I’m not sure the “machine made it” distinction is a good guide. A machine just does what humans tell it to do. If a company wishes to knock off a product and make it cheaper, it sets a machine up to make the product look similar to the original but without all the features that drive up cost. We saw all the design errors of the counterfeit in the video of the original post.
Something like your cookware have fewer hidden design features, so I can see a company being able to get closer to the quality of the original. If the copying company can legally use the same materials and functional design, it saves the cost of research and design. If however the legal knock off company pulls sales away from the originator such that it cannot compete, that economic activity depresses innovation and research.
Your cookware may not have the same materials or be made by the same processes as the original but performs satisfactory for how you use them.
And, hopefully, this economic activity is not capturing sales by purchasers who would have spent the extra money for the original anyway.
Wether or not the counterfeit item distracts from sales of the legitimate item is only part of it. Someone in the market for a new Rolex won’t settle for a knockoff. We can say the same for Louis Vuitton. So no sale is lost? Not so fast. What it does is cheapen the brand name. Louis Vuitton and Rolex spend a small fortune each year in pursuit of counterfeit products help protect their brands. If the counterfeits did not represent an economic threat they would not pursue it.
Rolex and Vuitton are the two most recognized brands in the world. They are also the most copied. Both of these companies provide excellent skilled jobs. Spending 1k dollars for a wallet or 8k for a watch might seem ridiculous to many but nobody is forced into making these purchases.
When you feed into this market you are providing funds for all kinds of bad things. It’s an estimated 1.7 trillion dollar cash market. There are plenty of links between this market and global terror. The guy your buying some cheap Oakleys from at the local flea market might not be a bad guy but follow the cash and it will undoubtedly go through some bad hands.
I’ll get off my sop box in a moment.
One more thing to consider. Even if this counterfeit was as good as the original consider the company being hurt here. If not for the sake of Level-6 and it’s employees then for the sake of this hobby as well. If they can not make a profit they will not continue to research and improve this sport. Research and development are not something that counterfeiters specialize in.
Really interesting. Good information on what to look for in a drysuit.
Back in the late 2000’s, I spent some time in Shenzen. I needed to buy some shirts and asked for a recommendation to a local colleague. He asked if I had a shirt that I liked and if I wanted to make copies of it. Like in asking a tailor to copy a shirt. Very well, I chose a model shirt, we went to the tailor, dropped the model, and went back the next day to pick up 3 copies for a ridiculously low price. I couldn’t believe the price and how fast they were made. When I got home, I noticed a small defect on the copies. Actually, all of the 3 copies had the same small defect. I mentioned that to my local colleague and he told me to check my model shirt. Sure enough, the defect was on the model shirt as well! That’s how good the copies were.
Back to Level 6, unfortunately, by now, the knock off manufacturer might have watched the master class and improved his product spending zero in R&D .
I was in Suzhao?, China for work probably 15 years ago. The expats took me to a shop that sold North Face. I bought parkas for my kids and as far as we could tell, they were the real thing.
I was working throughout much of East Asia for 2 years (based in Seoul). Another expat, with more experience than I, explained that some of the cheap “name brand” stuff you see are knock offs, as in cosmetic replicas. They try to replciate the looks of the item, but not all the functions. I have a couple of Rolex and similar replicas I bought as jokes. From a distance, they look like one, but don’t have most of the special functions (not water resistant, not self-winding, etc.)
But sometimes you also find the real product. The factory will have the workers work an extra shift and make extras products they don’t send to the ordering company, and instead sell those products themselves. More likely in products of larger companies that place orders from multiple suppliers.
The dry suit is closer to a replica, but really just in marketing (product didn’t have the Level Six branding, just tried to match form and function)
So amazon doesn’t care they sell fake dry suit with the REAL: level 6 pictures. Is that not fraud on Amazons part? Did the owner contact Amazon? Do they even care. What else is fake on amazon then? If your buying a name brand lion battery pack is it Fake or real? How about memory card for your camera Fake or real. I know on Ebay never buy a memory card there all fakes BUT now too on amazon?
Yeah, the factories that make the stuff we buy make them for pennies on the dollar. And if North Face orders 100k jackets from the factory there is no reason the factory can’t make 200k of them and sell the rest in China as long as they don’t add the North Face logo.
The Level 6 product engineer has now told the guys in China how to make a better copy.
As others have posted there are cheap copies of products and there are over runs that are produced in the same factory above and beyond the amount ordered by a company like North Face. If you spend anytime in a black market in China you will rarely see any of these products without a logo on them. Every company from North Face to Canada Goose, Lululemon ect. Are effected by this and these products are available worldwide. Not just in China.
They are illegal in China. The markets are regularly raided and shutdown. Most vendors are aware of the timing of the raids and the more expensive items are relocated before hand.
In the video, they talk about how it was reported and the seller is no longer selling it under the Level 6 name nor with their photos, but are selling it under the Chinese name. So seems it was pulled when reported.
They also said that after the review was done, they were sending the dry suit back for a refund.
I refuse to use Amazon. I buy direct from companies. I willingly spent £600 on my Palm drysuit as I kayak on the West coast of Scotland and have the North Atlantic to cope with. I would not buy fake, I value my life too much. I can always find other ways to economise to buy that which I need.
The fact that amazon made them put the real name and use there own pictures is NOT ENOUGH. The seller should be permanently removed from amazon. Amazon is complicit other wise… Letting your return a fake item is not enough either. Full refund plus at least 50 percent off next order.
Obviously Amazon doesn’t know how to run a business! For day to day stuff , they can’t be beat, esp now.
I buy my paddling gear from independent retailers .
Yeah, Amazon has only made Jeff Bezos the richest man in the world. I guess that must have been an accident. I don’t like some of their policies either (they list my book, even though I’ve never sold it through them), but you can’t argue with their success.
As for the Chinese knockoffs, I don’t have any sympathy for anyone who sees a high-end product advertised at a ridiculously low price and buys it. If it looks too good to be true, it invariably is. Yes, it’s false advertising, it’s wrong, and it shouldn’t be tolerated, but there would be no incentive to counterfeit items if there was nobody willing to buy them.
While Amazon can certainly ban a seller, they have no ability to impose fines for bad behavior.
Unfortunately, now that the US Postal Service has been basically destroyed by the previous administration, I have no choice but to order some things through Amazon if I need them in less than 2-3 weeks and can’t find them locally. Hopefully, that situation will be turned around soon.
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