Another point is that companies manufacturing products in China can get tax deductions by hiring Chinese workers. Essentially rewarding companies for the exploitation of low paid workers and making the company more dependent on Chinese labour. It makes the threat of "do this for us or we'll shut down your China operations" that much more impactful.
The thing is, I can buy many products cheaper in the US than in China. This tells you something.
Due to this and fake products I buy clothes (YES, clothes!), shoes and electronic products only in the EU and the US.
Edit: Don't get me wrong. I love China. But many people now see only the strength of China. They have a strong culture. But it comes with many weaknesses. They once fell behind western culture. They may fail again if they don't fix some things. The downside risks here a HUGE.
Try to buy a branded jeans, shoe whatever here in a street shop. Super expensive. Taobao? How much is fake? How can you know that it is fake? Buy from an expensive seller and hope it is not fake? Try to buy DocMartens, Caterpillar, whatever shoes. They should be cheaper since they are produced here. Good luck.
Okay, you can buy cheap and fake, for example in the "Silk Road" department store in Beijing. I think it is impossible to buy a genuine item there. A fake Armani jeans cost you 100 RMB, now it is more like 160 RMB. Branded underwear 10 RMB. But the quality is very poor. No comparison to the US. And if you buy in outlets in the US or EU then their prices are unbeatable. EU has about 20% sales tax that you can get full or at least 50% reimbursed as a non resident.
IT? It is not really cheaper, no guarantee (2 years in the EU!). Many stuff may be relabled, refurbished, defect or of poorer quality, even for the same brand. Where to buy? Who to trust? Newegg has now a shop in China. If I were to buy my stuff here this would be the place that I would try.
I just checked a Seagate 8 TB HDD. Is was 262 USD (Newegg CN) vs. 249 USD (Newegg US).
I bought a smoothie mixer in a Chinese warehouse. 32 Dollars was the cheapest option. In the US I bought one for 10 Dollars (okay, long time ago). I am sure you can order a cheap one on Taobao, but it gives you an idea.
Also, you may have realized that some super cheap Chinese sites like DealExtreme (DX) are Chinese, but don't offer shipment to China (at least the last time I checked).
All “foreign” products even those which are manufactured in China have a foreign goods tax of 25% some have additional taxes beyond that.
China doesn’t want foreign companies selling cheap goods in China so essentially everything needs to be imported even if it’s manufactured down the street from you in China.
"China doesn’t want foreign companies selling cheap goods in China so essentially everything needs to be imported even if it’s manufactured down the street from you in China."
It is possible to buy good products cheap. But there you need to be smart, smarter than I am, and have contacts. A sub contractor might sell excess product under the table for cheap if you know where to find it (I don't).
chinalawblog.com had an article why you should always have your production samples shipped to you and never have any sample batch "destroyed" by your manufacturer. They may just sell it under the table. So you may be able to buy a REAL Gucci bag that was designed by Gucci bad was never available on the market with this kind of design. Really rare. :-)
>It is possible to buy good products cheap. But there you need to be smart, smarter than I am, and have contacts. A sub contractor might sell excess product under the table for cheap if you know where to find it (I don't).
It's possible to buy illegal goods cheaply everywhere but that's just it it's a grey/black market goods since they are dodging the taxation imposed on the by the Chinese government.
