[San Phrangmung]

Till i bumped into a report by a reviewer i was proud of the Olive brand. I was proud that an Indian firm is offering even a tab.

All these thoughts vanished as soon as i came to know that actually Olive does not manufecture anything themselves, they just resale Viewsonic products under their brand name.

The case is same with HCL, they dont manufecture any laptops, just resell inferior and cheap Chinese products under their brandname.

There would be many more example of such rebranding cases. Even Godrej sells cheap imported furniture at a premium just by putting their brand name.

I would consider such practices to be fraud as the buyer is unaware of the real origin of the product. They buy it because of a Made in India reliability and the trust in the Indian firm.

Shouldn't such rebranding and reselling practices be banned because the consumer is being fooled and made to pay more money for nothing.

I would have saved a few thousands had i bought the sofa from an imported goods dealer instead of Godrej.

Please share your experience in this regard & details of other Indian firms engaged in these kind of unfair trade practices.

[NetfreakBombay]

Thats the way world works now.

Everything (and at every level of Quality) is manufactured in China as white label goods and then sold with a brand name.

[genesis]

A vast majority of electronic goods worldwide (from components to complete assemblies) are made in china/taiwan as white labels and rebranded under prestigious global names.

In the end it is the final brand and the after sales service/quality benchmark they give is what you are paying for, not the original cost of the goods.

[esteem_lover]

Lava, Micromax etc etc are all chinese phones branded as Indian and sold with warranty, that is the difference.

[Digital Vampire]

Re-Branding is all so popular in today's world and I don't see any problem in it as long as we get the necessary warranty and service support.

The plus side is that we are able to enjoy products at a cheaper cost (sometimes cheaper quality too) than it'd be possible if manufactured in India.

For example: Can we have a full HD 22" LED Monitor and its constituents be manufactured and sold to the end customer in India below 10,000 INR... The short answer is NO. But it is possible with stellar quality if manufactured in China/Malaysia/Taiwan/Mexico. That's exactly what the companies like Samsung/Dell/LG are doing. But AFAIK, they always mark the country of manufacture.

Do you see "Made in India" label for any product which are manufactured outside?
If a product made in other country is re-labelled as "Made in India", then I guess it could be considered as fraud.

Sometimes we do get better products than the company who re-brands it in India. For example HCL used to sell tablets from Kohjinsha (a very famous Jap manufacturer) and those were any day better than HCL's own laptops (some are made in India) and other re-brands.

[Newpunter]

I think most of the companies today manufacture their goods in China or Taiwan, including Apple. I think that is ok, as long as these goods pass the same quality checks that are done for their other products manufactured elsewhere.
The difference here , is that many Indian companies just buy non branded goods from China and then re brand them as their own products. I learnt about this long back when i tried to buy some components for my desktop ( speakers, keyboards , mouse etc. ) . All the brands like Frontech, Intex etc had the same products with different brand names. I think this is now being done by bigger brands like Godrej, HCL too. It would be better if the customers were made aware that they were buying rebranded goods but that is just too much to ask for in today's world.

[pvgeorge]

its the way of life..
Havels Fans, Nokia all are made in China...

at least we can hope that these companies have their quality control checks before they sell these parts

btw, I m not a fan of Chinese products, not for their reliability.. but for their cost efficiency.. and we have to give the credit to them.. dont think any other country can mass produce things at this costs..

[DieselAddikt]

This is how the world works now. As long as there is no "Made in India" seal on any of such products, it is fine. It cannot be considered a fraud IMO. I think, if we inspect carefully, we may even see the original manufacturer's seal somewhere on the pack or on the device. So it is fine as long as we get proper warranty and service for the money we pay. After all, it is the customer's call whether to buy a product or not.

[HammerHead]

C'mon guys, no Indian company is capable of developing mobile handsets, developing means do the R&D/D&D locally and still sell it at price. There is a reason why suddenly you see 100's of Indian mobile handset companies with different names like Maxx, Olive, Lava, Micromax and what not selling mobiles.

