Consumer rights

[Scandinavian]

Hi

I'm aware that the rights of the chinese consumer is limited compared to eg european countries. What rights do you have as a consumer in china if you buy a faulty product?

Does it matter if it is a rice cooker, a car or an apartment?

I recently bought a pair of sandals, after less than 10 days of use they are falling apart. The shopkeeper was kicking and screaming to avoid doing anything, however after 1 hour of arguing, agreed to replace a broken part. However, the shoes are already in so bad shape that I basically do not want them and would like a full refund. But would that mean the shopkeeper paying out of own pocket? It's not very likely the shopkeeper would agree to such a thing, and I wouldn't want to put that financial burden on any one person. I would however very much like the shopkeeper, distributor, factory and other customers know about this inferior product.

[skylee]

How much did you pay for those sandals, and how can you be sure that they are falling apart/in bad shape not because of how you wore them?

My own experience on bad shoes was a brand new pair of Geox ("breathing shoes") which sucked in water. The seepage was unbelieveably bad . I took them back to Geox and they gave me a new pair of the same shoes. And they had the same problem! Kind of funny really.

[imron]

I recently bought a pair of sandals, after less than 10 days of use they are falling apart.

How much did you pay for the sandals? How much time will it take you to convince the shopkeeper to pay you a full refund? What dollar value do you place on your time? Are you better off just buying new sandals and never going back to this vendor again?

[skylee]

Very well said, imron.

In HK, if a customer cares to spend the time to take the goods back to the merchant the merchant usually accepts that there is a problem. Exchange of goods (same model but different size/colour or replacement of faulty goods) is usually entertained within the first 7 days or so of purchase. No refund, though.

[roddy]

I wouldn't want to put that financial burden on any one person.

There's already going to be a financial burden on someone. Only question is, will it be you or not.

There are consumer helplines (12315 I think) and so on, but unless they were expensive sandals, as Imron says, it might be best to take the hit and move on.

[Guest realmayo]

Seems a bit defeetist.

[yonglin]

skylee is right. The key thing is whether you paid 50 kuai or 500 kuai.

I have had nothing but bad luck buying shoes in China from "market" type places, or from stores selling shoes that were bought in "market" type places.

That said, I purchased the best pair of (leather) sandals I've ever owned in a huge, multilevel shoe store with fixed prices in Xi'an in 2007. They were >100 kuai (maybe 120, 150...?), stylish enough, and held up for about three years with heavy use -- I almost cried when they finally fell apart and haven't been able to find anything similar since.

[Silent]

The key thing is whether you paid 50 kuai or 500 kuai.

Depends on how you view it. From a selfish point of view it's very simple. As imron said, how much did you pay, how much is it going to cost you to get compensation? On the other hand, if systematically bad products are sold and no-one takes action there's little to no incentive to improve as it may feel beneficial to the producer/seller.

Sure, in the long run if enough people have hit the problem and told about this will have consequences for the producer/seller and the bad name created will impare sales. This however may take a long while and with non-branded products the producer may be rich before he's hit by the consequences of making bad products. Actually, if everyone takes their loss as going back is not worth the costs it may even be that he's not (fully) aware of the bad quality.

Though most companies don't learn anything, there are who are very happy to receive complaints so they know what fails and can take appropriate actions. I once complained about a product and was told by a shopkeeper that he had sent the products back to the supplier after he received several complaints.

So apart from the question is it worth for you personally to make a fuzz about it you may also ask what it's worth to protect others from the same mistake, maybe even protect a seller from a bad name because he's not aware of the quality issue's and/or do you mind that people profit from selling bad products? If I feel it's an honest mistake and/or I feel that within reason I could have been aware of the issue's I tend to take my losses for small amounts. If I feel their is something fishy about it I can be a real pain.

[icebear]

On the other hand, if systematically bad products are sold and no-one takes action there's little to no incentive to improve as it may feel beneficial to the producer/seller.

Not necessarily. Over time as people continued to get burned by bad products at low prices they may realize its a financially better decision to upgrade to the slight more expensive but reliable brand/vendor. As a result all low quality vendors have to cater strictly to a smaller population of lowest-income buyers, adapt, or go out of business.

There's also the other issue of if the products are systematically bad - i.e. are the probabilities really that high of getting a pair of sandals that fall apart? If so then their expected value isn't worth it (as above). If the probabilities aren't that much different (as may be the case here - maybe its just one unlucky draw) then there isn't any good reason to switch in the future.

[Silent]

Not necessarily. Over time as people continued to get burned by bad products at low prices they may realize its a financially better decision to upgrade to the slight more expensive but reliable brand/vendor. As a result all low quality vendors have to cater strictly to a smaller population of lowest-income buyers, adapt, or go out of business.

This implies the assumption that more expensive is better. This definately is not true. I have had extremely cheap products that were excellent and more expensive ones that were worthless. This has been mostly true for watches. All watches I have bought for less then 2 euro's lasted for years (up to 5 years) and were thrown away as the battery was end of life and a new watch was cheaper then a new battery. The two watches I had that were over 15 euro lasted less than a year and a year and a half. There are also many products that are sold under different brandnames for different prices but that are, apart from the brandname and associated labels, technically and functionally 100% identical. With more expensive products you are often not paying for quality and functionality but for the brandname and the marketing.

