RC-Monster Forums - View Single Post

doo540 · 05.15.2009, 08:15 AM

"nothing revolutionary with the design" so that means its ok for any company to market and produce a product they really had no involvement in?

Let’s play out two different scenarios.

1. Hpi spent large amounts of money doing R&D on a 1/5 scale buggy that uses quality components that is durable and reliable, and sells like mad thru out the world, and then a Chinese company sees how well they are selling and decides to copy the HPI design but the only change is they use lower quality components to keep cost down and profits high.

OR

2. An unknown Chinese company (still unknown to this date) develops a 1/5 scale buggy that uses low quality components and brakes often. HPI takes notice of this very low selling, bad quality item and decides to market it with higher quality stuff.

Come on you guys, HPI designed the BAJA and they got ripped off by other companies. This happens every day in overseas companies that have no respect for copyright laws or patents.

Yes I have first hand knowledge of this, my company contacts Chinese companies to build stamping dies. The cost difference is amazing, but the quality of work is not so good. Many times the overseas companies will cut corners and not use the quality components the designs call fore, opting instead to use their own homemade items. Sometimes this is ok, other times it puts press operators lives in danger as some components have serious safety measures built into them. We as a company have to have a representative in the “outsourced” shops at all time to ensure that no “funny” business is going on.

The fact that people keep buying the counterfeit products just reinforces the Chinese companies that it is ok to conduct business in this manor.

Do you think Mike (the RCM owner, the guy we all support) would be happy to have Chinese companies copying his design’s and selling them of 10-15% the price of what he does? Don’t think it can happen? Let me tell you, with about 2 phone calls I could open a “internet shop” and sell all of his quality products that he spent time and money developing at 10-15% of his selling price. Mike would have to go out of business, because people would start saying, “man this motor mount kit from “stealers” is just as good as “RCM” but way cheaper.” Then people would justify it with I don’t have that much money to spend. Just save an extra week or two and buy the real deal, or even buy a used product.

As a side note, my company doesn’t like going overseas to have our dies built. The number one reason we went overseas is because the big automotive companies like Ford, Tower, Midway, Meridian, Defiance, just to name a few, said that if we didn’t have a Chinese plan they wouldn’t let us even quote jobs, even if we could build them here in the States for the same or close to the same price. The big players are looking at bottom dollar period and do not care how it will affect them in the long run, which I think is part of this whole global money problem we are facing right now. Of course it’s not just the car companies fault, I’m sure this same thing is happening in all lines of manufacturing.

	(#18)
doo540 RC-Monster Carbon Fiber Offline Posts: 310 Join Date: Jul 2008	05.15.2009, 08:15 AM "nothing revolutionary with the design" so that means its ok for any company to market and produce a product they really had no involvement in? Let’s play out two different scenarios. 1. Hpi spent large amounts of money doing R&D on a 1/5 scale buggy that uses quality components that is durable and reliable, and sells like mad thru out the world, and then a Chinese company sees how well they are selling and decides to copy the HPI design but the only change is they use lower quality components to keep cost down and profits high. OR 2. An unknown Chinese company (still unknown to this date) develops a 1/5 scale buggy that uses low quality components and brakes often. HPI takes notice of this very low selling, bad quality item and decides to market it with higher quality stuff. Come on you guys, HPI designed the BAJA and they got ripped off by other companies. This happens every day in overseas companies that have no respect for copyright laws or patents. Yes I have first hand knowledge of this, my company contacts Chinese companies to build stamping dies. The cost difference is amazing, but the quality of work is not so good. Many times the overseas companies will cut corners and not use the quality components the designs call fore, opting instead to use their own homemade items. Sometimes this is ok, other times it puts press operators lives in danger as some components have serious safety measures built into them. We as a company have to have a representative in the “outsourced” shops at all time to ensure that no “funny” business is going on. The fact that people keep buying the counterfeit products just reinforces the Chinese companies that it is ok to conduct business in this manor. Do you think Mike (the RCM owner, the guy we all support) would be happy to have Chinese companies copying his design’s and selling them of 10-15% the price of what he does? Don’t think it can happen? Let me tell you, with about 2 phone calls I could open a “internet shop” and sell all of his quality products that he spent time and money developing at 10-15% of his selling price. Mike would have to go out of business, because people would start saying, “man this motor mount kit from “stealers” is just as good as “RCM” but way cheaper.” Then people would justify it with I don’t have that much money to spend. Just save an extra week or two and buy the real deal, or even buy a used product. As a side note, my company doesn’t like going overseas to have our dies built. The number one reason we went overseas is because the big automotive companies like Ford, Tower, Midway, Meridian, Defiance, just to name a few, said that if we didn’t have a Chinese plan they wouldn’t let us even quote jobs, even if we could build them here in the States for the same or close to the same price. The big players are looking at bottom dollar period and do not care how it will affect them in the long run, which I think is part of this whole global money problem we are facing right now. Of course it’s not just the car companies fault, I’m sure this same thing is happening in all lines of manufacturing.