A friend of mine scoffed that I would buy a remote controlled 12v relay for $4 from temu. He said I was risking burning my truck to the ground to save $30. He sent me a link to the Amazon one he bought. So I sent him a link to the exact same one, on Temu, for $5.

Relays are one thing that you notoriously can't trust what it looks like. Yes, the one your friend bought on Amazon was probably also junk, but you should definitely buy components like this from a reputable vendor unless their application is absolutely trivial.

Rossmann has made all kinds of videos about this. Be careful out there.

https://youtu.be/B90_SNNbcoU

Err, 32 volts putting 64 watts into a dummy load just to get 2A to test a fuse? For a second I was wondering if I was watching electroboom.

It could be visually the same product but actually have different safety implementations

It could. But why would it?

Because what's stopping me from getting the same box and putting cheaper components and skipping all quality assurance and undercutting the original? Or even worse, taking the quality control failed items and selling them as working.

Is it unlikely? Maybe, but also it has happened enough times that it's probably worth paying attention here. Relevant on today's front page https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44638580

You misunderstood my point. Why do you actually think there are better quality components for $12 on Amazon than $4 on Temu? There's no accountability on Amazon either, so why would they care at all either and give you better stuff? Just to be generous?

There's definitely _more_ accountability on Amazon.

That's news to me. People are selling counterfeit everything on Amazon left and right, but somehow the people selling no name remote controlled relays are making sure they deliver a quality product. Interesting.

Active electronics is one are you need to be the most careful. Pop that cheap relay open and look at the components - ten to one, they'll be completely potted in opaque material that hides the fact it's using an underrated thyristor. It'll work... as long as you don't push too much current through it. It might also catch fire.

You can't even trust what's printed on the ICs. Seriously, look into chip counterfeiting, it's a real problem.

That's why active components from Digikey and Mouser are so much more expensive than what you see on Amazon or eBay. They can trace the components back to the fab where they were made. You pay more, but you know you're getting what you ordered.

I got what I ordered. A cheap remote controlled relay. That works. Do I expect it to be waterproof? No. Do I expect it to handle it's max rated load? Maybe, I'd check how hot it was after 10 minutes.

Do I trust it to work safely in my use case? Yes.

Other than people that buy from actual specialty stores, that's basically how buying anything works these days. You use your best judgement and continue on.

There is a place for cheap, untracked components. A hobbyist being able to pick up a bag of op amps for a couple bucks is great, even if sometimes they're not actually the part number they say they are. It's just the risk you take.

When you use counterfeit power components like SCRs, the risk you take is burning down your house with your family still inside.

Hey, it's your call. You're free to use what you like. Just don't say we didn't warn you.

Millions of those 'counterfeit' components are sold inside millions of Amazon products every month to US households. Don't go warning me, I at least have a clue of what I'm doing and what to watch out for. Go warn every neighbor you have buying $20 junk on Amazon that includes the components I'm using for a specific small hobby task.

It's alarming that people still consider Amazon a good place to buy electronics.

>Turns out that you can buy the exact same scooter on TaoBao for 952 RMB. (~114 EUR.)

Did they change the Taobao listing? The price is lower still and the scooter is not at all similar.

You have to click the buttons on the right to see your different options. Translating the page makes it a bit easier. The one in question is "style 17."

Shoes are another one. I picked up some Crocs knock-offs for about $10 a few years ago, and they're probably the best sandals I've ever had - still going strong. I suspect it's not even a 'knock-off' but simply people who run the manufacturing lines continuing to run the manufacturing lines after the official order is filled and shipped back to the West to be sold at lol markups.

Low quality Chinese plastics are known to contain heavy metals like lead or cadmium. I would never trust a random Chinese manufacturer that isn’t vetted by a much larger organization that I can actually sue for negligence, etc.

China themselves are doing a much better job on this front than some random lawsuit would. For instance the baby milk scandal from China [1] was globally publicized largely because it led to the death of 6 infants. China's prosecution of the company included complete dissolution of the company, 3 death penalties for the heads of the company, life imprisonment for middle men, and even prison terms for some wives who were not even involved in the business. Compare this against what happened to Bayer who knowingly sold HIV infected blood products, infecting tens of thousands with HIV and subsequently AIDS. [2]

There's a reason the "shocking" examples they give in this article are now things like "kids’ shorts with drawstrings longer than regulation length, which cause a trip hazard." China is an export economy and takes this stuff pretty seriously, which is why I also think articles like this are mostly about manufacturing consent for future actions. We gotta get ready for the next war - Ukraine and Israel are getting so boring!

