Originally Posted by veganbikes

Cool, that is neat. That had to have been fun getting to visit their shop I heard it was quite nice.

Curious why you are so confident that other companies are doing it? Factory Five was in China so we can take them out of this equation.

My mindset needs an upgrade? For what? You are acting as if all these companies are simply just middlemen and that is not the case. China is very capable but to say that companies are just middlemen and don't do their own design work is just crazy. Just because China can do something doesn't mean that is always the case. I can get quite quick emails from some American companies and slow emails from other countries as well. I can get fast or slow anything anywhere if I want. Being quick at email or not quick doesn't really have much of a thing. Everyone expects everything to be ridiculously fast and you have to be constantly connected. I get call sometimes "did you get that text I just sent you" "I sent it a minute ago how could you not have responded?"...

China spends more on R+D than why so many stolen products? Why so much need for outright theft? If they are so great why all of that, why so many poor labor practices? I know there are legit companies doing legit things but if the industry over there is all so good and so much better why the need to be terrible as well? If I could design my own products so well and make it of quality and all of that stuff you want to be the case, why isn't that the case.

Originally Posted by Yan

Yes they had an incredible shop. One of the best I've been to in the world. Good decor, cool bikes, cool products. It was in a former industrial compound that had been converted to hip art studios and retail. And their local China prices were lower than their international prices.



Actually you really can't. As you recall from back in April - because I'm sure you read the same news articles as the rest of us - there were tons of interviews in the news of American small business owners who imported their products from China (i.e. similar to Velo Orange). A lot of these business owners were forced to call around US factories to try to replace their Chinese factories. In the interviews they said America factories were too slow in production, far more expensive, and worst of all the production was lower quality. In the end most of the small businesses ended up still buying from China and absorbing the tariff themselves. Which as you know, Trump chickened out and now sits at around 30%. Still not a small number.

https://www.wired.com/story/tariffs-...ings-in-china/

In fact far from getting a boost from the anti-China tariffs, US domestic manufacturing has actually continuously contracted for the past nine straight months. Yikes. One would have thought given everything from China is now more expensive, US manufacturers would have been better able to compete. The reality is that cost was just part of the issue. The other important part is that the Chinese are simply better at it. Better, faster output, technologically more advanced production facilities, and all while still being cheaper. How do you compete against that?

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-...er-2025-12-01/




It's an outdated mindset. Google returns whatever you search for. If you spend most of your time searching for economical household products, then Google will return a lot of cheap stuff, including of course clones. There's tons of high end stuff coming out of China if that's what you want to search for and buy.

They make the majority of the world's stuff. Cheap stuff, good stuff, all the stuff.