slefain wrote:Keith Tanner wrote: It's not necessarily the Chinese. We had one of our dealers knock off a product we designed in-house, then he had the balls to approach us and offer to sell his cheaper version. Yes, his are made in China vs our American made parts, but it wasn't the Chinese that ripped off the design. We have the choice of either going to the same Chinese manufacturer and trying to compete on price in a race to the bottom, or making ours even better and competing on design - while squeezing our American supplier for some better pricing at the same time.I know of a certain company that did something similar with suspension kits. They convinced an existing manufacturer to repackage suspension kits with the company's own artwork and sell it as their own. Once the repackaging company started selling enough kits to make their name known, they shipped all the components to their overseas guys and made knockoffs. The repackaging company then turned around and offered to sell the original company the knockoffs at a cheaper price! The repackaging company didn't have to spend a dime on engineering or design, just copied the kit parts. Sometimes I'm shocked there aren't flat out fist fights on the SEMA show floor every year over stuff like that.
I'd throw fisticuffs; but, I'm not smart enough to engineer or design anything anyone would want to buy at SEMA. ITSEC, yes, car peoples no :(
