Poorly made in China – Book Review

At the beginning of 2012 I started to study how the Chinese import/export works.

Looking on Amazon.com, one of the first books that got my attention was Poorly made in China: An Insider’s Account of the China Production Game.

Paul Midler is an American middle man that, before writing this book, had twenty years of direct experience with the Chinese manufacturing industry.

He reveals, in a very entertaining way, the behind-the-scenes of the “Chinese manufacturing and exportation game.”

From one side there are the foreign importers that are willing to outsource their production but don’t know how (or don’t want) to deal with all the hassles of this process. So they hire Midler to take care of it.

From the other side there are the Chinese exporters, who often offer a cheaper price than the one they can afford with the only goal of securing a new, greedy customer.

Here is where the game starts. Through the pages of this book we discover how the Chinese manufacturers slowly proceed to decrease the quality of the product in order to get a larger margin of profit.

Also, they love to introduce last-minute price increases when the importer, pressed by his deadline, can’t refuse anymore.

What I liked about the book

Poorly made in China is damn funny, easy to read and you can tell that the author knows the subject quite well.

Also, this book prepares you to a wide range of problems that you can find while dealing with a Chinese manufacturer. Many people think that make business in China is fairly easy because there are no unions or state regulations. Also, you can visit the Canton Fair, shake hands with the bosses and close the deal in a couple of days waling away with an astonishing cheap price.

Let’s say that after reading the book you are in a better position to understand whether you are ready for outsourcing your production in China or it’s better to keep manufacturing your goods in your own country.

What I didn’t like about the book

A thing that I didn’t like about this book was that it only underlines the stories of importers that weren’t able to handle their Chinese counterpart and ended up losing money (or even broken) because of it.

However I know several people that are doing quite well importing from China so I’m sure that, as long as you are prepared, you can still doing business with China in a satisfactory way.

Also, despite the fact that he has lived in China for longtime, sometimes the author seems surprised by behaviors that are quite common in China, like a Chinese supplier that says something, does the opposite and then denies that anything happened.

What you shouldn’t expect from this book

Reading some of the “one star” comments on Amazon.com, I noticed that most of the critics moved to Poorly made in China were concerned with the fact that Midler doesn’t offer a solution for the quality fading problem.
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