Spyder Warning!!!! - Page 3

china and faux spyder

When you have a great product, the last thing you need is a market flooded with poor copies.

My Spyder jackets have all been great products, from the bottom of the line ski school issue gear to my personal almost top line jacket.

Ditto, my Marmot pants and I would highly recommend either brand.

If there is a deluge of faux crap that is cold and leaky and ..... the word gets out, the whole brand takes a dive.

I'd have never picked up on the subtle differences that all of the posters have cited.

Yuki, they're a lot like the subtle differences that were espoused in the cut tickets thread.

Yuki and everybody else, look at my Esquire: http://www.fenderforum.com/userphoto...ml?recid=18371

It is a replica of the one in the Fender Telecaster book. I actually spoke on the net with the luthier that made the original one. Its the coolest guitar IMHO. A true KISS consept. Note also my Fender Made in USA SFDR (silverfacedeluxereverb) 22watt all original 70's tube amp. The www.fenderforum.com is BTW the #1 forum for guitar on the net.

I am a part time musician and I have had at least 100 guitars over the years and I collect Tube Screamers both the 808 and the TS9. You could buy one of those 20y ago for 20 bucks. Now they are 400! My 70's Strat and my 70s Gibson Les Paul are also cool vintage guitars that cost serious bucks now but the really valuable guitars are the Strats and Teles from the 50s. They cost less than 200USD back then but now you have to cash out more than 50.000USD for one. I have had lots of stuff I regret selling but such is life. There is no turning back. Just keep going and feel the music.

If you want to know what I payed for the Spyder gear PM me.

tdk6, ......... f__g beautiful! Blonde and beautiful!

wow, that is pretty! ...now with an arched top and a raised pick guard...I'd be pitchin' a tent...yeah I know that would be truly custom and not a replica of a historic instrument but wouldn't it be a thing of beauty?

I like the single f-hole paisleys a lot.

Thanks guys for your nice comments on the Esquire

Pirate copy issue
Finland has passed a law against pirate copying of music, computer programs and movies. From jan 1st 2006 it will become illegal to be in posession of such materials.

Are you somehow implying that US firms don't do this themselves in a pervasive and widespread manner?

When you outsource expensively researched intellectual property, you take a known risk that it will be copied and stolen. You weigh this risk against the boku bucks you will make due to the extremely low cost nature of the outsourced manufacture.

I'm sure the Chinese comprehend that its "wrong" to do these things. Why should they care? What are the American firms going to do, move production back to the US? Yeah right. What Chinese person is hurt by the practice? None. For much the same reason Americans can rationalize forcing a bloody and painful industrial revolution elsewhere for our own gain, the Chinese can rationalize stealing our ideas and research.

When you say "until they sincerely comprehend" you actually mean until the US government spends my tax dollars bribing the Chinese gov't to use its iron fist to curb the practice. That will take a lot of bribing.

Where did the US get the intellectual and physical property to build the Mercury Redstone rocket program? Oh, thats right, from the brutal worked-to-death Jews that von Braun led in the V2 program. Where is anyone's indignance that our space program was fueled by a bunch of war-criminals for decades?

[quote=yuki]
Well, I guess perhaps its a dangerous thing to send your plans to a factory you have no direct control over in a foreign land with little respect for your laws.

I would assume anyone that runs a business knows this, and accepts the risk while they enjoy the fattened bottom line cheap production allows. If you run a business and you don't get the concept that giving your intellectual property to a company in a foreign land is wrought with peril, you deserve the pitfalls.

Skiingman's makes an excellent point. The business makes the decision to sent the manufacturing to places where they can't control the fallout.

When it comes to passing laws. You can pass all the laws you want. The key is that you also have to pass a mechanism for enforcement, litigation and punishment.

Personally, I don't shop at Wal-Mart.

Among China's trading "partners", the US is #1.

Wal-Mart is #3.

I'm with skiingman.