If you check Maxx mobiles website they have clearly mentioned that they manufacture mobile batteries and chargers and they 'market' mobile handsets.

Having said that, there is a big difference between products made in China by Chinese companies and international companies manufacturing their products in China. The later is the case when a international company shift their manufacturing plant in China to save manufacturing cost e.g. Apple.

There should be a law where in consumer should know where these products are designed and developed apart from manufactured.

[San Phrangmung]

@Netfreak yes the Nokia N8, Sony cybershot that i use are even made in China. But these brands do it with full knowledge of the customer.

What i am talking about is Indian companies buying cheap Chinese products and selling it as their product under their brand name keeping consumers in the dark. Ther's no issue as long as the product is sold by some importer in their original Chinese brand name.

@Genesis, even if an Indian vendor provides the after sales service, the imported goods should be sold in their real name, not an Indian disguise.

@Esteem lover, Good for Micromax to have retained their original Chinese name.

@Digital Vampire, companies like, Dell, HP, Apple etc have their own dedicated facilities to manufecture their goods at an cost advantage in China. What they bring from China is their own products. Not cheap local Chinese goods and just re brand and re-sale it under their brand name.

Indian companies getting their own invention manufectured abroad and selling it under their name is fine. But selling some other companies product as theirs is cheating.

@ New punter, yes that's the point Indian companies promoting & selling low grade Chinese stuff as theirs.

Remember the HCL ad with the girl using a HCL marked laptop on the plane. The ad says they manufecture it. That's a lie.

@PV George, the Chinese do it at the cost of the quality. Anything made in China can not be as good as anything made in India or the States or EU quality wise, no matter whatever quality checks. To make things at such low price, something has to be compromised.

Remember the toy story, US banning all Chinese toys at one time.

@diesel addict, companies selling cheap Chinese goods under their brand name in India do their best to keep it a secret. Other than Made in China label at the most difficult to find places in the smalleset of letters they hide everything very cleverly.

@hammerhead, agree to you there should be some kind of law to stop Indian companies from selling Chinese products as theirs.

[Jaguar]

Originally Posted by HammerHead

There should be a law where in consumer should know where these products are designed and developed apart from manufactured.

How does it matter if the product was designed in china or US as long as the quality standards are met?

[San Phrangmung]

@ Jaguar i think what @Hammer head meant was that an Indian customer buying a product under Indian brand name which is manufectured in China should know whether the product is designed and develope by the Indian firm or just bought from some Chinese firm and sold as the Indian companys stuff.

[Digital Vampire]

Originally Posted by San Phrangmung

@Digital Vampire, companies like, Dell, HP, Apple etc have their own dedicated facilities to manufecture their goods at an cost advantage in China. What they bring from China is their own products. Not cheap local Chinese goods and just re brand and re-sale it under their brand name.

Indian companies getting their own invention manufectured abroad and selling it under their name is fine. But selling some other companies product as theirs is cheating.

Having worked for most of the top-tier hardware companies, I can confirm that these top-tier players (including ones above) also use contract manufacturing (non-dedicated) a lot. Ever heard of Flextronics, Sanmina, Jabil...These are the people who actually builds the product for the biggies. Even the design services are outsourced largely and the big players simply manage the entire show.

I don't find any fault in these methods but just thought of mentioning that buying a product from Sony/Philips/HP/Others does not necessarily mean that it came 100% from their brains/effort/factories. There are usually 3-4 or more "unsung" companies working behind the curtains for almost every product coming from these big companies straight from design to manufacturing.

[San Phrangmung]

@Digital Vampire thanks for letting know about Flextronics, Sanmina, Jabil etc. Organisations like theirs are definately unsung heros.

Our own home grown Tatas did all the desigining work abroad i believe. Technology product wise i think the Americans or Europeans can't beat the Far East boys but only follow.

Even Google droid is actually HTC manufectured isn't it.

[srishiva]

I think the problem is to know how much of a say the companies selling Chinese made goods have.
For top tier companies, the design and requirements are passed on for manufacturing in China.

Or atleast, the software is their own and the hardware is could come from outsourcing designs.