for those who havnt dealt directly with china, here some insight, from my time working with a big chinese manufacturing outfit. i will not disclose what they made, to respect their privacy, but i figured the generalities of it all were relevant to the ecig community.
after reading a post on dekang liquids quality control, i sort of jotted this down, so i wouldn't thread jack.
i have worked with a chinese manufacturing company in a number of capacities from product development and qc, and i can tell you that, speaking from an insider's point of view, chinese industry's (and i use this blanket terminology on purpose) quality control, across the board, is 50/50, and that many companies make multiple classes of product. think yamaha, they make pianos, motorcycles, engines, golf clubs etc etc. in china this is a common practice. also common is one company making one thing, but being owned by a larger company, or individual who is very wealthy, who also owns many other companies making a variety of products. that model might seem a bit more familiar to our us mindset.
companies who make an original product are often at a financial risk, by developing new products, since the market for cheaper imitation products is large enough to promote a healthy counterfit market. stealing a design for a product (say an ecig for instance) is VERY common, as is "rebranding". anyone who has ever seen a 5$ gucci purse, has witnessed this first hand.
the power of branding was not lost on china. the rumors of knock off dekang juice, are most likely based on some truth.
regarding the quality control issues:
there are a lot of reasons for this. market niche plays a role in this, for one. having a low priced product, made in large quantity is a key factor in their marketing strategy.
Making a large scale change that will IMPROVE the product, is often hampered by the bean counters, and not because they hate america, or anything like that, but because the competition over there is ruthless, and unrelenting. if one manufacturer raises quailty, and by consequence price, another, less quality concerned company, will cut their legs out from under them by undercutting their prices, and making a product that looks almost identical, but in function, is far less awesome. look up meitzu sometime. ipod killer mp3 players, made FOR the chinese market, BY the chinese, with about a million cheap knock offs. had a real one, amazing mp3 player.
it's truly a unique situation over there, brought about by a million little unique factors, not the least of which is that the economy is somehow fostering capitalist financial ideas in a communist nation. talk about fish out of water.
when one removes the fear of underhanded competition from lesser rival companies, china can manufacture a spectacular product. many of the "upmarket" electronics here in the us are made in china, by foreign companies, operating a chinese factory under much more strict standards. vespa has made engines there, yamaha made whole scooters there, so did honda and kymco. RCA makes stereos there all the time, gm makes cars there, even sony has some chinese stuff, if i remember right. it's all about who is writing the checks. if you are making a product for someone else with a fat pocket book and an offshore client base, you are not hampered by the fear that a rival widget maker will muscle in on your turf, & you can spend the extra money for proper r&d, good tooling, better base materials, etc etc.
of course american logic works the opposite. we like to think, if you spend the money early on and do it right from the get go, your customer base will come, based on the workmanship displayed in your product. cheaper is not always better, etc etc. this has changed somewhat, since we began importing cheaper products from countries like...china. lol you can see our markets are sort of cross breeding, here, which one could write off as a product of globalization, perhaps.
that being said, companies like dekang, can, in most cases do better by simply implementing stricter protocols and regimens, along with more thorough staff training, during the manufacturing process, without increasing cost signifigantly in the final product. in the future, to stay competitive, they will.
i loved my chinese bosses, they understood american business practices, and our sensitivity to qc issues, including out habit of bringing lawsuits, lol. but even then, it was a real challenge to keep pace with the market's changing demands, and standards. if ecigs become a "more legitimate" global product, the longtime players in this industry will most likely stick around and improve. but this will thin out the herd, i imagine, as will big players, like phillip morris, talking about getting in the game.
my
, based on my time working that side of things. notoriously unreliable personal experience. hope that helps to shed some light on an often misunderstood business. 
after reading a post on dekang liquids quality control, i sort of jotted this down, so i wouldn't thread jack.
i have worked with a chinese manufacturing company in a number of capacities from product development and qc, and i can tell you that, speaking from an insider's point of view, chinese industry's (and i use this blanket terminology on purpose) quality control, across the board, is 50/50, and that many companies make multiple classes of product. think yamaha, they make pianos, motorcycles, engines, golf clubs etc etc. in china this is a common practice. also common is one company making one thing, but being owned by a larger company, or individual who is very wealthy, who also owns many other companies making a variety of products. that model might seem a bit more familiar to our us mindset.
companies who make an original product are often at a financial risk, by developing new products, since the market for cheaper imitation products is large enough to promote a healthy counterfit market. stealing a design for a product (say an ecig for instance) is VERY common, as is "rebranding". anyone who has ever seen a 5$ gucci purse, has witnessed this first hand.
the power of branding was not lost on china. the rumors of knock off dekang juice, are most likely based on some truth.regarding the quality control issues:
there are a lot of reasons for this. market niche plays a role in this, for one. having a low priced product, made in large quantity is a key factor in their marketing strategy.
Making a large scale change that will IMPROVE the product, is often hampered by the bean counters, and not because they hate america, or anything like that, but because the competition over there is ruthless, and unrelenting. if one manufacturer raises quailty, and by consequence price, another, less quality concerned company, will cut their legs out from under them by undercutting their prices, and making a product that looks almost identical, but in function, is far less awesome. look up meitzu sometime. ipod killer mp3 players, made FOR the chinese market, BY the chinese, with about a million cheap knock offs. had a real one, amazing mp3 player.
it's truly a unique situation over there, brought about by a million little unique factors, not the least of which is that the economy is somehow fostering capitalist financial ideas in a communist nation. talk about fish out of water.
when one removes the fear of underhanded competition from lesser rival companies, china can manufacture a spectacular product. many of the "upmarket" electronics here in the us are made in china, by foreign companies, operating a chinese factory under much more strict standards. vespa has made engines there, yamaha made whole scooters there, so did honda and kymco. RCA makes stereos there all the time, gm makes cars there, even sony has some chinese stuff, if i remember right. it's all about who is writing the checks. if you are making a product for someone else with a fat pocket book and an offshore client base, you are not hampered by the fear that a rival widget maker will muscle in on your turf, & you can spend the extra money for proper r&d, good tooling, better base materials, etc etc.
of course american logic works the opposite. we like to think, if you spend the money early on and do it right from the get go, your customer base will come, based on the workmanship displayed in your product. cheaper is not always better, etc etc. this has changed somewhat, since we began importing cheaper products from countries like...china. lol you can see our markets are sort of cross breeding, here, which one could write off as a product of globalization, perhaps.
that being said, companies like dekang, can, in most cases do better by simply implementing stricter protocols and regimens, along with more thorough staff training, during the manufacturing process, without increasing cost signifigantly in the final product. in the future, to stay competitive, they will.
i loved my chinese bosses, they understood american business practices, and our sensitivity to qc issues, including out habit of bringing lawsuits, lol. but even then, it was a real challenge to keep pace with the market's changing demands, and standards. if ecigs become a "more legitimate" global product, the longtime players in this industry will most likely stick around and improve. but this will thin out the herd, i imagine, as will big players, like phillip morris, talking about getting in the game.
my
, based on my time working that side of things. notoriously unreliable personal experience. hope that helps to shed some light on an often misunderstood business. 