You know, if multinational CEOs can't concern themselves with things like a living wage, safe working conditions, child labor, prison labor, etc...and outsource jobs in order to avoid the high costs associated with the attendance to those matters that domestic manufacturing requires, then I'm sure they view the small cost that this "shrinkage" represents, a minimal tradeoff. This is especially easy for them to bear when they can simply wring their hands and shed crocodile tears as they past it back to us as a cost of manufacturing. It's a necessary evil in their world. They benefit coming and going and get the added perk of demonizing funny looking foreigners (as though this is somehow cultural).

And as long as we as consumers demand low prices more than we demand social justice and human dignity, we'll get neither. If we demanded that people everywhere be treated with the same respect, these companies would have to meet that demand and *still* have to compete with each other on price. The difference would come out of their margins and not just our wallets and the laborers hides.

I'm willing to sacrifice a little cash and one of some CEO's vacation homes for *my* culture to throttle back on the corporate colonialism.

I think jstraw nailed it with his explanation. The gray market that develops is just a cost of doing business and only erodes a smal percentage of the manufacturing advantages represented by having your manufacturing outsourced in China etc.

No, I actually mean "until they sincerely comprehend".

How much time have you spent in Asia?

Many (most) American corporations are in it for short term gain. I remember seeing a picture of George Walker Bush at a gala fetting Sam Wall as an American Hero. What bull!

Comapnies like Wal-Mart move into a town with a maginal economy and rapidly knock out all of the small and personal businness that provided employment to locals within a wage structure that the local economy could bare. They dominate the household furnishings, grocery, pharmacy and hardware, clothing and even sporting goods. For many of the locals, it seems like a bargain. Till they are the only game in town.

One of the saddest aspects of my job, is on a daily basis, I visit the relics of the manufacturing facilities that provided meaningful employment. They made real goods that were circulated and purchased within a regional economy. I had a convesation with an electronics engineer as he was cleaning out his office recently ..... "first they promised us the support jobs as they moved manufacturing to Malasyia, then they offshored those telecom support jobs to India. What do I do now?. The reality is that he will probably end up working in Home Depot or Wal-Mart.

Follow the money. We have an immense debt to China. The usual business profit is now being directed to the mega-corps instead of a more widespread distribution. A friend of mine fifteen years ago put it very simply ... "How many times can we sell each other the same cheeseburger?"

On a frightening note, on one of my visits to a defense supply facility I saw machined goods, that were critical for military hardware. I remarked to the young engineer that it was so good to still see something real made here; he directed my attention to the packing crates .... "Made in Tiwan". Now, that is shocking and I asked him what if there was a war? He responded that we still had the machines, the lathes and presses to resume production. I reminded him that the master machinists had died off and that the apprentices who may have had a clue were long gone too. He was clueless as to even turn the stuff on. His smug expression faded.

In something like fifth grade Geography, we were taught that it was critical to maintain the ability to produce necessary goods and services and that it was key to maintain the critical infrastructure.

If we were able to reap true benefit from some of the "offshore" activity and give average familys the ability to divert the savings into the market there may be some arguments regarding the "common good". Personally, I have only observed the opposite. That pair of Salomon hikers is now $130; the price was not reduced to $60 to reflect and pass on the savings.

What I do see happening is that the mega-stores are going to dominate and soon the retail world will be in a similiar situation as the auro industry in the 70's when Chrysler had to be bailed out by the feds for the rest of the industry to avoid a Monopoly scenario.

Look back to the days of Ronni Reagan when his own tax boys changed the laws allowing the cash stripping (rape) of many productive manufacturing facilities. Good book on this by two Philadelphia Inquirer journalists called "What's Wrong With America?" they tracked businesses and named names in the Republican administration.

I did get some enjoyment last week when one of Sam Walls daughters had to surrender her degree back to a major university ..... she paid her roomie to do all of her work.

jamesk's posts are right on the money- This is very common and Spyder is no different from companies like POLO and Hilfiger, FILA, Adidas and Nike all of whom are found in abundance in China and SE Asia- some product is clearly fake and others are grey market pulled from reular production and sold out the "back door"

This cost is more than offset by the savings in having production in Asia. BY far.

