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