What's worse? Walmart or eBay direct from China?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Originally Posted By: skyactiv
This is a bash Wal-Mart thread.

I should clue you in that everyone everywhere seems to be selling stuff made in China. A lot of the junk sold in Lowes and Home Depot that isn't sold in Wal-Mart is made in China.
I'm sure you have a pair of athletic shoes? Do you wear obtainable made in USA New Balance, or something made in China or Asia? Does a cashier at a local mom and pop hardware store make more coin and have better benefits than someone at a Wal-Mart store?


People have to stretch their income and shop at Wal-Mart.

Talking about the obozo economy.... 7000 people will apply for a job at a newly built Wal-Mart Supercenter hoping to get hired. Yet the unemployment rate is under 5%.
smirk.gif
 
Originally Posted By: 901Memphis
Originally Posted By: Chris142
If you get a defect its a lot easier AND FASTER to return it to WM than China.


This was going to be my response. I'd rather be able to get a refund or replacement right away in person if the item was worth more than a few bucks.


Pay with a card & dispute the charge.
 
Originally Posted By: dishdude
Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
Originally Posted By: javacontour
If the direct from China price is 10-20% of buying it here, it's a no brainer.

I wanted/needed some DDR2 memory. Can't find 4GB sticks here for less than $80-100. Got two sticks direct from China for $20 shipped. It's a gamble I was willing to take because the downside is very small.

Now if we are talking more money for the product, not sure if the gamble is still worth it.

But four sticks of memory for $40 vs $320-$400, I'll give China Mail a shot.

If there is no different between the two, why pay 10 times for the same product (probably they are all made in China anyway) ?

Many products are made in China only, such as smart phones, flat-screen TV, small appliances ...


If there is that much of a price difference, it's counterfeit. You might get lucky and it works great, or it might be total junk.


You must have some actual EVIDENCE of this, then...?
 
Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
Originally Posted By: dishdude
Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
Originally Posted By: javacontour
If the direct from China price is 10-20% of buying it here, it's a no brainer.

I wanted/needed some DDR2 memory. Can't find 4GB sticks here for less than $80-100. Got two sticks direct from China for $20 shipped. It's a gamble I was willing to take because the downside is very small.

Now if we are talking more money for the product, not sure if the gamble is still worth it.

But four sticks of memory for $40 vs $320-$400, I'll give China Mail a shot.

If there is no different between the two, why pay 10 times for the same product (probably they are all made in China anyway) ?

Many products are made in China only, such as smart phones, flat-screen TV, small appliances ...


If there is that much of a price difference, it's counterfeit. You might get lucky and it works great, or it might be total junk.


You must have some actual EVIDENCE of this, then...?


Common sense?
 
I've bought random chinese gadgets. Dealextreme.com has LED flashlights for a couple bucks etc.

What floors me is that somehow the China Post Office and the USPS get the thing to my door for $2. When I ship something to Canada it's $18!

I get the impression that somehow as a country we owe China one Zillion dollars and we make it up to them by subsidizing their incoming mail.

My credit card translates my dollars into Yuan or whatever they spend, and I pay an extra 1-2% for this. To me, then, "the deal" went down in China and I, myself am the importer. Apparently this is quasi-legal because it's such a small dollar amount. But it feels weird.

I would rather pay 1/3 of WM's prices for the same junk from the same factory, though.
 
Originally Posted By: camrydriver111
eBay is way worse than Walmart.

At least products sold at Walmart must meet some sort of minimum quality requirements and US law.

eBay. Anybody can sell anything on eBay.

The point about counterfeiting is a good one.

There is also a lot of guys importing Chinese counterfeit products, and reselling them on eBay. Ships from US/Canada, and the products are very close to real.


The stuff Walmart sells is just as bad, it seems there are little if any quality controls.

Walmart
 
Originally Posted By: Pop_Rivit
Originally Posted By: CharlieBauer
Seeing the threads and mentions of Harbor Freight, Walmart and made in China, I was wondering which is the lesser evil.

Walmart which sells lots of Made in China products but employs American workers.

Or buying direct from Chinese eBay sellers, cutting out Walmart, and employing USPS workers.


Choosing a "lesser evil" is still choosing evil.

While Walmart does employ American workers, the environment is frequently abhorrent: not only do they suffer low wages, no benefits and poor hours, poor management also causes much of the disrespect. There are countless stories about Walmart managers who disrespect their employees; one even told an African-American worker that he'd "like to put a rope around his neck"*. The Walmart corporate culture views its workers as almost sub-human.

