Poor quality toys from China that break easily

21 comments  Add a comment

I may sound like a miserable old grump in a post Christmas whinge, but honestly, I must voice my disappointment, and I'm sure others will agree.  I am a 37 year old chap, so don't subscribe fully to the "Things were better in my day" mantra, I'm not old enough - am I?

Having spent many happy years enjoying childhood with really great toys, I was of course looking forward to the giving of presents to my children, and watching them play with the same enthusiasm.  Of course, the expense of Christmas becomes a distant memory, as Mums and Dads abuse their bank accounts and are seen tumbling around in shopping centre car parks, unloading bags of toys into their bulging hatchbacks.  And why not?  Christmas is a magical, fantastical time for children, and that it should be.

I work in the field of engineering, nothing Brunel-esque or groundbreaking, but I have a decent understanding of how things are put together, how they work and whether or not the design functions as it should.  I would say that as a rough estimate, fifty percent of the toys I bought for my children are nothing more than over-priced junk.  I'm sure that the whole toy packaging issue has been covered before, and we would all recognise that particular joy, but that is not my gripe.  It's what you actually get once you're into the box that bothers me. 

For the most part, it's cheaply and poorly made, doesn't fit together properly, falls apart within minutes, and simply doesn't do what it should.  Parents and Grandparents sit about on Christmas day, with a set of unfathomable instructions, a pile of brightly coloured bits of plastic and a disappointed child.  Oh the joy!

Many of my old toys were kept by my parents and are now serving their purpose once again for my kids thirty years on.  They were made properly, have withstood my ham fistedness and still they survive.  Todays Chinese mass produced rubbish often doesnt make it past boxing day, when it displays all the structural integrity of a Cadbury's Flake and promptly disintegrates.

We are demanding consumers these days, and rightly so in my opinion.  I firmly believe that the toy industry now is nothing more than a ruthless marketing strategy, where you pay high street money for car boot sale products.  Will you still have the receipt?  Maybe.  Will you take the broken chunk of plastic back?  Possibly, but how much of it goes straight in the bin?  It's absolutely disgusting and such a waste of time, natural resources and money.

By: Chris Hazell

Leave a comment

First Prev 1/2 Next Last

-- sort order --Recent firstOldest firstAuthor

hairyfairy

I do a lot of online shopping, and the only problem I find with that is that you can`t find out where something was made. I would boycott chinese made goods if I could because they are trash which breaks within a fortnight of being bought.

06/08/22 hairyfairy

0

Nick

There are made in England products though - go find them in Harrods, Selfridges and Liberty. You're a joke if you shop at Primark and complain about things not made in Britain.

06/01/14 Nick

-1

Liam

Same situation with cheap electronic goods (such as the Cooltrax mp3 player) made in Korea. Great when you buy them and whilst the product might be fine, there's no software support a few years later. Finding it absolutely impossible to get drivers for this thing. It's as if the company that made it have vanished from the face of the earth. I'm left with a device that works, but is effectively a useless paper weight.

23/02/11 Liam

-24

Stop trading outside the EU

The people making loadsamoney from goods Made in China are the importers. I would argue that their imports are in a way equivalent to a kind of treason. They are spending the country's hard earned cash abroad. In the meantime we are having to pay unemployment pay to the millions here who have not got a job. Stop importing Chinese junk. It's destroying our economy. Europe must raise the trade barriers for goods made outside the EU. We must make out own. Soon the EU will be in the Dark Ages if nothing is done about this.

22/02/11 Stop trading outside the EU

1

disappointed

Yeah, I forgot to say in my last post that were talking about jackets costing $300-$500 here. So pretty steep price for cheaply made factory stuff. Oh sure, the trappings are sexier with fancy names like Primaloft and Polarguard but look at it carefully and you realize.. My God this is just fancy mass-produced stuff...and like a person with tainted vision from birth we no longer recognize as such becuz the Made in China stuff is all there is now thanks to corporate greed.

14/02/11 disappointed

8

disappointed

Yeah, I forgot to say in my last post that were talking about jackets costing $300-$500 here. So pretty steep price for cheaply made factory stuff. Oh sure, the trappings are sexier with fancy names like Primaloft and Polarguard but look at it carefully and you realize.. My God this is just fancy mass-produced stuff...and like a person with tainted vision from birth we no longer recognize as such becuz the Made in China stuff is all there is now thanks to corporate greed.

