality stuff that will break” when it’s clearly the same stuff from the same factories etc.

jeppester 4mo ago
If you played a boardgame, wouldn't you be upset if someone won the game easily, because they decided to just break all the rules?
- slaw 4mo ago
  what kind of board game has rules buy for one coin, do nothing, sell for 10 coins?
  - kalleboo 4mo ago
    Monopoly
    - slaw 4mo ago
      So Temu/Aliexpress fixes the rules not breaks them. OP shouldn't be upset.
      - jeppester 4mo ago
        How are the rules broken? How does Temu fix then? We have rules that should prevent companies from selling broken and dangerous crap. Should I not be upset that Temu ignores those rules deliberately and floods the EU with exactly that?
  - jeppester 4mo ago
    If it was that simple, surely someone would undercut all the retailers that follow the rules - while also following the rules. Temu is just deliberately ignoring any rules.

beezlewax 4mo ago

What part of Europe is that? Is it is in the EU?

lnxg33k1 4mo ago

[flagged]

BrtByte 4mo ago

But I still think chargers and children's toys are exactly where the line should be drawn

lopis 4mo ago
My line is a little bit further back. Any electronics that will be plugged to a wall... Lots of appliances are not safe.
- ben_w 4mo ago
  Yup. I've even had an (Amazon rather than Temu) power-strip-and-USB combo noticeably sparking and tripping the apartment circuit breakers when plugged in just 6 months after purchase.
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  - aDyslecticCrow 4mo ago
    Could we interest you in some amazons choice fuses? never more be concerned about replacing a fuse! as these ones, simply wont need replacing! (they survive 5-10x their rated current) https://youtu.be/B90_SNNbcoU https://youtu.be/B90_SNNbcoU
    - Chaosvex 4mo ago
      It's a little amusing that he's seemingly linked to the dangerous fuses using his Amazon affiliate links. Hey, may well make a buck if someone's going to buy them anyway, right?
      - xingped 4mo ago
        I think the affiliate links work such that any product bought when the lead into the site is the affiliate code will generate affiliate rewards. So even if you don't buy the crap that's linked, maybe you'll buy something else and that counts.

Symbiote 4mo ago

> In the part of Europe where I live I downvote comments like this, since they make the comment useless. No-one can vouch for or argue against the comment when it's some "part" of a continent of over 40 countries.

cubefox 4mo ago
Exactly. Europe is not a country. Some countries in Europe are more different from each other than others are from the US.

runarberg 4mo ago

My reaction to this sentiment is that they fill the same need in Europe as Uber did in the USA. They found a way to operate in a market while avoiding its regulations and are therefor able to offer much lower prices as their competitors who still follow the regulations. Europe has historically had pretty strict consumer protection laws, and ever since the end of the Cold War these consumer protection laws have been slowly chipped away. When I was a kid for example companies were not allowed to target children in their marketing material. When American media became predominant in the continent, instead of enforcing our own consumer protection laws against American advertisers, regulators just ignored it and allowed it to proliferate, effectively making ads targeting children legal in the continent. Regulators have been showing the exact same inaction towards Chinese retailers breaking our own laws as they did towards American advertisers three decades ago. I foresee that consumer safety laws getting the same fate as the ban on ads targeting children.

munk-a 4mo ago

I know your mileage may vary in different areas of Europe but in Italy and Spain you'll find a plethora of random general stores that resell Aliexpress sorts of goods at a very low markup over direct ordering. The stock variety is obviously more limited but those stores are amazing and fit a really key need.

thesimon 4mo ago
These stores are a big thing in Portugal as well, but doesn't really seem to be a thing in Germany. Closest I guess would be Action [1]. [1]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Nederland https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Nederland
- leonhard 4mo ago
  What are these stores in Spain/Italy/Portugal?
  - munk-a 4mo ago
    Most of the ones I'm thinking of are just corner stores - it's not a brand or chain to my knowledge. An example might be Bazar Gran Puerto, El Puerto de Sta Maria, CA, ES.
  - Doohickey-d 4mo ago
    The ones in Spain often market themselves with their Chinese-ness: "Hyper China", "Panda Bazaar", "Maxi Barato (super cheap)", etc. would be some representative names & signage you see outside. They range in size from small shops to things with huge floor space. One thing I've found is that they seem to sell very low quality stuff: e.g. on aliexpress you can buy a flashlight which is built out of metal, has usb-c charging, for $10, whereas in the physical shop, you get the plastic one that takes AA batteries for $2. So they're not a replacement for AliExpress, Temu & co.
- nekzn 4mo ago
  How about TEDi?

