Goods from China are no longer ashamed. And that's why. Chinese quality: myths and reality Why Chinese things are never of high quality

". He angered the grunt Leva, who immediately rushed to defend his star-striped homeland. But in the Kremlin I was immediately offered a good job. It's time to wash the bones for China! China is the second largest economy in the world and deserves the "10 reasons to hate China" post no less than this America of yours.

the Internet

The worst thing in China is the Chinese internet. On the one hand, there are 600 million users (here they are called "wangmin" - "network people"), banners in the villages about connecting to the 4G network, many smartphones with Internet access, but there is still no happiness. Worst of all is censorship, but do not forget that the Chinese Internet is also low speed (even when connected to 4G), the absence of a normal search engine (not to consider "Baida" as normal, in which the site of the desired organization often turns out to be somewhere on 7 search page!), constant attacks on VPN servers - all of this makes using the Internet in China inconvenient and often painful. Our officials from Roskomcensura should be sent to China more often so that they understand how bad it is to use such an Internet.

Chinese behavior

The behavior of some (many) Chinese people: loud conversations in public places, coughing, widespread garbage throwing (even in Beijing, restaurant slops are often poured directly onto the sidewalk), defecation on the sidewalk and elsewhere. No wonder the ancient folk wisdom says "China would be a billion three hundred and seventy million times more beautiful if there were no Chinese in it!"

Desire to fuck newcomers

Regular desire to fuck newcomers. And not only foreigners. For example, provincial Chinese do not miss the opportunity to fuck visiting visitors from Beijing (especially if they do not understand the local dialect). The worst, of course, are taxi drivers, but many others do not miss the opportunity to take advantage of the gullibility of tourists. For example, we recently rented a car with a driver to go to the terraces. For 2 days we paid almost 2,000 yuan (22,000 rubles), but the driver found it too little, and he tried to include a car wash for 80 yuan in the bill! Yes, even in Beijing it costs about 30, let alone the village of Yuanyang. And in general, car care must be included in the rental price, otherwise the next time you can demand to pay for the installation of a new battery, for example. Divorce in the service industry is a regular practice in China. Be careful!

Sloppiness

Many Chinese people lack professional pride. Sloppy clothes of employees, poorly executed construction works and so on. It often seems: damn it, what prevents you from doing your job a little better in order to be proud of its result? By the way, don't hang your ears especially, many Russians are also peculiar, in some ways, but in this Russian and Chinese are definitely brothers forever.

Lack of taste

A widespread collective farm in decoration, lack of taste. Often in China it happens like this: a beautiful office building designed in modern style, but suddenly there are some golden urns or flowers in pots. Think of the museum in Ordos. Or, for example, the airport in Kunming.

Rudeness

Frequent complete neglect of other people's interests in their own interests. You stand in line, and the Chinese calmly bypasses you and starts buying something (and the seller takes this normally and starts selling to him). You ordered food and said that you don't eat spicy food, but they brought you everything in pepper, because "this dish was prepared like that, if you please pay." Does the Chinese need to go exactly where you are now? It's okay, you can push you. Examples of rudeness can be cited as many as you like. They say this is a consequence of overpopulation and constant competition, but this is not an excuse!

Disregard for antiquity

Widespread profanation of history. The city was just built, but why not tell people that it is “ ancient city with a thousand-year history "? So it will be written, do not hesitate. Nowhere will they write that it was rebuilt 2 months ago. The Chinese generally do not care about antiquity; you can easily take a truly ancient statue of Buddha and glue a new head of cement to it. “Why has the statue's face worn out from time to time? We need to fix it, we will do it to make it beautiful! "

Not knowing English

It pisses me off that it is often hard to find anyone in China who speaks good English. In restaurants tourist cities, at train stations, in companies that by definition work with tourists, such as car rental, for example. By the way, in this, China and Russia are also very similar.