Interesting stuff Yuki. I fear Australia is trying to go the same way, especially with our current PM.

Good posts here by many of you especially by yuki, skiingman and jstraw. Big multinational companies in all fields outsource production to countries such as China, Korea, Vietnam, India etc. for only one reason: cost efficiency. It is also common that production plants in China dont allways pay their employes minimum wage. Companies will also withdraw their production without any notise. Note that many of these production plants are owned by western companies making a big profit themselves.

There should be a list on the web somewhere of companies we should boycot. Its not the counterfakes we need to worrie about, the real tragedy lies in the big companies ripping the poor people off in Asia and other low labour cost countries. Africa will be next. Huge potential to earn money there there....

Part of our "cultural" problem is in the very nature of corporate governance where the executive suite has only a fiduciary responsibility to the stockholders. In theory, anything legal that elevates the share price or improves margins and goes ignored, constitutes malfeasance.

Wal Mart with the folksy red , white, and blue America theme is hyprocrisy at its finest. They've ruined small town American merchants with essentially offshore merchandise. Everybody wants to save money, but at what expense. The fallout in a lot of towns from a Wal Mart invasion is pretty ugly. What amazes me is their business strategy of Build It and They Will Come always seems to work. The number of stores they put up in a given area to me is unbelievable. Do we all need this junk so desperately?

Australians got an interesting take on this recently. We were shown how Wal-mart, with its massive buying power, would get brands to supply them exclusively. Their size meant a company could tool up and just do Wal-mart: Rubbermaid was used as teh example. Then, when they'd relinquished all their other buyers, Wal-mart would then re-set the contract rules, to pay the supplier a lot less. Supplier had no option, as now their only customer was Wal-mart.

This was brought to our notice because McDonalds did the same thing to a bunch of spud farmers in Tasmania: they had re-jigged their farms to grow and supply the special spuds Maccas use for their chips, letting go of all other customers. They were on a winner, they thought. There'd always be a Maccas. Then Maccas went and changed their spud suppliers to New Zealand, who could do it cheaper. Tassie farmers were out in the cold. They weren't happy, either.

Call paypal first. If they can't get money back in 1 week, don't wait. call your credit card company and dispute

Actually, they all made in China and almost by the similiar company, same quality. But only 1/5-1/10 price. As I know, Walmart only pays 70cents for putting 100 sleeves on the shirt.

Actualy there was quite bit of real Spyder returned to China this year because of importation limits. Some companies were smart, and shipped all thier pants with suspenders and avoided the whole mess. but our shop was unable to get all the Spyder pants we ordered, so we cancelled the matching jackets too. I wonder where all this stuff will end up

Not exactly to dispute you, Ant, but that really doesn't jibe with an article I read a couple of weeks ago (in the biz section of USA Today, I think).

The article told the tale of a very small company that makes writing instruments (ballpoint pens, mainly). The founders of this company wanted to break in with Wal-Mart, so they followed every single step required to become a supplier and the author of the article accompanied these guys over a period of months. The process was long and very complicated, and so far the founders have only succeeded in being selected for a test period in a regional group of Wal-Marts.

More to the point, the author emphasized very strongly that Wal-Mart (at least here in the US) would not even consider a supplier if Wal-Mart was going to be their predominant customer. The explanation in the article was that Wal-mart doesn't *want* suppliers whose entire business is dependent upon a single customer, whether that customer is Wal-Mart or anyone else.

It struck me at the time I read the article as a rather interesting (and probably logical) approach that really doesn't seem to track with your account above.

