> as a buyer, its a huge pain to have to sift through pages of aliexpress merchandise to uncover interesting and original work. make a cool printed design on a game boy shell? quickly stolen, mass produced on aliexpress, then sold by all the boring resellers on etsy
As a buyer it is a massive joy to see the price of some item go down when there’s diversity of sellers instead of a monopoly.
Just to make sure I understand your position... are you saying that it's OK for someone to copy someone else's original design, mass produce it at lower cost, and give no credit or royalties to the original designer?
It absolutely is. Most of what people are calling "original" designs aren't even original. Etsy is rampant with copyright or trademark infringement, or just rehashes of the same designs someone else made. The only difference between Etsy and the spooky Chinese is that China has mastered manufacturing and distribution and that's what puts a lot of independent vendors out of business.
Plenty of industries deal with this in various ways and manage to survive and the consumer ends up winning in the end. Restaurants, fashion, heck even app stores all deal with this and the end result is better products for the consumer at cheaper prices.
No one has a monopoly on designing yet another cute bracelet or rainbow lanyard or generic pillow cover.
That is a very short term an narrow view that leads to a race to the bottom in terms of quality and innovation. It leads to cheap mass produced generic fair. In the long run it’s terrible for buyers.
> Not if that is what the buyers want. Evidence suggests they buy low quality low durability items
Low quality/durability items are not what most people want most of the time. It's sometimes all they can afford, or they think they found a good deal and feel ripped off when the item arrives and they discover that it's low quality/durability, but either way they aren't happy about it. What people want is high quality goods at prices they can afford.
You're suggesting that people do not willingly buy low quality crap, but they most definitely do. Even when knowing it is crap, and even when having the budget to buy higher quality goods. They'll still buy the low quality crap, at massive scale.
I'm from the Netherlands. One of the most successful retail stores here is "Action", which in the category of low quality garbage sinks to the absolute bottom.
Everybody knows it's garbage. One may buy a pair of scissors there and have it break down in 2 months of usage. So then people just buy another one. It's not strictly a budget issue, most shoppers can afford a good pair of scissors, one that lasts 10 years, but they prefer the cheap one anyway.
"Alibaba shopping" is mainstream here. Everybody buys their small items there. One of my colleagues, whom is upper middle class, was proudly telling me how he buys a "value" pack of 10 phone chargers every year. They're all terrible and soon break down, so then he'll just move to the next one. He could just buy a single decent one, but no.
I wish you were right, but you're not. People just want the absolute cheapest thing, and they want it now.
I haven't seen the inside of an Action, but most of the stores here in the US that sell garbage at the lowest possible prices target the poor. The people I know who would never have to enter one, only do when it's convenient and the item is disposable. (We have "dollar stores" that can be a pretty good deal for party supplies/decorations) I hope people who really have a "I don't care if I have to throw this away and buy a new one all the time" mentality are a minority.
Having that kind of an attitude with device chargers is a great way to damage your devices! Does that guy feel the same about his phone as he does his chargers?
There are times when the cheapest option is a smart way to go, and times when it's so convenient that it's worth picking up the cheap item even knowing it'll cost you later. Most of the time though I think people like having nice things.
I'll confess I do know people who have money but always buy the cheapest toilet paper. There's no understanding some people.
I do not share your hope of it being a minority. I understand your remark regarding a possible "social shame" of not wanting to be seen in "stores for the poor", but this effect is gone. At least it is over here. Value shopping is acceptable across the classes.
I don't know if this extends to the US, but over here there has been a massive shift in retail. The middle is gone. There's value shopping and there's luxury shopping. Very low-end and very high-end.
Stores in the mid segment, which used to dominate retail, are falling apart. Some of these chains existed for over a century, had stores in every dutch city. They're all going bankrupt or already are.
They have no reason to exist. Their products may be of a slightly better quality, but barely so, as they too go for cheap Chinese garbage. They don't really offer better service because they can't afford to. Their staff are clueless teenagers for being cheap.
>“Not if that is what the buyer wants [in the immediate term]”
That’s generally how a race to the bottom happens. Short term narrow minded outlooks that barely consider how one action effects another. It’s terrible long run for buyers, employees, and the planet.
Exactly right, but it happens regardless. It seems we're wired this way.
Which means we need to stop kidding around and call it what it is. You can't offer people a cheap unsustainable choice and a more expensive better choice and then hope and pray that this magically works out well.
There should not be an unsustainable choice. At the very least we should start pricing in externalities into unnaturally cheap products.
It isn't really possible to produce a 5$ radio, ship it across the world and still run a profit. It's possible at the cost of a livable wage, basic human rights, reasonable work conditions, proper waste management, underpricing fossil fuel usage, special tax agreements, and so much more.
I have a few designed items that I have oft been told to sell n etsy - I have literally no interest in setting up an etsy shop -- however, I DO have interest in finding out how to get things I design made via AliExpress for my own desires - and dont care if other items crop up so much...
How does one go about getting a product made through aliexpress?
AliExpress is for consumers, for bulk orders you can use Alibaba. You can also get in contact with the manufacturers to make things to your own liking, they'll quote you a price.
Redbubble lets you upload designs for t-shirts, phone cases, etc, and make them available in their web storefront. You only get a small slice of the sale price, but it's very easy to get your designs "out into the world."
I come up with mechanical designs as well as "artsy" things - which could be mass produced... but never like a logo-shirt or something as mentally ephemeral..
---
Right now I am modeling an 'thing' as a 3d printable (or injection molded at scale) attachment to a common house hold power tool, but can come in various grades (home|pro|industrial)...
I messed up and had a bunch of money in 2020 that I should have bought a printer with, but spent on stupid stuff like food and living expenses instead...
Other items are home-goods improvements/desires...
Think of me as the SamCo (Like RonCo) of my personal universe... but I am hoping some of that bleeds put into other universes such as xsmasherCo :-)
As a buyer it is a massive joy to see the price of some item go down when there’s diversity of sellers instead of a monopoly.