Tolerance to various noises. I already wrote that you can often find Chinese people who speak loudly and yell in public. But there is also such a factor: loud speakers installed in public places, honking cars (although there have been certain improvements in this regard in 10 years), and so on. And what about Chinese car navigators? Oh, it's a song! They never shut up, every second they say something to drivers, even on highways! What can they tell them, I wonder? Probably they are encouraging him: "Well done, Zhang, you are good!" or "Don't be stupid, here you can go faster!" For passengers, this is, of course, torture.

Banning the use of telephones on airplanes

It pisses me off that the Chinese prohibit the use of telephones on board. Not only during takeoff or landing, but in general the entire flight! You can use a laptop, you can use a tablet, but you can't use a phone! Be careful, this ridiculous ban applies to all Chinese airlines. So, you can't listen to music in flight, or watch a movie.

Surely the majority of consumers, all of us over thirty-five, paid attention to how much short life have current products and things, and how much more durable and better quality they were during our childhood and youth. Cars, household appliances, clothes - everything seemed to be done for centuries, was extremely reluctant to break down and, after repair, served the next generation. Modern things, on the other hand, tend to break down and wear out exactly after the end of the warranty period, as if bewitched.

The Soviet Union, for all its many shortcomings, had a strict quality control system for its products. A few goods imported from abroad, mainly from friendly Eastern European or Asian countries, also underwent strict control on state level and they got to the consumer in order to serve for a long time and reliably.

Rough-looking, regularly rumbling refrigerators, noisy washing machines, bulky televisions and radio tape recorders have served faithfully for decades and some, like some immortal dinosaurs, still serve today, twenty-five to thirty years later (each of us, for sure, has a relative or an acquaintance who has some angular "Biryusa" or a pot-bellied "Minsk", rattling "Oka" or still showing "Horizon" in a wooden box at his dacha, or even at home).

Trousers, sweaters and jackets, dresses and skirts, sneakers and shoes were extremely reluctant to lose their color and shape, to tear and wear out, no matter what we did with them. I remember with longing some Romanian sneakers that I, a boy, were tired of to death, but which stubbornly did not want to fail. Or your Indian sweater made of natural wool, which, after a hundred washes and twenty years later, without exaggeration, has not lost either color or shape and still looks like new.

Why is there no quality

Modern things, for all our stainless love for the foreign, usually do not last longer than a year or two, and clothing items are enough for two seasons at best. Refrigerators, microwave ovens, kettles serve out their warranty period and begin to be capricious or simply break down. The soles of shoes peel off or grind off within three to six months (sometimes it lasts no more than one month), shirts and T-shirts “fade” after two or three washes, sweaters and sweaters stretch and hang in a bag covered with pellets. Moreover, to repair, for example, an imported refrigerator, which “something knocks,” a smartphone whose glass just cracked, or a laptop whose “everything is frozen” sometimes costs so much that you wonder if it’s better to just go and buy a new one apparatus, and not repair the old one?

Independent experts say that modern technology is thought out in such a way that it is not only difficult to repair electronics, but very difficult. Sometimes, as soon as a model is taken out of production, it is almost impossible to find replacement parts, since they are already "outdated", and therefore you are advised to purchase a new model, rather than repair an old one that is "three years old". (With longing and a smile I remember my first and so far the last LG microwave, which a year later the plate first burst, and I had to order “such” a plate already in the capital, it turned out to be such a shortage, and which then three months later during cooking ceased to rotate in the proper way, and I simply spat on it).

But the point is that the models, firstly, “become obsolete” at the speed of light, and secondly, they “become outdated” artificially, the consumer is increasingly faced with the fact that new modern models are worse in quality than their predecessors.

As for items of clothing that quickly fade and lose their shape, then, as experts say, the matter is in the composition of the fabric, which in almost half of the cases does not correspond to that indicated on the marking. Clothing manufacturers, our beloved Chinese, are increasingly using so-called regenerative materials, that is, made from recycled materials. In China, recycling is supported at the state level. And sellers are much more profitable to sell cheaper and lower-quality things, since the turnover of money is faster. Such people buy goods for a penny, quickly sell out and buy new goods.

