I agree with MK. sure there may be cheaper companies out there that have the same3 thing as V4L however you would NEVER get the attention that Steve, Mark, and th3e gang gives us. I am definitely a V4L customer to the end!!! 
Intellectual property in China.
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Thanks Wolf! And MK, of course. Thanks all of you in fact, because it's the appreciation and feed back from you guys that makes even the hard work a REAL pleasure! 
Sorry..... I can't help but laugh out loud at your exploits!!
I work for this really BIG airplane manufacturer in Washington State, and I've been fortunate (or unfortunate ..... you decide) enough to spend some time in the same place as you. Your description of the local venues is spot on! Especially the food!. I was never quite sure just what it was that we were invited to dine on, but I also knew enough not to ask!!
Keep up the good work! I look forward to your next exploit, as well as your next product!
Chris
aka: Bite Me
I work for this really BIG airplane manufacturer in Washington State, and I've been fortunate (or unfortunate ..... you decide) enough to spend some time in the same place as you. Your description of the local venues is spot on! Especially the food!. I was never quite sure just what it was that we were invited to dine on, but I also knew enough not to ask!!
Keep up the good work! I look forward to your next exploit, as well as your next product!
Chris
aka: Bite Me
Yeah that really sucks... I mean it is really hard dealing with a country where their business world have their own rules....the system is tilted... i mean you have companies with in the same country "cloning" each other with out skipping a beat....if you think its a pisser getting bit while standing in the middle of the dog pit... imagine how it feels (even in the ecig world) having home grown designs being cloned and ripped off ( that's from people that don't "outsource"
I think if V4L truely wants to launch... they need to minimize the dealings to the bear necessities... and start in house upgrades.... its already in place and money would be well vested. I know we can't cut the ties completely (not yet) but we can cut some of the strings... at least the ones that are wrapped around our neck.....
Now I don't want to turn this into an outside thread hehehe... just calling it how I and most likely many already see it.
Leaf hold strong and carry a lot of bandages especially for when you turn your back.
chin up man.... (and I am not talking about your next door neighbor.... off colored I know and I appologize)hehe
I think if V4L truely wants to launch... they need to minimize the dealings to the bear necessities... and start in house upgrades.... its already in place and money would be well vested. I know we can't cut the ties completely (not yet) but we can cut some of the strings... at least the ones that are wrapped around our neck.....
Now I don't want to turn this into an outside thread hehehe... just calling it how I and most likely many already see it.
Leaf hold strong and carry a lot of bandages especially for when you turn your back.
chin up man.... (and I am not talking about your next door neighbor.... off colored I know and I appologize)hehe
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Oh I would like to add there are companies on the up and up... I don't mean to imply that ALL china companies work that way... some stay straight in a tilted world
China is and has been the best at reverse engineering for a long time. Laws or no laws they come out with knockoffs within hours of new products being released and sometimes before they are released.
Wondering what effect a signed non-disclosure agreement would have, if only psychological.
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Wondering what effect a signed non-disclosure agreement would have, if only psychological.
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Damn, you've really got to watch these people!
I was just sent some more pics from our liquid supplier of their factory, which I will write up in a post later today.
But they put captions on them explaining what is pictured, and they used MY words from my first post on some of them! ANd they were planning to give them to other clients!!!!
I am very proud of my writing, and I get a LOT of readers both here and on my blog, who agree. I was ...... and insulted that they would give MY work, which Steve has paid a lot of money to make possible, to other clients.
Bad enough that others will now get the same benefit we did, of being able to show the nice clean conditions at the plant, without having to actually GO there like I did. But to steal MY words as well???
Rest assured I put a stop to THAT. I made it clear that if they did that, I would walk, and take ALL of our future business with me. Not even kidding one bit.
And the same with our exclusive flavor formulas. I requested some of our Xmas flavors months ago now, and they told me they had never had anyone request them before, and asked if I thought there would be a market for them. Foolishly I said yes. Then our primary manufacturer screwed us on the schedule, so we didn't get our carts made soon enough. ANd lo and behold, suddenly other suppliers have MY flavors before we did.
I am finding out that getting and maintaining exclusivity on new ideas is a harder fight than getting new ideas made.
This sounds like a carbon copy of my dealings with them, different products, of course. I was drawing and sending my ideas to them for my products that none of my competitors had, imagine how angry I was when they sent my work to my competition first, well I guess you are experiencing just that. There wasn't anything I could do about it except change suppliers, which I did immediately. Then most of my competition went down the drain for one reason or another over the years and I'm basically the only one left.
However, when I did switch suppliers I made it clear to him that if I found him giving my items to others, that would be the end of my business with him. He did a few things I didn't like after that, but finally "got it" and stopped stabbing me in the back.
Basically what the other supplier did, by sharing my ideas, was dilute his own market and instead of shipping it all to me in one shot, everyone's orders from him got smaller and he had to ship a whole bunch of different orders to a bunch of different people, but ended up selling no more than if he hadn't done that to me.
What I gleaned from all this was a short-sighted business ethic on their part, where all I wanted was good partners to stick with, me with them and them with me. I finally made the second supplier understand, but it took awhile.
With this FDA thing hanging over everyone's head, my heart goes out to anyone who is in the ecig arena and trying to do business. I can't even begin to imagine the stress that is and has caused everyone.
But, as others have said, no matter who has dupes of your product, I will always buy from V4L because the customer service can't be beat.
One thing I learned about their way is this and it's very important to keep this in mind and this is why I am so happy that you are over there doing what you are doing. It is that labor means hardly anything to them, materials mean everything. Here, it's basically the opposite, materials are "usually relatively cheap" and labor cost is intensive. That's why you need to be there watching them like a hawk every second because they will and do cut corners in ways that you'd never dream of unless you are watching them. LOL OMG, some of the .... they sent me, I got glass mermaids with mickey mouse ears and their hair looked like they'd been through several round of chemo, their boobs were crooked...
Oooooohhhh! LOL LOL RFLOL I'm crying I'm laughing so hard! Crooked boobs.. LOL
Glad things worked out for you though..
Glad things worked out for you though..
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