Interesting Conversation with Chinese Cartridge Supplier

[whitewallpaul]

My name is Paul-

I'm two weeks out from launching a consumer product in the electronic gaming category geared towards big box retailers.

I've decided to open up a new front in the battle by learning how to print my own marketing media. I have a Canon MG6120 which should tell you I was hasty in my printer decision.

I have settled on older Canon CLI 221 carts with the clear reservoir- I will swap chips and refill German method.

I am extremely impressed by wealth of knowledge and the willingness of a world wide community to share it.

In sourcing the CLI-221 I stumbled upon an eb@y seller who had a suitable set of OEM Genuine Canon with clear reservoir (recent production feature opaque chassis). I promptly purchased them.

I told her I rarely use eb@y because it had become inundated with "cheap chinese crap" that I don't have patience to sift through.

Upon paying her through p@yp@l, I recognized her name as Chinese in origin and quickly asked her to excuse my "chinese crap comment"-- not that I don't mean it, but it is certainly not geared towards the people

Her Response:

"Paul, you are a good guy. You are honest, responsible and trustworthy!
Yes, I am a Chinese and I also used Made In China products a lot, and I found the same problems as those you experienced. I lived in America for more than 20 years and just came back to China in the most recent 2 or 3 years. I already sent the message to those Chinese guys and told them you made very cheap, low quality and inferior products and sold in America! It not only defames your company's reputation but also humiliates China! You know what they reply? Those workers told me: "We can make the products at much better quality. But the boss from America they give us ingredients (or formula) and ask us to do EXACTLY as the boss wants." They told me they were just workers and had to listen to the boss. Whatever the boss asks, the boss requires, they have to do it. And now the workers got the blame! Those guys (many of them are my elementary school classmates) are also got mad when I told them most Americans got mad at them. Just for your information. "


My Response:


"America is not in good shape. Politicians are henchmen for large corporations. Large corporations are in the pockets of the banks. The banks dictate the economic policies. The economic policies are relayed to the politicians who then relay that information to the public , who cast votes based on controlled media

what do american companies stand to benefit by selling inferior products at the lowest possible cost back the people of their own country?

Well if they can drive down the cost of every imaginable product, the coming inflation won't hit as hard. For instance, an inferior cartridge which sells for $5.00 would not suffer from price increase to $7.50.

But a cartridge which costs $50, would be out of reach for many at $75 with the same 50% increase.

Canon spends a lot of money in product development. This plus mold and material costs is expensive. Canon must price accordingly in order to profit.

To make a close copy of the cartridge is not difficult or expensive. Banks are more than willing to finance this endeavor, knowing that China is a new frontier and would gladly hold assets there should the small aftermarket company fail.

AND on top of that, if they do fail, they get to partner with a closed door communist regime that controls its people but comes with other risks they estimate can be controlled!

Win win for the banks and buried behind the facade of "competition"

The fun will begin in several years when the inferior cartridge sells for $50 instead of $5, parasite banks fold up shop and head to the next frontier, and America and China are left to sift through the pieces...

I only hope that the two sides can communicate as you and I do!"



At any rate, I thought I'd share with anyone willing to read-- it was very interesting to me

BTW: my product retails for $15 and is made in the People's Republic of California. It will compete directly with Chinese products

Paul

 

[pharmacist]

A few things:

Before the sixties Japan suffered from a shaggy and bad quality reputation and to be able to compete with the rest of the world (then: Europe and the USA), they had to improve the quality by adopting the quality assurance systems, developed by the....american army to improve the manufacture of weaponry. Strangely enough the american companies did not adopt these systems, as the markets are completely dominated by them. Only when they economical threat become serious, they had to adopt these systems. Before the american companies had a army of service men to fix fabrication problems and malfunctions, while the Japanese -after having adopted these quality assisted production systems from the american army- started to made products, which did need service to work properly in the long term.

The trademark "Made in Germany" was originally invented by the British Empire to humiliate the germans, with their low quality products during the imperial reign of greater German Empire before WO-I. Now what has become with that reputation now ? Made in Germany has become a symbol of excellent quality nowadays.

Whether or not this chinese guy is right or not, I do not know, but I would certainly listen to the old verbs by Confucius: If you don't know anything about your enemy, the battle is lost.

P.S.: the british word for porcelain is china, a name given to this high quality ceramic, when Europe was amazed by the high quality of this strange but beatiful product "Made in China", like any other products like silk, porcelain, carving and other handcrafted art made by the chinese empire.

 

[stratman]

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."

Sun Tzu - The Art Of War

 

[whitewallpaul]

Pharmacist:

I have a vintage bicycle generator light that was made in East Germany under the regime-- It is constructed and designed excellent and functions perfect to this day

I certainly agree with what you say-- consider BSA and Triumph motorcycles in the late sixties early seventies. Honda and Yamaha, virtual newcomers to the full size bike category, crushed the Brits within a few years.

BSA actually licensed their engine design to Yamaha a few years before they folded. The Japanese improvements made it twice the engine.

Did the Brits underestimate the Japanese?

The Chinese are chomping at the bit to display their true capabilities, but I think they will continue to need the ideas and innovations of free thinking society for some time.

Wait a second... am I underestimating the Chinese??!

Paul

 

[pharmacist]

I think the West tries to understand the way chinese think with a western view of the world. This very philosophical way is the reason the West always will be confused the things are changing in China at the very moment.

The Chinese are chomping at the bit to display their true capabilities, but I think they will continue to need the ideas and innovations of free thinking society for some time.

Well consider the very inventions China made hundreds up to thousand years before the west knew to handle and to make these technologies and inventions discovered and already endorsed in everyday use: compass, paper, printing (yes even with the movable system, but not very popular due to the chinese pictographic writing system forcing you make a myriad of separate characters) porcelain, drilling towers to obtain natural gas and oil and rock salt, the crossbow, cast iron (yes, even the romans could only make wrought iron, as the procedure to heat the iron high enough to let it really melt was only possible during the late medieval period). The very fact the chinese empire was a very autocratic one, did not inhibit the chinese to innovate with technology and science. By contrary: up to the 18th century China was the most innovative and most powerful economy in the world.

The reason is not the fact of free thinking society, but the meritocratic nature of chinese society. Chinese society is very paternalistic one and the reason why the chinese communist party still is in power, is the very fact they have embraced the confucian principles of meritocracy. You might be surprised, but the CCP actually recruits scientists and people who have shown their merits to become advisors and even to become policy makers, even if they are not members of the CCP. This way the CCP will continue to have its legitimacy among the people.

A chinese friend once said living in China is like living like a bird in a golden cage, which seems to grow larger and bigger up to the point you can are not longer enable to see the twiddling lines of the cage and you might think you can fly as far as you can. I think this metaphor is ultimately describing the very nature of the current situation in China. Obey chinese law and much is possible in current China, up to the point it even surpasses some legislation here in Belgium.

PS: since when are Canon cartridges of $15 manufactured in the People's republic of California ??? I thought there are made in the Empire of Japan...

 

[whitewallpaul]

PS: since when are Canon cartridges of $15 manufactured in the People's republic of California ??? I thought there are made in the Empire of Japan...


My product is associated with xbox kinect and playstation move-

I know little to nothing about printing, which is why I'm here learning from you guys

My part is injection molded plastic- I had the choice of overseas manufacturing vs local and chose to keep it right here. What good is slightly increased profitability when american manufacturers are folding left and right for lack of work?

The guy who is building my mold has over 100 different parts on the space station--

He relys on aerospace which relys on the goverment who ultimately relys on the printing press

I suppose that makes the printers the most important part of the whole process!

Paul