In the auto industry, one of the main sources of income is service maintenance... IN western countries cars can be purchased almost at cost - manufacturers are ready to sell almost at a loss, just to "hook" the client for service. And in the West, this cunning scheme works, because, for example, the same Americans would never even think of repairing their Ford or Chrysler in their garage with their own hands: they all turn to specialized service centers. And when such a stake is made on car repairs, production “for centuries” becomes economically unprofitable.

Departments for lowering the quality of goods

In many large companies there are entire departments "for unacceptable quality", whose specialists are working tirelessly to ensure that the refrigerator or electric kettle, God forbid, does not last longer than expected. The parts are made of such materials that electrical engineering in a year or three begins to fall apart before your eyes. If any part turns out to be stronger than it should be, it is replaced with a more wearable one, made of cheaper materials, working, paradoxically, not to improve the quality, but to lower it.

There is no need to talk about the ethical side, when the consumer is sold knowingly low-quality consumer goods, assuring him of the high quality of the latter. Where the pursuit of profit goes and competitive fight, not up to conscientious matters. Well, and the saying "The miser pays twice" - and often three times, and four times, etc. - as relevant as ever.

In Russia, as in the rest of the world, there are many myths about Chinese quality, despite the fact that China has long been a leader in high-tech industries. Consider where these prejudices came from, and how to buy Chinese goods. high Quality.

This picture recently made a name for itself on WeChat, China's popular chat system. But let's be honest - does a patch made in Korea really last longer than a product made in China? In fact, no, almost never. But, even if this is not the most best example, it fully reflects the long-standing public opinion that goods from China are trash. And even if you have often ordered Chinese products before, a couple of disappointments could lead to the fact that you too bought into this offensive prejudice.
Some Chinese manufacturers can (and are) producing low quality and potentially hazardous products. The global consumer protection services regularly generate reports on the unsatisfactory quality of goods from China.

One example is mattel - in 2007, consignments of toys containing dangerous concentrations of lead in paint materials were rejected. Even China's own quality oversight department recently found that nearly 50% of randomly sampled pyrotechnic products failed quality checks - that is, millions of domestic consumers are at risk during the Chinese New Year celebrations.

But the press paints a picture that in no way reflects the real ability of Chinese industries; simply ignoring the experience of many successful importers that continue to work with suppliers from China to this day. If you can look a little further than most, you will realize that a large percentage of Chinese enterprises are capable of producing quality goods and are making an effort to fully satisfy consumer demands. Let's figure out where the legs of the misconception about the quality of Chinese goods come from - and how to get the best quality goods from Chinese exporters.

Chinese manufactures are capable of quality goods

Contrary to popular belief, Chinese manufacturers are now focused on producing quality products. They open up new brands to the world and use the latest technology... Although this does not apply to all Chinese industries, in the past few decades, the country's industry has made significant progress towards improvement.

More and more Chinese factories are requesting, regardless of the buyer, third-party product inspection. The owners of these factories value independent opinions on improvements and customer satisfaction. There is also a calculation that foreign companies notice progress.

China increases competence in high-tech industries

The rapidly developing electronics industry and cell phones in China demonstrates the determined intentions of its leaders to integrate into the global value chain. In the past few years, Chinese smartphone brands have smoothly entered the global marketplace - with ambitions to challenge the likes of Apple and Samsung and cement China's reputation as a technology powerhouse that keeps its finger on the pulse of innovation.

The three Chinese smartphone brands, Huawei, OPPO and Vivo, are now respectively the third, fourth and fifth largest smartphone suppliers in the world. While Apple and Samsung both recorded a decline in market share year on year, Huawei estimated a 58.4% increase over last year. Meanwhile, OPPO and Vivo have grown over 100% year over year. These companies show a desire to move forward by producing a high-tech, yet affordable product.