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_haemophilia_blood...

No, they are not doing a better job and their goods are still poisoned. This is a complete lie and sounds like Chinese propaganda.

Even mainland Chinese themselves don’t trust Chinese products, meanwhile they are flooding every country around the world with poisoned garbage.

It takes a simple Google search to find recent examples and I’m not even going to bother posting examples because it’s so easy to find.

This reply amounts to "China bad!" Sadly the average American or Westerner can't really be trusted to be objective or rational when it comes to China, ironically because of American propaganda.

I have done some fucked-up deep dives but this one takes the cake. Thanks. ?

under what circumstances would you actually for real sue someone? this seems like a thing that is almost certainly NOT gonna happen, even if they did insane shit.

You don't live in the US. People sue whenever they think they can make some money regardless of the merits.

Yip: the under-appreciated "4th-shift".

Same materials, same machinery, same workers, same packaging. Different factory exit.

This is the same for almost all electronics. If you buy a toaster, how much do you think it really costs to manufacture the €20 no name brand vs the €80 Delonghi branded one? In both cases, the price the customer pays is many multiples higher than the manufacturing cost.

This is why these Chinese sellers have become so popular - although in some cases, yes they are cutting corners - the main reason why they can sell the products so much cheaper is because they cut out a number of middlemen.

The person who imports the product into Europe has to make a profit. The person who brings it from there into your country and distributes it has to make a profit. The retailer has to make a profit, on top of paying their staff and landlord. It all adds up.

[delayed]

The real question is why Chinese companies aren't investing in brand development in Western countries.

There's loads. Anker, Lenovo, BYD, Timemore, Xiaomi, TCL, HiSense, Haier, Huawei, TikTok.

Managing a brand in Western countries is a totally different job than producing product and sending it out.

It's also hard to manage things in countries where you aren't.

The importers that find these goods, buy inventory, sell locally for a markup, and provide warranty service are providing a valuable function in the economy and have earned some markup.

Because they don't want to be held responsible. They don't want to do QA. They don't want good quality products. They don't want warranties. They don't want to take back their broken products. They rather slap on a new name and continue selling their crap when the old brand product is being banned in the EU

We have our products knocked off in China… we did work to shut them down, but another just pops up with a different name.

They weren’t developing brand because they weren’t developing products.

This might be a controversial take, but here it goes: the vast majority of Chinese brands are really bad at marketing to Western audiences.

There are a few good ones, but they had to do what was necessary. For example, to increase the appeal of electric vehicles - they hired German industrial designers from European automakers.

The few ones that come to mind are Huawei, DJI, and arguably Xiaomi. Then, of course, you have niche companies with great products that market mainly through influencers, such as Bambulab. There are also plenty of niche products from Chinese brands with high quality.

But the vast majority are sloppy, lack "good taste" (which is subjective to culture), compete mainly on price, and from my understanding, they haven't developed their own identity - or at least popularized it in Western countries.

For example, Japanese companies' marketing, and even the marketing in Japan, has an appeal to Western audiences because of cultural exchanges (from products to media for many decades). It's unique and original to them, and Western audiences cherish it.

> For example, to increase the appeal of electric vehicles - they hired German industrial designers from European automakers.

People always state this as if it's a gotcha, but there's almost zero large western companies that don't have Chinese people or companies in the loop somehow, whether manufacturing, materials, or even just everything except branding.

We live in a globalised economy. I bet if someone was setting up a very large plastic manufacturing plant in Germany, there's a very high chance they'd hire Chinese experts to help set it up, or even to run it outright.

I think it's more of a problem of how you perceive these statements.

I can't speak for the other people, but in my statement, there was no gotcha or hidden meaning. But I can rephrase it: there are more costs to break into a market other than a low price. That works, but only goes so far, and will depend on the type of product.

> We live in a globalised economy. I bet if someone was setting up a very large plastic manufacturing plant in Germany, there's a very high chance they'd hire Chinese experts to help set it up, or even to run it outright.

