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I just got a pretty rad set of mini pliers from Temu that surprised the hell out of me with the quality. How long they last is another story but it was like $5 for like 10 different mini pliers? I’ll bite.
Their price/performance is unbeatable in the western world if you dont mind you are buying from a dictatorship which shamelessly abuse their workforce and dont care about IP at all.. It should be also noted that a lot of stuff we buy in our shops is also made in the same country but this time with a middleman. On the otherhand not everyone in the west is rich enough to just walk into any store any just buy everything needed. Also about temu and aliexpress, they mostly sell the same stuff but temu runs really agressive marketing and same stuff there might cost more.
All valid points. You're also usually not getting much of a warranty or customer service. But yeah you're cutting out one or multiple middle men and marketing costs. As you noted, a ton of western brand stuff is made in China anyways. And hilariously, even if you buy USA made goods you may now also be supporting a dictatorship.
The higher price is what gives you the warranty, you can get the item immediately, there's someone you can yell at when it doesn't work other than a nondescript Chinese Web store that really doesn't care about your problems and someone went through the trouble of trying out the quality of the supply (is the item somewhat good or really shitty).
There's tons of aliexpress products that can be thrown in the bin immediately after unpacking them. You would take that product back to the store if you bought it physically and that store would make sure they had functioning products on their shelves. Not valve caps and valve cores with nonfunctioning threads that mean the product can't be used for what it was bought for.
Definitely loads of crap out there. You need to know what brands and products are actually good, but isn't that true for western brands too?
At this point I've purchased over 100 different products from AliExpress, and with a bit of research at the Chinertown forums, I'd say 75% were excellent, 23% good/okay, and 2% unusable/garbage. On the whole I've probably saved thousands of dollars there, especially in small parts like valves/valve cores etc.
CHORT!
Funny bit about Ali is how you can get genuine Shimano & SRAM components for dirt cheap as well as 'other' components. In that aspect it's like how Pro Bike Kit was back 10+ years ago. Working at a shop then, it wasn't necessarily uncommon for us to order a group for a customer off there as they had em in stock and were often cheaper than our wholesale pricing through the big 3 wholesalers at the time. I wouldn't be surprised if some shops are using Ali to fulfill orders the same way. The internet age really stole value from all retail sectors. We can bemoan China's human rights record, but they're far from the only nation where goods are made that have the same issue. How much of the clothing we wear to ride comes from Pakistan, Bangladesh, or India? I think China has such a big bullseye because of the amount of manufacturing the nation can do, from garbage to cutting edge, is beyond what any other nation can.
Two big things help foreign sellers and thereby end customers. First, we have the de minimis value in the US set at $800/person/day. So if you buy goods that are shipping from an international seller and they are below $800 then you don't owe any duties. If, as a company, you go source goods in a foreign country and import them, it will most certainly exceed the de minimis value and you'll owe duties. The de minimis threshold has been talked about a lot in the bike industry due to cheap ebikes on Amazon.
(Side note, a recent ruling is making Amazon take responsibility as a distributor, and not their preferred status as a marketplace, for things like consumer protection laws. I'm guessing they will get to Temu/Alibaba sooner than later too.)
Second, there is the UPU that is setup to provide preferential mail rates to developing countries and despite some changes around 2020, China was still considered a developing country. Some things changed around that time that allowed the USPS to charge more but there are plenty of subsidies from China to support exporting cheap trinkets and widgets.
Shimano group stuff is almost all genuine on AliX (from reputable sellers) but from what I understand, most SRAM stuff is not
Don't get me wrong, I've spend at least hundreds of euros on aliexpress. I've bought OrangePis, two multiNIC router boxes to run pfsense (and will likely buy a barebones NAS system in the near future), a soldering iron, cables, chargers, phone cases, I'm using an aliexpress headset punch and press, shimano chainring tool, I have long/deep ratchet sockets from there, bought tubeless tape, tubeless valves and valve cores, etc. I've bought headlamps (mtb and hiking) both on aliexpress and on deal extreme. I'm running perfectly fine photochromic riding glasses. But more or less invariably any clothes I bough years ago (riding jerseys and the like) were utter garbage.