China's cutting-edge manufacturing is not limited to smartphones. Drone industry titan Dajiang Innovation, or DJI for short, controls about 70% of the drone market. aircraft as of 2015, thanks to its high-quality and elegant solutions and smart logistics.
These companies demonstrate only a fraction of China's capabilities in the high-tech sector. It adds confidence in China's high capabilities and the fact that the country's government intends to take the modernization process into its own hands. "Made in China 2025" is the name of an officially published government program aimed at improving the quality of national industries. By 2025, they should all be more efficient, greener and more innovative.

Among other requirements, the program also provides for a wider choice key components from domestic suppliers. And while many Chinese firms will need to adjust their strategies to properly import ingredients, investment in technological innovation has already increased under the program. Manufacturers around the world note that China is "moving from the working engine of the world to a true innovator", which can help accelerate the country's progress towards the goal of becoming a true leader in everything when it comes to product quality.

Following Japan: The Chinese Quality Revolution

China's neighbor Japan is a prime example of a country that has successfully passed the stage of the quality revolution. And China seems to be aiming for the same result.
Decades ago, in the period after World War II, Japan was actively restructuring itself and transferring production from the needs of wartime to the consumer path. At first, Japanese products did not shine with quality or fame. But that all changed along with the revision of priorities at the top of the country's manufacturing industry, and already in the 1980s, Japanese quality and reliability threatened the position of American ones - especially when it came to consumer electronics and the automotive industry.

Despite a sharp economic downturn in the 1990s, Japanese industry is still renowned throughout the world, mainly due to its quality and lean manufacturing system. Only after japanese manufacturers attended to the issues of improving organizational production processes, a significant rise in the quality bar became visible.

And now Chinese companies are following the same path. China has already surpassed the United States in semiconductor manufacturing. Some Chinese apparel makers claim to be adopting a lean manufacturing approach. In the words of one Chinese general director“We definitely need to be more efficient if we want to survive,” as labor costs in China are rising and China remains competitive with importers.

So why is it that bad goods are still being brought in from China?

China has come a long way from an unremarkable start-up, an economy focused on manufacturing at any cost. And if the current changes are at least somewhat historical in nature, the Chinese "way up" will continue, therefore, the competitiveness of Chinese goods will increase.

But if Chinese factories are able to compete with foreign ones in product quality, why do many importers who work with Chinese suppliers continue to receive low quality goods? It's simple: the demand for a lower cost creates an underestimation of product quality.

Most importers want the highest quality products at the lowest possible price. But many of them often fail to recognize that poor quality is a product of initial conditions, not malice. Let's say you want to import 3000 Bluetooth speakers from a factory in Guangdong, China. You visit showroom supplier and see a dazzling range of excellent audio accessories and equipment. Impressed by what you see, you decide to work with a supplier and place an order for a batch. And after repeated negotiations at the lowest price of the supplier, you make a deposit for the order.

When you finally get finished goods, you grab your head to find that your product is not very similar to what you were shown at the show. Your Bluetooth speakers are made from much cheaper parts than you expected, and many of them are faulty.

This story is all too familiar to importers who have artificially lowered the price. A decrease in price is usually accompanied by a decrease in the quality of the finished product. The lower the profit, the more the manufacturer has to "cut".

Made in PRC - which country is the manufacturer?

Recently, both in Russia and in the world, goods under the Made in PRC brand have begun to be met. Many are interested in what kind of country this PRC is? We answer - PRC stands for People's Republic of China, which translated into Russian: PRC \u003d China. This is just a marketing ploy, since many manufacturers know that products under the Made in China label are automatically perceived by many as low quality goods, and seeing the inscription made in PRC such an association does not arise.It should be noted that goods with such a label can really be of good quality, since they are already made in modern China, where the quality, as we know, is an order of magnitude higher than 20 years ago.

Why can the quality be low in the production of goods in China?

