Rick Johnson
Simply put making stuff is cheap, you'd be stunned if you knew how
little the labor and material actually is on most stuff that's made in
volume. And making stuff in Asia is even cheaper and that's why it's
done there (mostly) by everyone. Beyond that the cost in anything goes
towards predominantly three things:
* to pay for the engineering it took to design and tool up to produce it
* marketing, sales and warranty
* and, if all goes well, profit for those who had the idea and put
up the money to pay - up front - for the above two things
So what often happens next is the poorly paid people at that low cost
manufacturing facility copy what the original designer paid them to
make. Sometimes they'll even use the tooling their customer paid for and
slip the knock offs out the back door. And where do you think the most
anonymous place to off load these products is? You guessed it, eBay.
So, where does that leave you, the frugal eBay shopper? You may get a
good deal and the stuff might actually work (at least for a time). It
could even be as it appears - just like name brand such and such.
But it also might be crap and you sure won't have a reputable company
standing behind the product with a warranty. The really fun part though
is you're often helping screw the people who invested the time, effort
and money to design the product in the first place.
But hey, a deal's a deal. Right?
Rick Johnson
Bend Oregon
* * *
Liberal intercourse - founding father approved since 1796
On 12/19/2010 11:33 PM, Stewart wrote:
> Hello fellow racers,
> I have little to no experience with using ebay. I am a very broke roadie that is trying to build up a TT bike. I worked on my road bike over the past few years to finally have a complete bike worth over 6k that I only paid about 3.5k for.
> Now I'm trying to do the same with a TT bike. I really don't care about brand names since mostly everything is made over in Asia. Yes, even the american company Sram moved over to Asia about 8 years ago once they became big enough.
> I've noticed a few TT frame manufactures over in hong kong, HongFu is one of them. They have a raod frame that looks identical to the Pinnerello frame. Anyhow they have a nice TT frameset for $600. So I started doing some more digging and found quite a few sellers on ebay for other hong kong carbon frame and parts.
> I've heard good and bad about ebay, but I really haven't paid attention. So far I look and read the sellers customer feedback, and how much they offer and sell.
> I would appreciate any pos or neg feedback as to ebay experiences. And like I said, I know my bike parts, I do all my own work, I don't shop just for brand name, and I don't shop at bike gallery or REI! So please don't tell me just go to such and such shop and buy a complete TT bike that I'll end up paying to much for, stripping down and rebuilding to my own prefrences.
>
> Thanks,
> Stewart
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