I’ll be interested to observe the growth rate of the Chinese company that first figures out how to best interact with the West.
It’s interesting to me that when you visit Hong Kong there are many people who have a good grasp of English and Western culture in general.
When it comes to many of the companies selling to the West (I’m talking about lights now) it appears that not one person involved with the company or with the website has any real understanding of the West in general or English in particular (even though they have chosen English for their website).
If somehow I learned a bit of Chinese and chose to set-up a website in Chinese and to market to the Chinese I can’t imagine that I would want to try to wax poetic in Chinese on that website. I’d limit descriptions to just the bare facts.
I also wouldn’t dream of trying to sell products that I had no knowledge of. The company that figures these things out will take over the market.
They already have a lack of quality image to overcome in some circles and yet they continue to name their companies either something that is not pronounceable in the West or something that is an obvious copy of another companies name and thereby lets everyone know it’s a Chinese company.
On the other hand a company such as Fenix is off to a much smoother start just by choosing a name that has no indication of the country of origin.
DX has done a decent job on its website compared to some of the others in its use of the English language. They don’t have accurate product descriptions but at least it doesn’t make you laugh to read the verbiage on that website.
Spamming every website in existence isn’t ultimately going to increase sales either. What mindset can believe that it will? Excessive promotion in cheerleader-like fashion is just silly.
Can you imagine how successful a company would be if once on their website you couldn’t tell what country they were from? All it would take would be for each company to hire one person familiar with the West. Really all they have to do is have someone from the West proofread their website from time to time.
Selling products with which one has no knowledge is something I can’t begin to understand the logic of. Can you imagine going in a jewelry shop and asking to see a watch and the clerk tells you this watch is the most enlightening watch that will fulfill your most remarkable wishes in a wonderful way? OK…well is it waterproof? This watch is for climbing, hunting, diving, and the mountain climbing. Um…have you ever used a watch before? No, but this is one of the best time telling watches you will be pleased to have.
You would have more confidence in that shop if it were self-serve and there were no clerks!
I’m reminded of a dive light designed by a company named Magicshine. OK, the name gives the country of origin away. However on this particular light they only put their name on the box and not the light so it was hard to talk about the light to others.
Someone described it as the “ugly light” and that name stuck. Then they all started to flood after about 5 dives. It was (and is) a very good light but they put in a spring that was too long with kept the front lens from fully compressing the o-rinng. We eventually figured this out and cut the spring and all was well.
We tried to get in touch with the factory to let them know what was happening and to discuss some other aspects of their design. It was obvious that no one there was a diver. The bezel was an attack bezel and there were sharp heat fins all over even though this is a product used only in the water (no heat fins required).
Eventually after half of the world returned their dive lights the company trimmed the spring fixing this problem. The bottom line was that there was no product testing, no one was a diver, and no one would or could talk to all the divers who bought and were trying to use this light.
I don’t think this particular problem could ever occur in the West because it would never occur to anyone in the West who had no knowledge of diving to develop and sell a dive light particularly with no testing.
As I said, I will be very interested to see what company is the first to finally “get it”.
Won't be Tataspam, lol
Just a quick note, "Hong Kong there are many people who have a good grasp of English and Western culture in general"
Hong Kong shouldn't ever be confused with other parts of China as it used to be British, therefore the English language and customs are known there far better.
I agree but aren’t most of the online companies we are talking about operating out of the “special zones”?
I've not been blown-away by any Chinese company.
However, the name "Uranusfire" has certain redeeming qualities.
That's why i never bought a YEZL or Loongsun or Chinayaxing or any light that sound Chinese-ish. But i won't mind a Japanese or German name on my lights, at all !!!
In a western/global context, you have nailed it gc. However in another perspective, China flashlight manufacturer mainly produce for their own market catering their large population. Overseas market are secondary albeit growing.
That might be true for the manufacturers although I’m not certain that the models that are exported are the same as sold in the domestic market. The dealers I’m referring to however seem to be set-up exclusively to sell to the West.