Have you ever been pissed off by 80% fog and ambiguity instructions? And there was nothing surprising in the fact that, following them, you did not achieve the desired result. The situation is similar here: there are no clear requirements - there is no result that meets expectations. By omitting important details of the order, saving on drawings and drawing up technical specifications, you create uncertainty in the customer-executor relationship.
A Chinese supplier often commits to filling in the blanks, trying to guess what you want instead of asking for clarification. That is why the finished product is manufactured from the wrong components or has quality defects.

Do not rely on your Chinese supplier to fully guess your product requirements. Before breaking up with him, consider whether you have provided all the information you need for quality production. It is useful to entrust quality control to an independent inspector, and not rely only on the manufacturer's quality control department.

A competent TK, again, not only serves as a guide for the contractor, but also constitutes a valuable document for any inspection personnel conducting product quality control.

Conclusion

Even though some factories in China sometimes produce poor quality products, the number of companies capable of producing high-tech and high-quality products is growing every year. In fact, many importers are still successfully cooperating with China - even with the continued growth of national wages.

When looking for business items from China, think about how the asking price will affect the quality. If you bargain and insist on a very low price, you will most likely be disappointed with the poor quality of the finished product. Be consistent in your expectations from the beginning, think and plan everything before placing an order. Develop technical task, which will not leave unclear questions, communicate closely with the supplier and contractors. And remember, every day in China, a huge amount of the highest quality goods are produced, but everything has a price.

Marina Yushvaeva, founder and CEO of Sabellino and Smart Fashion Group, wrote a column on how and why Chinese goods became a quality mark.

How has China become more technologically advanced than Europe and what stereotypes should be left behind?

Why Chinese goods are now a quality mark

Over the past 3-4 years, myths about Chinese manufacturing have gradually begun to debunk. If earlier the results of the work of a Chinese worker could be described as "not very high quality, but fast and cheap", now the level of quality depends on the industry and specific production.

The stereotype of “disposability” of things still remained with both buyers and companies. But China accounts for 25% of world production - more than any other country, you have to reckon with.

The Chinese industry has changed a lot. Tailoring of all collections in full, many world brands trust China: Zara, Levi's, Incanto, Befree, Zarina, Zolla, Meucci. But, for example, Ermenegildo Zegna and Paul Smith sew part of the collections in Italy, and part in China.

But a fairly impressive number of world brands still prefer to leave production within their country or region: luxury brands - D&G, Fendi, Givenchy, Gucci - are made mostly in Italy. Focusing on premium brands, small manufacturers are also wary of cooperating with Chinese manufacturers.

There are quite a few myths around China about quality, prices and terms of cooperation, so many simply do not dare to find a partner in this country.

However, if you cannot find the optimal production either in Russia or in another country, try to "scan" the Chinese market. We have been successfully cooperating with China for 10 years. We produce high quality bags and accessories at the best price, and I can say that it is quite possible to find a good partner here.

When you manage to find "your" production, you will see that China has surpassed many countries in this production plan, and now the goods from China are not ashamed. And that's why.

How China became more technologically advanced than Europe

In the last decade, Chinese manufacturers have learned to quickly respond to external events, analyze them and predict what will be relevant in the near future in Europe and the United States. This applies to production technologies, materials and design.

Back in June 2016, McKinsey surveyed 130 Chinese manufacturers for their readiness to transform under Industry 4.0 conditions. It turned out that the Chinese have much more opportunities in this regard than their counterparts in Japan, Germany and the United States.

Such a sample of countries is due to their leading positions in the field of high-tech production - it's no secret that Japan, Germany and the United States are world leaders in the automotive and electronics industries. Despite this, the MCKinsey study showed that Chinese manufacturers will be able to transform to the new format of the Industry 4.0 economy much faster than these countries.

Previously, Chinese manufacturers were extremely conservative and did not seek to develop in new directions, since they still “came” to China for cheap production, putting up with not the most best quality the final product. Now progressiveness is the main feature of this country, since now cheapness is not the main criterion by which a manufacturer chooses a partner.