[icebear]

This implies the assumption that more expensive is better. This definately is not true.

Sigh... sort of like what I was 'hinting' at in paragraph 2.

[imron]

As a result all low quality vendors have to cater strictly to a smaller population of lowest-income buyers, adapt, or go out of business.

I think this is key, and in China there is a ready supply of low-income buyers who will buy the cheaper stuff (often because that's all they can afford), so these products and the companies that make them will be around for a long time yet regardless of complaints.

The best thing you can do is vote with your wallet and make sure you prefer to buy things of a higher quality. Usually it's pretty easy to tell if something has been made well or not, and it gets easier the more shoddy stuff you buy because you know what to look out for.

[Scandinavian]

It was very deliberately I did not write price or brand of the sandals. From the discussion I sense that people will find it easier to accept bad quality in cheap products, and I personally also have less expectation to something cheap. Cheap or expensive cannot be defined as it will depend on the person buying, busdriver or CEO.

The sandals in question where bought in a branded store, in a shopping mall. They were bought to replace a pair of sandals, of the same brand, that have been used hiking around mountains, thousands of walks with the dog, and used in rain and sun.

Anyway. Lets say this was a car instead. Should I just dump it in a landfill if I had bought a 30000RMB QQ instead of a 150000RMB Corolla ? (prices are guesses, not sure the QQ is that cheap)

Do the Chinese not complain about inferior products? For instance when in a restaurant I see that people have a very low tolerance for waiting for their food, or will send back food if it is not what they expected. What Silent writes is actually part of my reason for starting this thread. Does noone care that they are living in a world full of bad products. Before moving to China I would happily buy Chinese made products and have in the last decade never equated "Made in China" with anything bad. However, when in China, I think I mostly buy non-Chinese as the locally produced products here are simply too shoddy.

[skylee]

The best thing you can do is vote with your wallet and make sure you prefer to buy things of a higher quality.

I agree. I have stopped buying/using Midea products because what I had used proved to be of poor quality. Same with Geox shoes.

[xiaocai]

I have no idea about shoes, but for electronics the general policy is "full refund within one week, exchange within one month and repair free of charge within one year after purchase if the product is faulty", unless the manufacturers or the retailers specify otherwise. So far we had problems with one of our TV and also a kitchen kettle, and they had been solved under the aforementioned policy. The people who managed our complaints did not kick or scream.

For new cars, most manufacturers in China provide a 2 years/50,000 km warranty. So even a 30,000 yuan QQ (yes, it is that cheap) breaks down due to any problem occurred during manufacturing or delivery, then it will be covered by the factory warranty.

I think a better way to determine whether certain product is cheap or expensive is to compare its price to other similar products which fulfill almost the same technical and functional requirements. For example, 30,000 yuan will be consider very cheap when you buy a car but very expensive for a kitchen kettle, regardless of the financial status of the buyer. So I think what really matters from the consumer rights perspective is the expected requirements, which will be very different between a car and a pair of sandals, instead of the absolute value of the product.

[imron]

It was very deliberately I did not write price or brand of the sandals.

But this is the important thing. If you bought a pair of 15 RMB sandals, well if they fall apart in a week you can't really expect much more than that and the vendor probably isn't the sort that will care about the lack of quality. If you had paid a couple of hundred RMB for the sandals from a branded store, then you're more likely to be dealing with a vendor selling for a company that does care about quality and so there will be some recourse with your consumer rights.

There's also a big difference between say 15 RMB sandals and 30,000 RMB car.

[Scandinavian]

It is in fact this brand http://www.dshuw.com/ The store only sells this brand. The price is 200. It is not super cheap, but certainly not expensive. My time is more valuable than 200 RMB, however discarding the monetary perspective of it, and look at this from principle perspective. If 1.3 billion people settle for bad products, buy cheap and then throw away, then this will never go away.

[hbuchtel]

I just saw this propaganda banner this morning - it seems relevant to the general discussion.

I have to run now, so no translation. Sorry!

[icebear]

There's also a big difference between say 15 RMB sandals and 30,000 RMB car.

Price aside, an important point is that a bad pair of sandals probably won't kill you or anyone else walking around you. Unfortunately that isn't a certainty for a car with bad brakes. I wonder how China has/would handle issues like a class action lawsuit associated with a systematic problem in a line of [domestic] cars, e.g. that whole Toyota exploding gas tank issue a few years bank in the US.

[Silent]

I think this is key, and in China there is a ready supply of low-income buyers who will buy the cheaper stuff (often because that's all they can afford), so these products and the companies that make them will be around for a long time yet regardless of complaints.

Sure, demand for cheap products will be there, but that is a different thing than bad products. Quality and price are only very loosly related. You should have low expectations for the cheapest products as the price may make it impossible to make a good product. However above a certain price decent products can be made but this does not mean that they will deliver decent products. Put it another way, in the same pricerange wildly different qualities may be offered. If no-one complains about the low quality ones there is no incentive to improve.