Iâve ordered quite a bit from them, itâs always a crapshoot how it will turn out.
At the risk of sounding bigoted or prejudiced -
When ordering from China, you have to realize the culture of the marketplace over there. Itâs NOTHING like the Western world. On the one hand, it makes me really angry for the small businessman or woman who wants to run an honest business. The manufacturing and marketing practices almost guarantee they canât remain competitive unless they find a way (like others) to cheat the system.
On the other hand, it makes me furious that China is a world power and canât get their act together on this.
According to my friends who do business regularly there -
Itâs all because of the trade agreements set up with the U.S. and other countries in 1978. In 1947, EU countries and most of the Western world began what was truly the first global economy. China, however, did not come to the table at that time. Fast forward to 1978, and Chinaâs economy is in crisis mode, people starving, health and technology and industry standards languishing far behind the rest of the world.
As a gesture of good faith, the US entered trade agreements with China to help bolster their own industry and GNP. Tariffs and taxes were lifted, costs subsidized, but Part of the agreement was that western businesses could only sell in China if they agreed to turn over all rights to technology, patent-free. Itâs where the term âChinese knock offâ comes from!
So, China begins to rebuild an economy based almost solely on cheap products from the U.S. in which they would take the patents and reproduce them cheaply for $1 a day labor, then undersell the companies that were exporting their.
Imagine the frenzy of a billion starving, desperate Chinese workers and entrepreneurs as cheap manufacturing began to pick up! The only limitation was how fast you could get a knock off to market. US exports cool âwidget Aâ to China and loses money on it, there is a race from 1000 Chinese small manufacturing companies to reverse engineer it and build it more cheaply then rush it to market. Built on the excitement in China over the cool new American-made Widget A, the first company to get it into the hands of the people made a small fortune. With that capital, it was on to the next product.
Incredibly cut-throat, and what you may notice is that there is NO incentive for quality control, customer service or long term customer satisfaction.
Fast forward to today, and times have begun to change a bit. China has progressed to the point off producingbtheir own technology and are a leading R&D nation. They are creating their own companies and original products, and are economically well off (as a nation).
Two problems - the small businesses of today were still formed and are led by people who grew up in the cut throat, race to market culture, and it shapes their business practices tremendously. Thatâs why Bangood seems only concerned with the âsaleâ, and by western standards seem to not give a damn about the customer.
The second problem is that these trade agreements from 1978 are still in place. Now that China is firmly back on their feet, the incredible unfairness of the agreements is mind boggling. We can exert no tariffs on their products, while US exports to China are tarrifed heavily. But the biggest is the idea that there is no such thing as intellectual property ownership. They can âstealâ whatever they want in technology and manufacturing and make it their own, and itâs legal under the old trade agreements.
This is why the U.S. government is fighting to abolish these old agreements and form new ones that better reflect fair trade.
Meanwhile - Bangood rushes a product to market with great advertising and worldwide exposure, while the product itself may be FAR from ready for sale. We all send them our money, expecting to enter a mutually happy trade agreement, but in reality Bangood has taken our cash and is already all in on the next product they will be rushing to sell.
When we email or message them about a problem with the product we JUST received (or NEVER received), theyâre probably like, âWhut?!? We donât even remember selling that productâ.
(An exaggeration, but you get the point).