Over the past 30 years, China's economy has grown at an incredibly fast pace, growing in volume by almost 10% per year. By the 1990s, China was ranked 11th in the list of countries with the highest GDP, and by 2015, the country was in fourth position. So now lasers, automatic sewing machines and printers are replacing hundreds of workers in factories.

Now designers in China work better, faster than Russian and European ones. The design is no longer projected by hand, but with the help of IT technologies, which are ahead of many European countries in development. You can buy ready-made sketches of clothes and accessories in production and adapt them to your region: this is how they do small companies and small business.

Secular specialization of regions

Historically, different regions in China are engaged in different production. It's like with Orenburg shawls or Ivanovo textiles - only on the scale of the world economy.

This specialization is due to the availability of resources and properly configured logistics. For instance:

• The technique is manufactured in Shanghai and in Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong. In Shenzhen, for example, according to some estimates, about 90% of all household appliances in the world.
• Guangzhou specializes in light industry, and everything related to the fashion industry is developed there (footwear, textile industry). Almost all clothes and shoes made in China are made in Guangzhou.

Therefore, expertise and experience in the production of goods of a particular segment have been accumulating in each region for centuries. And the technological base of the regions, which has made a big step forward, combined with a hundred years of expertise at the output, gives a really high-quality product - raw materials and logistics are consolidated in each region so that the volume and capacity of production in each segment of the economy grows. At the same time, this does not mean at all that the manufacturer can, conditionally, be given some technical specification and no longer be involved in the process.

The main thing at the beginning of cooperation is to talk about all the details in advance: from the volume of the batch, materials, terms up to how many millimeters the insole should be and how long the handle from the bag should be. And be sure to hire a technologist, he will take into account all the nuances.

If something went wrong, look for a mistake on your side first. When we just started working with China, we thought: "Why didn't we see there or don't know why we need a technologist, we can handle it ourselves." As a result, the very first batch of bags was designed incorrectly - the parts simply did not fit together. And, of course, the manufacturer did not return the prepayment, since he did his job.

China has learned to communicate with business

The main change that took place in the business approach of the owners of factories and plants - they realized that long-term cooperation is much more profitable than the scheme "to sew as quickly and cheaply as possible", because manufacturers began to suspend en masse.

At the production facilities, they began to closely monitor quality, and manufacturers are ready to offer favorable prices for their services, focusing on the economic situation in the world and in each region separately.

For example, to get good conditions from the manufacturer, say that you are from a disadvantaged (at the moment) region. For example, from Ukraine. At the same time, promise them large volumes. They will willingly reduce the price and offer you good conditions. Another proof that Chinese manufacturers began to monitor the political and economic situation and adapt to incoming requests from customers from different countries.

The company's manufacturers are found at specialized exhibitions that take place in China. The number of exhibitions is increasing every year. In 2016, there were more than 400 exhibitions in the period from February to December, and already in 2017 their number exceeds 600. Exhibitions are an excellent opportunity to get acquainted with the prices, compare them and calculate the average price for the production of a particular product.

Conclusion

Today, China can be called a phenomenon country that has been able to develop a powerful industrial base, as well as become a flagship country for the production of various kinds of products.

Production technologies began to develop, and Chinese manufacturers finally began to go beyond conservatism in their work.

China has begun to use more technology and less manual labor. Factories without workers, shops without sellers - this is modern China. The products have become better quality, but prices have increased;

The Chinese develop a very good design: in almost any factory you can be offered ready-made designs for shoes, clothes, bags and accessories.

Manufacturers want to cooperate for a long time: you can negotiate discounts, convenient and profitable terms, to stipulate all the nuances of the product and the required quality.

Don't be afraid to cooperate with China, but remember: it makes no sense to go to China if you plan to pay less than 5 million rubles for the production of a batch - you simply will lose a lot on costs. And also be sure to negotiate with the manufacturer for a small test batch. And if everything suits you with one production facility, you can work for a very long time and fruitfully.