Nice to see there is twang in Finland!!!....that is a sweet piece. I have had many many guitars too but some I let get away just break your heart...a 59 tele toploader comes to mind: along with many les pauls and strats....and a couple of 335's...luckily tho I did manage to retain the "beast" a strat I have had since I was 12 and a sunburst les paul dlx I got in high school...as for amps I love dr's but I am really into fender super champs, my current rig is 2 super champs wired in stereo....amazing... tho I am always looking to snag a good dr or super rvb....

but this is a ski forum so I gotta stop.....

btw the ultimate bargain strat? find a made in japan reissue strat(tho the new mim reissues aren't bad either but you would need to upgrade some of the hardware)....have it refretted, upgrade all the electronics and pop in a set of lindy fralin pickups.....that will be as good as it gets...will have the tone and playability approaching my vintage strats....

It is stupid that the goverment to limit the importation. We all here need to pay much more. As I know, all these clothing will sold in the small market in China where was named "exportation switch to sell domestic".

I can think of many, many brands that used to be available at a variety of retailers and are now only available at Wal-Mart.

Perhaps you can post a link to this article showing Wal-Marts gentle, concerned side?

I can name off the top of my head many more brands that competing big-boxes have bought for themselves. Try and buy official Homelite parts for your trimmer at your local hardware store now...I hope you have a Home Depot nearby.

http://www.homelite.com/dealer/index.htm

Spyder has a full office in Thailand to oversee logistics- Its hard to imagine they were caught by the import quotas. Smart companies buy or reserve quota well in advance. That they had to ship product back to asia is pathetic. You can be sure it will find away around the world via gray channels fast. Or they will try to get in back in under the recent import help by SIA. If its not too late for the retailers to accept.

I would have thought Walmart's business practises and the Rubbermaid story would be better known in the US. Google "Rubbermaid Walmart" and the first two hits go into it in detail. Apparently the story was extensively covered by the TV show Frontline.
http://www.dsausa.org/lowwage/walmart/Dec17_03.html

Spyder counterfeit update

OK, I read this thread with interest and wanted to open it up again. I bought a 2004-5 Spyder "Legend" ski/snowboard jacket on ebay. This jacket is either a knockoff (i.e. fake) or extras made by factory workers looking to make extra $$ off hours depending who you ask. The seller had a feedback of close to 200 and recent feedback indicated that the jackets were authentic (although I think most people can be easily fooled).

When I got the jacket it certainly looked real and I found it hard to believe that someone could produce a fake of this quality and detail and sell it so cheaply. (The jackets are going for about $100-130). The seller, when I asked him claims these are factory workers making extra $$ and the jackets could be factory seconds or made off-hours. Or it could be a complete fake from a large scale counterfeiting operation. The jacket was shipped from Beijing China.

When I asked at my local ski shop the person that worked there said something like "any Spyder clothing sold on the internet is fake, because Spyder doesn't allow retailers to sell online, even leftovers from last year." But clearly this is also a lie, because Campmor and other well known retailers sell Spyder and there are authorized online retailers that sell Spyder.

As far as ebay, Spyder has aggressive anti-counterfeiting efforts and they've shut down many ebay sellers passing off fakes. I'm not sure what they would do about factory seconds or off-hours product?

So the question remains, is there such a thing as "off-hours" extras, and would Spyder fakes be made in the very same factory that produces the real thing??

Made in USA

Another point, why does Spyder make its jackets in Indonesia and China? Because they can make more profit!! Think about it, you pay $400 for the jacket, how much do you think the materials and labor costs them? I don't know the exact formula, but Spyder probably sells the jacket to the retailer for under $200, so the retailer makes $200. The jackets may only cost Spyder $50-75 per unit in materials and labor, the wholesale price is $125 and then we pay $400. What's wrong with this picture?

Clothing used to be made in the United States, and that is a much better way to control quality. But it's all about price and profit, isn't it?

I had a similar experience with some "North Face XCR ski pants". THey looked OK (decent copies of tags, fasteners, etc) but it was pretty clear that they were not really NF and didn't have any gore-tex in. When I bought I guessed that they might be second quality or "excess" production but in fact they were fake - no way they were produced in a NF factory. I've returned them and am optimistic that I'll get a refund (direct or via paypal)