14/02/11 disappointed

8

disappointed

Yeah, I forgot to say in my last post that were talking about jackets costing $300-$500 here. So pretty steep price for cheaply made factory stuff. Oh sure, the trappings are sexier with fancy names like Primaloft and Polarguard but look at it carefully and you realize.. My God this is just fancy mass-produced stuff...and like a person with tainted vision from birth we no longer recognize as such becuz the Made in China stuff is all there is now thanks to corporate greed.

14/02/11 disappointed

2

disappointed

Right on. The following is a Canadian perspective. While the public opinion is trying to be ''fair'' and says 'made in China' not longer means cheap...the truth is quite different. With all these name brands companies going for the cheaper than America production costs (granted not as low as before but still way lower , otherwise American companies wouldn't be outsourcing there) China is riding a wave of legitimacy. However if you look carefully at some of that stuff eg. high-priced brand name winter coats (eg. Columbia, Merrel, North Face etc..) you start realizing Oh my God were being had...people really ARE paying for the brand name.

Recently I spent 3 hrs. trying on different ones of these high-priced coats and believe or not there was very little difference under the armpits between the ''SMALL'' and ''XTRA-LARGE'' for ALL these brands. I could not find anything Made In Canada and that's when I recalled how good that stuff was. I firmly believe that we don't recall anymore the quality of Made in America stuff anymore either becuz we are flooded with this Made in China stuff and can no longer compare...or becuz some of us are too young. In fact the floor guy who was 20-21 said to me ''Well, ALL these coats are Made in China so the lack the differentiation between sizes works out to be the same'' not realising that by saying this he was excusing crappy products. It was quite an eye-opener to realize that we are being ripped-off right under our noses.

14/02/11 disappointed

-4

Whiteuk

Probably the same rubbish that was coming out of the far east 40+ years ago, no suprise.

13/02/11 Whiteuk

0

Rescue Europe From China

China must be internationally declared to be a rogue trading nation, and not allowed to trade with EU countries. If goods have to be bought from China, a huge VAT and import duty must be added to their cost, I suggest 3 x VAT plus 40% import duty.

They are costing jobs and quality of goods, and preventing EU countries from recovering from the recession.

China and other countries are trading cheats.

05/02/11 Rescue Europe From China

-5

John

Most crap we buy today is made in China. It's hard to avoid it.

03/02/11 John

6

Boblet

Our suppliers have discovered that they can import goods fom China then resell them at premium prices. I have bought eight 12v Lucas batteries in the past 3yrs. The first bank of four gave up in a matter of months, their replacments did not fare much better. The supplier in Leeds has since gone out of business. On looking to buy a further set I dicovered that Lucas had gone out of business years ago. The batteries I had bought from Lucas Leeds where in fact Chinese with a Lucas label stuck on an a plain unamed product. Some wrought iron railings are the same even small fab shops are buying them in from China & selling them to councils etc, It is the practice of charging fancy prices that fool Joe public, he thinks is paying for a quality product because of the high asking price, The Moral is don't believe high price's mean high quality .

02/02/11 Boblet

8

Weston Babe

These countries only make cheap rubbish because customers buy it. It's a customer-driven world, so if we all insist on quality, that's what we'll get - eventually. Trouble is, there's enough people out there who are happy to buy it and throw it away after a week or two, so there will always be a market for cheap stuff. It's down to each individual to decide what they want and how much they are prepared to pay.

02/02/11 Weston Babe

9

fesant plucka

This is the way of many products these days, I work in a quality assurance environment and have seen the quality of products change over the past 10 years, however our market research tells us that consumers want goods at a competitive price and the only way for retailers to offer this is to source more cheaply particularly as the cost of raw materials rises as demand grows.

Now don't get me wrong i'm not defending the retailers, manufacturers or importers but for them to react to an everchanging market then to remain in the game they have to constantly look at ways of offering goods for the best price possible. Also consider some of the products that are more affordable these days that years ago took weeks or months to save up to purchase.

Manufacturers are partly responsible for creating this disposable society we now live in however if the market didn't demand it then it wouldn't exist. think about it, what would you pay for an item that you will only use occasionally? are you going to go for the option that is so cheap that you will throw it away once it breaks or the more costly item that you will be forking out for repairs on some time in the future?

In the case of toys up until 10/15 years ago most children only received toys at xmas or birthdays, nowadays parents tend to purchase these items throughout the year therefore products need to be cheaper to assist this market demand.
Like it or not the general public has to take some of the blame for the market that's been created.

25/01/11 fesant plucka

6

DSG

As long as it's cheap to make and expensive to buy,I expect the manufacturers to keep producing this crap by 2020 and beyond.

22/01/11 DSG

1

First Prev 1/2 Next Last

-- sort order --Recent firstOldest firstAuthor