Well this my friend tells the story. Were you to know who Sam is, then you'd appreciate more about the nature of Chinese business.Fireball wrote: Who's Sam and where is he/she from? China?
In the analysis above I've explained how because of shipping locally, and shipping back locally, factory and locals can play the risk of something-wrong-with-the-product game more safely and even arguably effectively. I have not portrayed the Chinese market as a sewer as you interpret. It's simply a matter of economics, and Chinese people like a bargain. More, wages are lower so making lower quality items cheaper which can be sent back to the factory for replacement or repair makes some sense for them locally in the local market. It's two way traffic.
When Chinese market products get sent internationally it's one way traffic because the costs of sending them back are uneconomic. So the business model that works in the internal market does not work for the international market.
Sam. Well Sam's the man at WM and he's the one who knows everything that goes on. Yes, he's the man in China at WM.
Under Sam there are various employees. I've heard it from two TDF vendors that they won't deal with one or other of the underling sales reps as the dolls that they supply give trouble. There are many people in China aiming to make a fast buck and they will if they can. One has a lever on another so that things go unreported and uncorrected. This is how corruption erodes reliability and the only way of ensuring reliability is to know personally who one is dealing with.
That's why of the Jinsan dolls I have advocated buying directly from Joyce at OR, Oriental Rose, because she is straight, caring for all of her customers personally, and manufactures to the expectations of the Japanese market. Brands aiming for the mass market will always be subject to the shenanigans of Chinese business. It's because she's not in that business that she and her products can be relied upon.
It's interesting also that issues of quality gave people like DH168, Doll4Ever, Irontech, Climax the impetus to start up knowing that they could do better. That's why on the Alibaba seller's range I mentioned above, you'll see WM and I think YL, unbranded dolls and JY of 158 to 165 sizes being knocked out in the $600-$1000 range, possibly $1200 but Climax maintaining prices in the $1500-$1600 region and upwards, JM coming in at over $2000 and you won't see the DH168 family of dolls there at all. This tells all about which brands aim for quality above price and which brands will be supplying a different quality of dolls to capture the mass market in the local economy.
Best wishes
Harem