Top that off with a store that had its "Made in USA" claims called into question when it was found to be intentionally deceiving consumers, and was forced to remove them from its website. At Walmart there are very few alternatives to the made in China products they sell. At least on Ebay you usually have a choice.

And purchasing direct from China via Ebay? No thanks. I am quite sure I can live without any Ebay "direct from China" goods.

I will concede that unless one lives like Ted Kaczynski it is almost impossible to come across some products that are made in China. However, it's also very easy to avoid them as much as possible. While I'm sure that there are some quality goods that come from China, unless I have no alternative I can't bring myself to financially support a communist country who funds cyber attacks on US companies and US networks, as well as a country that is no friend of free markets, and more interested in ignoring national norms rather than respecting them.

*NY Times article 12/11/14.


Well said, thanks for taking the time to post this. Of course there are many on here that will defend places like this until the end of time.
 
Counterfeit? It's noname DDR2 memory. It's not a crucial or other brand name knock off. It's noname memory. What part is counterfeit if it is generic?

Originally Posted By: dishdude
Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
Originally Posted By: javacontour
If the direct from China price is 10-20% of buying it here, it's a no brainer.

I wanted/needed some DDR2 memory. Can't find 4GB sticks here for less than $80-100. Got two sticks direct from China for $20 shipped. It's a gamble I was willing to take because the downside is very small.

Now if we are talking more money for the product, not sure if the gamble is still worth it.

But four sticks of memory for $40 vs $320-$400, I'll give China Mail a shot.

If there is no different between the two, why pay 10 times for the same product (probably they are all made in China anyway) ?

Many products are made in China only, such as smart phones, flat-screen TV, small appliances ...


If there is that much of a price difference, it's counterfeit. You might get lucky and it works great, or it might be total junk.
 
Originally Posted By: eljefino
I've bought random chinese gadgets. Dealextreme.com has LED flashlights for a couple bucks etc.

What floors me is that somehow the China Post Office and the USPS get the thing to my door for $2. When I ship something to Canada it's $18!

I get the impression that somehow as a country we owe China one Zillion dollars and we make it up to them by subsidizing their incoming mail.

My credit card translates my dollars into Yuan or whatever they spend, and I pay an extra 1-2% for this. To me, then, "the deal" went down in China and I, myself am the importer. Apparently this is quasi-legal because it's such a small dollar amount. But it feels weird.

I would rather pay 1/3 of WM's prices for the same junk from the same factory, though.

I bought few small LED flashlights from Chinese sellers on Amazon for less than $4/ea shipped from China. Some took 2-3 weeks to arrive and some took less than a week.

A couple larger LED flashlights weight up to 10-12 oz costed me less than $7/ea shipped.

It is clearly China post office subsidizes the shipping cost.
 
What I do buy from Walmart are very small items,such as bodywash,Powerade,etc.They have nothing else of interest in that store,end of story.

As far as buying items from China,thats a hard thing not to do these days.Look around your house,I'll bet the majority of electronics,clothes,dressers,etc have China written on them
wink.gif
.
 
This thread confuses me.

Walmart always seems to get the hate here on BITOG, but isnt EVERY retailer the exact same way in terms of selling Chinese produced goods?

My local mom and pop hardware store, various "nice" clothing stores at the mall, Best Buy etc. The list goes on folks.
 
Or they still have containers of the stuff in China, but it's rare here, so the price difference.

Who knows. It's an old technology and will allow me to get another few years out of my desktop now that I have 14gb of RAM and an SSD (purchased at MicroCenter)

Originally Posted By: dishdude
Originally Posted By: javacontour
Counterfeit? It's noname DDR2 memory. It's not a crucial or other brand name knock off. It's noname memory. What part is counterfeit if it is generic?


In that case it is just cheap junk! Counterfeit memory and SD cards are pretty common on ebay.

http://www.ebay.com/gds/Detecting-fake-a...77896377/g.html
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

mrsilv04
Ordered an item through Amazon, shipped direct from China...but with "free returns". How does that work?
2
Replies
21
Views
1K
John Galt
B
FRAM Fresh Breeze Drop In Quality?
Replies
13
Views
2K
PW01
michael007
Something Different - Artificial Graphene Brake Pads from China
2
Replies
38
Views
4K
michael007
S
How to choose an oil filter - IMHO
2
Replies
35
Views
6K
bullwinkle
T
Another J20C Fluid Thread, What's Good At WalMArt
Replies
7
Views
5K
wpod
Back
Top