It's still less likely that you'll buy genuinely shitty product at home than on Ali.
We do have a saying in Slovenia, "I am not rich enough to buy cheap stuff."
China has a big freedom-lovin' bullseye on it because it's a threat. Not just for its manufacturing might, but also for its geopolitical influence and military power. A former Australian prime minister keeps telling us that China just wants to be left alone, but it certainly doesn't look like it from the outside. I think the west is having second thoughts about the ramifications of its addiction to Chinese manufacturing.
@Primoz: We have a very similar saying: "The poor man pays twice". I think the Americans say "buy once cry once". And incidentally I have a similar principle when it comes to cars; if I couldn't afford to buy it new, I can't afford to own it used, no matter the price.
At the shop I work at we say "buy nice or buy twice". It's really not an elitist thing (none of us would be considered rich), just an acknowledgement that in many cases buying the well made, more expensive product is cheaper in the long run.
I love when the response is "But, I can buy 3 of the cheaper (insert item here) for that price.." Do you want 3 more failures on the trail? Do you want to damage parts on your bike when the cheap option doesn't work? I'm not saying you have to buy the most expensive option, usually I would steer people away from that since stepping down a level or 2 will get you pretty damn close on performance with a little weight added, but spending a few extra dollars will almost always save time, money, and frustration down the road.
Price is what you pay, value is what you get.
Always surprised that Ventana doesn't get more recognition.
Honestly, I thought they'd just quietly gone out of business. Are they really still producing & selling bikes?
I'm not.
That website and most of the bikes are from 2017. Unless they're just working low key making one off, it seems like they may just still be paying for domain hosting?
They used to have a lot more models, and a nice DH bike. That's a long list of bikes built for other companies too.
They used to be a customer of mine... Sherwood will be the first person to admit that marketing isn't his strong point. I think he's at a happy place with the company. I don't think that he wants it to be a huge company..
Sherwood has plenty of bussiness right now, enough that he is turning away OE clients again.
That's great to hear... Glad to hear he's doing good. Good guy..
Side point here, those who continue to frame China as a "large threat to the West", I'd encourage you to spend some time digging into demographic shifts.
In short, the population of China has begun to fall and a number of institutions have modeled their population plummeting over the next 50-100 years. The effect this will have on manufacturing and their economy is dire. When you combine this with some of their questionable monetary policy decisions the last few years you end up with a situation where the "threat of china" is more bark than it is bite.
I'm not saying they aren't a large superpower that have huge influence over the global economy, they do. However, this idea that they are militarizing and coming for our businesses, livelihoods and way of life is probably not as true as it once was. (if at all)
Anyone interested, good podcast on the subject. https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/288-the-end-of…
Going along with tariff talk, here's a good interview with Chris Moeller of S&M bikes..
https://youtu.be/cnZH6VutLmA?si=ghorGc7Ah2ow1v1P
WB/Discovery is in a questionable financial place being 41Bn in debt. I read that they might be shutting down motortrend arm. I guess it’s a wait and see if anything happens to Cycling coverage.
good as shut down, Roadkill announced it's done.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/roadkill-is-finished-as-motortrend-produc…
You're right, I should have said perceived threat. And "every empire needs an enemy"...
Personally I'm far less concerned about China's manufacturing ability as opposed to it's tolitarian government's ability as nuclear power to really fuck around in foreign affairs. Especially when considering the number or regimes dependent on China's military and surveillance technology. So while China is a competitor on the economic stage. A truly depressed and struggling China is probably more of a threat to American interests.
By far the best lecture I listened to in 2024 on this topic. What you are interested in starts at about 21:30 but the whole thing is incredible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvFtyDy_Bt0
chris moeller in an interview about tariffs. I DID NOT WATCH THIS, so if it's lame, i can delete the post. the thumbnail/title made me think it could apply here
I put it up earlier, didn't embed it.. Watch it, it's a good look at things the industry currently deals with as far as tariffs go..
Side note.. If you follow Chris on IG, the amount of heat he took for the Make American Bikes Again hat was hilarious.
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