Warning About Chinese Counterfeits Of Petzl Products

5 Responses to Warning About Chinese Counterfeits Of Petzl Products

1. 

   J February 12, 2011 at 7:42 pm #

   Climb X expanding into the gear market?

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2. 

   ChineseFactoryOwner February 13, 2011 at 11:03 am #

   You really have to wonder what’s going through the factory owner’s head when making something like this. I wonder if they legitimately don’t understand that someone could die from this, ie thinking that his product will be good enough, or honestly doesn’t care if someone dies?

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     sam February 16, 2011 at 10:53 am #

     What are the (knock-off) factory owners thinking?
     A combination of things –
     “Its not *that* inferior”,
     “I have to find more ways to make a profit or lose-my-job/go-out-of-business”,
     “Here’s something I don’t really understand that I can make money from”
     “This stuff is popular, let’s copy it”
     “It’s exactly the same as the original”
     “That was ok, lets not do it again”
     “derp, derp, anodised metal, derp”
     These aren’t, Nazi-calbre, evil people, its just an emerging world mentality: getting ahead by any means possible, is acceptable. Especially seeing that, in many ppl’s own personal experience, they have never ‘got ahead’ in anything, ever.
     Consequences are of no meaning if you’ve got nothing to lose. That’s the way some of the developing world is – & this is where alot of today’s products are manufactured.
     Soooo – don’t buy anything made in China? No, actual Brands using Chinese factories are at pains to protect their RD, their reputation, their own markets (& they do) – this is why the fakes sucked so bad, they can’t fake years of experience that goes into making quality brands.
     Summary: as consumers be aware of the impact purchasing fake *anything* has on *every* market. I’m talking knock-off clothing, pirate movies & software as well – What are the factory managers thinking?
     “Pirated DVD’s worked, what about Pirate Climbing gear. Same thing innit?”

     .sam (expat living in China)

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3. 

   robert February 26, 2011 at 6:56 pm #

   I gather that the motivation behind moving production to China is all about lowering production costs and increasing profit margins. It’s got little to do with providing cheaper products for consumers. Of course there are enormous consequences involved in moving production to China. In addition to the important issues re working conditions, the lack of environmental compliance, etc, which enable Western manufacturers to bypass their industrial and environmental obligations, one consequence of the move to China has been that manufacturing in the West has been destroyed, and along with it a whole raft of manufacturing traditions, including the tradition of manufacturing excellence which had hitherto existed in Europe (though to a lesser extent the US). It’s virtually impossible to buy anything nowdays that’s well made, whether it be clothing, electrical goods, tools and so on. My father’s set of imperial spanners made in Britain in the 1930s which I inherited years ago is far better made than anything you’d find on the market today (my problem is the spanners aren’t metric!). OF course before the advent of globalisation, a number of quality products were made in China, or at least Hong Kong. So the issue is not that the Chinese are unable to produce quality, but rather, that quality has been virtually factored out of manufacturing. Nowdays, quality is something added on post fabrication by advertisers. Well almost. So, in addition to my concerns re labor conditions and environmental degradation, my big concern when climbing gear manufacturers move production to China involves quality. They’ve made the move to China based on considerations re margins, and on this basis, you’d assume that they’re going to be finding ways to cut production costs all along the line – and I wonder where will this stop? As I see it, when a climbing gear manufacturer moves production off shore, this signifies that quality and product safety have become less important to them than hitherto was the case. Not unimportant, but less important. OK so I still buy Petzl gear (including a couple of Attache biners!), and I’ve got a couple of newer BD camelots which are now made in China – and until I hear otherwise, I assume that this gear still meets the various standards. All up, my prediction is that in about 20 years time people will start making climbing gear in the US and Europe again. They will be climbers, small scale operators, and they’ll be learning all over again, starting from scratch. So if you can wait, I’d say that someone will start manufacturing Aliens in the US in about 40 years from now. Get your orders in!

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4. 

   Narc March 8, 2011 at 12:03 pm #

   The one misconception that seems to be out there is that these products were counterfeited because they are produced in China when in fact all the products in question are actually made in Europe.

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