This is funny because, on a lark one day, I e-mailed Solarforce offering my semi-professional services to clean up their web site. All they had to do is comp me a couple of flashlights every now and then. I've ghost-written before and it would be a cinch to make their English version site a little more western friendly and a lot more grammatically correct. It would be awesome to punch it up with some zingers and give it much needed professional polish.
No reply and . . . I'm still paying full pop for every light I buy.
/extenorFoy
There are some degree of variances but not large I believe. Yes, dealers are another story altogether. It is not an exclusive trait and can be seen in other markets like say Japan or Korea. Language is the main determinant here but I'm sure they will snap out of it in the near future with more western educated workforce joining the industry.
gcbryan....I would disagree that no one in China has gotten it yet. Both Manafont (lights) and Exduct (knives) seem to know what they are selling and how to describe the goods, they process an order, and give me an idea of my order status, and ship in a reasonable time frame given the distance. I have no bias against a product with a "Chinese sounding" name, to me it just seems more honest. I am 100% OK with owning a knive called "Sanrenmu" for example as long as the quality is good (it is). If you were honest with yourself, the brands "Trustfire" and "Ultrafire" seem no more strange or foreign sounding than "Ray-O-Vac" or "Eveready". I admit, I have never had a phone conversation with a China based customer service department but I have had live online support and a few email contacts and they were acceptable. One thing that does bother me most about Chinese web stores is the lack of vendor name consistency, it would be a lot less confusing if the website name matched the PayPal billing name, the yellow package return address name, and the packing ship supplier name.
McDonalds, and Kentucky Fried Chicken must sound equally strange to the Chinese yet they buy the food.
Global trading aren't the same as before especially with the rising of both China & India. I tend to prefer brands that stick to their origin, name wise & others as unique identity plays an important role in branding. English be it American or Queens or other variances had came a long way since old trading time hence English sounding name for foreign brands does have its merit. One exception though is 47s, what we need is more companies emulating their business style which works very well in a global sense. It'd be interesting if they could also penetrate the China market.
OK, China with their qualities is another subject all together. Its a big mesh up and its highly complicated. No other market are like theirs and it can't even be compared to other emerging markets half a century ago as time has changed.
Even as a Chinese myself who can read and write chinese, it's not easy because over here in SG we use English version, while stuff like Pizza Hut/Carrefour i always misread the first few times. LOL! Taiwan/Hong Kong SAR/China use non-simplified Chinese characters. We use simplified Chinese.
Seriously i don't even know what is the correct pronunciation for Carrefour. Do you guys have Carrefour in the US of A?
Nope I never heard of Carrefour in the US, Canada, Mexico, Japan or the Philippines sorry my travel is a bit limited.
Carrefour is French
Been to a carrefour in Jakarta
There's a few carrefour's in shanghai... The one I visited was kinda creepy for a supermarket, and the guy there kept trying to (literally) push bottles of wine into my cart. Not the best sales tactic, but I guess it worked for him?
I don’t have a problem with a Chinese name as much as companies that draw attention to themselves as Chinese at a time when being a Chinese company doesn’t help their cause.
If being a Chinese company meant a high quality product or a value oriented product then that’s fine. That’s why being a Japanese company is no barrier to a market now but it was in the early 60’s. It was associated with cheap junk so Japanese companies didn’t go out of their way to announce that they were Japanese.
There’s nothing wrong with Trustfire or Ultrafire except that it’s a lame attempt to copy Surefire and when every other company has to add “fire” to their name it shows (IMO) that they don’t get it. I’m sure it would have been harder for Fenix initially if their name had been Fenixfire.
Regarding products and not getting it (as opposed to dealers) an example is a light I just got today. It looks good and in most regards is well made. Except that every time you turn it on it advances to the next mode.
So, it doesn’t always start on high (no memory) or on the mode you used last (memory) it starts on the next mode (usually medium) which means you always have to go through the strobe modes.
That’s a case of just not getting it. No one in their right mind would make such a product.
Another example of not getting it is the lack of a model name for the light I just received. How do you discuss a product when it has no name. The name is “Cree Q5 270 lumens 3-mode”.
Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke ..OK I'll bite ..
What's a car for ?
:)