If you need to go and buy a widget, you buy one from China, simply because the Chinese one is often cheaper and better than an equivalent US item.
So, there’s a decent amount of business advice columnists explaining how to best avoid getting screwed from sourcing your parts in China; for example, this general laundry list, and more specifically this. Of their “top ten” list of importer mistakes, seven are about low quality results.
If quality standards are so difficult to enforce, is it reasonable to say that the Chinese-sourced version of a widget is better?
If quality standards are so difficult to enforce, is it reasonable to say that the Chinese-sourced version of a widget is better?
Yes, because they’re still doing it. Revealed preferences say that, even in taking into account all the downsides of doing business in China such as your laundry list there, doing business in China is still overall more profitable.
So, there’s a decent amount of business advice columnists explaining how to best avoid getting screwed from sourcing your parts in China; for example, this general laundry list, and more specifically this. Of their “top ten” list of importer mistakes, seven are about low quality results.
If quality standards are so difficult to enforce, is it reasonable to say that the Chinese-sourced version of a widget is better?
Yes, because they’re still doing it. Revealed preferences say that, even in taking into account all the downsides of doing business in China such as your laundry list there, doing business in China is still overall more profitable.
I agree with your point, but the revealed preferences argument is very weak with rationally uniformed customers at the final end of the chain.
I’m not arguing it isn’t profitable. The claim was “cheaper and better”, and my argument was “not better.”
If the more expensive ‘better’ isn’t worth paying for, then it’s not better.