Yes. This is confusing because you're agreeing with me.

In some product categories, it's all the same junk. I was researching dehumidifiers a few years ago and the consensus seemed to be that regardless of brand you can expect it to fail in 2-3 years because internally they all use the same cheap Chinese components. So why not buy an AFLUUHOO dehumidifier instead of a name brand one?

There are also markets where the markup on brand names is insane. For example: take a water pump, then brand it an "aquarium water pump", and suddenly you can charge 4x more for the same thing. Here even bad quality Chinese products win out because the cost is so much less (and it's not even certain that the quality is inferior since the brand names are also made in china).

Finally, I can't stress what a negative purchasing signal "smart"/IoT features are for me. Perhaps some people love having online accounts for their lightbulbs and waiting around for the manufacturer to brick their devices, but it's not my cup of tea. Chinese devices often either lack smart features or use Bluetooth + a very basic app with no logins required. Another win.

> and it's not even certain that the quality is inferior since the brand names are also made in china

Well, even from the same factory, different levels of quality control are done, and different materials are used. For example, the last few days I've been researching a cordless drill. It seems that Total/Ingco are Chinese brands made in the same factory (they just change the plastic color and logo), and it also seems highly likely that the factory also makes DeWalt. However, while the DeWalt drills look very similar, they're also visibly higher quality plastic, and when I found a comparison video of the three, the DeWalt was also more powerful, had additional features and was just clearly the better choice.

On the other hand, it's about three times more expensive and the consensuses seems to be that Total/Ingco are not terrible - probably fine for a homeowner who does occasional handiwork. Personally I went with a DongChen drill and using it for a few jobs I think I made a good choice. It's strong, feels heavy and solid.

However, I've also got a couple of small Total items like a current tester pen, and it's fine. Lasted a few years of occasional use so far.

So what's the moat here? I can start a business and sell the same scooter for 1000euros and undercut everyone. I wonder what is preventing competition here from solving this issue organically

That’s where tariffs and VAT, and some warranty legislation comes into play

I think it's a numbers game. Sell random popular product X at a huge margin, and you'll get some people that don't shop around that will buy it.

Will you be the next bezos? No. Will you make a living with little effort and little smarts? Probably.

Totally speculating but, the moat must be Chinese speaking employees with enough engineering background at company office. Chinese factories look open to any reasonable businesses so long both are pragmatic and both talks the same language anyhow, but East Asian languages and cultures are related or connected to nothing else so just maintaining good mutual understanding can be hard(and I don't think LLMs help that much).

Try returning the scooter once it breaks, if ordered from China.

The problem is that Chinese companies ignore EU laws , taking away customers rights. And local companies overcharging, but providing said rights or at least being held responsible, if they don't.

Both ends of an extreme. It's terrible.

Your first link says is has a 60V 18Ah battery.

I seriously doubt you can buy such a battery for 952 RMB.

The Taobao link you shared leads me to a 'not found' page.

One thing to watch out for on Taobao, even for legitimate sellers: a listing will often include a main item and several accessories, all as different variants of the same product. So a single listing might include variants for:

- a scooter with battery

- a spare battery

- a charger

- a wing mirror

If you are looking at the price, be sure you have selected the variant that matches the thing you want.'

Source: I lived in China for 9 years, and have placed hundreds of orders on Taobao (including replacement Li-ion batteries for two Vespa-style scooters).

You know that even inside EU, you won’t get the same thing under the same name with the same parameters in different countries, right? For example, the car which you get in Eastern Europe will have worse components than what you get in Western Europe for the same exact model. This is also true for most of the stuffs which you can get in grocery stores in multiple countries. My guilty pleasure Milka whatever has better ingredients, and the packaging contains more in Western Europe than in Eastern Europe, but the name, and even physical size of the packaging are the same. There are news also about this in Eastern Europe all the time, that groceries, cleaning stuffs, etc are worse there for the same brand and product. But it’s true also with gasoline for example. On paper, you get the same thing in Hungary, and Austria, but at the end your car will go about 10-25% more with the Austrian one, and at the end it costs the same per km, just your car will die sooner from the worse eastern gas. Every public parameter is the same, the reality is completely different.