Scroll_Swe 4mo ago

Like what? The clothes are all 100% plastic polyester shit with extra chemicals. If you have proof of otherwise, show me. Yes I make enough to buy good clothes. If I REALLY need cheap clothes H&M basics are always there. Same with anything else, IT and tech parts I shop in Sweden. What else? Like, what is so needed now that you did not need before but you need to buy plastic China crap from Temu now?

Numerlor 4mo ago
More niche hardware has been impossible for me to find in the EU marketplaces I got to with searches, with only availability from US ebay, and then Chinese marketplaces. Or if it does exist here it's the same used part but it costs 500€ instead of 40
- Scroll_Swe 4mo ago
  ah okay, I was more raging on the people buying fast fashion crap clothes, chargers and household items. All crap, all landfill quality.
  - kergonath 4mo ago
    At least crap clothes do not risk setting your building on fire, unlike crap chargers. Some things are definitely more dangerous than others.

kergonath 4mo ago

> but they fill a very real need. That is not a good reason to fudge certifications and sell dangerous goods. I sympathise with your use case, but the solution is not "let’s just import whatever, as long as it’s cheap".

selcuka 4mo ago
The GP also said "vetting of certain goods is a good idea".

registeredcorn 4mo ago

> The ones which are truly local end up in a "call us to know more" button, no pricing info disclosed. I cannot speak for the specific part of Europe that you are in, but in the professional Photography community, it is common practice to not list prices and instead have a "contact us" option. The reason isn't a, "Look at us, we're so exclusive and fancy!" Rather, if you list a price for various packages, people get scared off or think they are a master negotiator and can essentially get the work done for free. All of the professionals I've spoken to are happy to work with customers to find a package at an affordable price for them, or at least recommend other professionals in whatever price range they have in mind. The issue is that its exceptionally hard to convey that in a sincere, real way because if someone only sees a price of say $10 000 or whatever, they are naturally going to assume that you cannot possibly get anything for $100-$1 000. In truth though, many are glad to try and accommodate and get people something that they will be happy with. Perhaps it ends up being 1 or 2 photos instead of an album of photos or whatever, or perhaps the photoshoot is a little bit more "low budget" than a standard one, but there is still lots of opportunity to get the client something they will be happy with. People tend to get wrapped up in the bottom line though, and just assume that they can't afford to capture a happy memory because of the cost - that's something that photographers really want to avoid because (aside from scaring off paying customers! :) ) it means less photos existing, or making it feel impossibly hard to ever show an interest in photography, which is very sad for people who live and breath it.

dingaling 4mo ago
> Rather, if you list a price for various packages, people get scared off Yet somehow other businesses manage to convey tiered pricing without scaring customers. Imagine trying to book a hotel room but were told to contact them because they have a range of rooms from single bed to honeymoon suite. "We couldn't possibly list all the packages, it would confuse you!" Or try to buy a car, but the dealer refused to list a base price because "we have so many options it's meaningless". Withholding guideline or indicative pricing is a deliberate obfuscation designed to increase friction and reduce choice.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]

stdatomic 4mo ago

Really hits hard when you have to go to Home Depot to buy 6 spade connectors for $7.99 to use in a project with 3.3V 300mA max, when you can buy about 500 of them from Aliexpress for the same price.

theshrike79 4mo ago
And this is how I ended up with bags full of resistors, transistors, leds etc. I can buy 3 from the local store or a BAG OF ONE HUNDRED from Aliexpress. Not a hard decision tbh.
- bombcar 4mo ago
  It’s not a hard decision - and I was making it wrong for many years. Now I gladly pay Home Depot or friends to maintain stock for me so my house isn’t filled with bags of shit I’ll never practically use.
handle584 4mo ago
Until you learn the hard way that they are not up to the standard advertised, if they happen to be rated in the first place. It is common knowledge that Chinese manufacturers maintains at least three configs of the same product, the best one sent off for rating, the middle for knowledgeable buyers, the worst being the 500-for-$7.99 shit for the mass market, who buys nothing but the cheapest.