I am sure most are aware of the news spreading like wildfire across the globe after manufacturing factories in China exposed that most luxuary goods parts are manufactured in China and then shipped to countries and have them put together and stamped made in Italy, what are your thoughts on this, are we people getting ripped off?
What's Your Say about Luxury Goods Made in China?
DEvok on 22/04/2025 - 00:52
Last edited 22/04/2025 - 00:53
Last edited 22/04/2025 - 00:53
Comments
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That's like saying akin to buying ozbargain Invictas , why pay more for a Seiko.
Is a Seiko your luxury good?
Haven’t seen an invicta bargain worth mentioning for a really long time…
I never thought they were worth mentioning in the first place…
definitely more for the whirlpool forums crowd with their 9 inch wrists, immaculately kept beards, perfect turkish enhanced hairlines, weekender Lamborghini's, and drowning in women .
still waiting for the day my joker notification pops
me too!
@WatchNerd
Not surprised, it's an old news and a sort of well known dirty secrets. It just a matter of quality material they use plus the expertise of the artisan.
You could buy a Gucci bag that made by Chinese artisan in an Italian factory. Then just relocated that artisan back to China. Same result.
Then the Chinese opened their own factory, selling the same bag but without the Gucci badge, at 10% of RRP. Buy 2 or 3 more bags then you can even buy a new car with spare cash. lol
Yeah true. Just don't complaint when the same people who made them start selling the same thing for a reasonable price. Globalisation goes both way, but the corporates want to have their cakes and eat them too by devising complicated IP laws and trade rules and other dodgy tactics.
I don't get how this is news. Did people really think these products were value for money? That they were really worth the price asked and the brand wasn't simply making massive profit? I thought it was common knowledge that they were paying for the name attached to it.
That’s like the trams here in Melbourne stamped with “made in Melbourne”. Really they’re just assembled here. They’re just flat packed in containers with very long ikea instructions.
But yeh this is normal with most things.
Not quite true. The body shells are built from raw materials (casting locally, sheet steel etc), and then fitted out and painted.
The expensive value-added components like bogies, motors, and electronic parts are shipped in from overseas and bolted on / plugged in / tested.
Well there you go, now that’s a surprise
Dandenong does build a flat pack body for assemby (bolted design) in Ballarat on the new trains now too
The OP'S point still stands, probably around 80% of it is manufactured overseas
Not really. Local content is mandated at 60% for the trains, 65% for the trams, measured by AUD value and audited by DTF.
Seems like OP is the only one who is shocked.
Like Apple says, in America if you want an expert machinist you might get one in the state your factory is in. In China you can get world class machinists and engineers by the thousand in any district. It's not just a factory shortage, it's a skill shortage.
Everyone's still thinking that China equals cheap labor.
While in reality, thanks to all the western corps running their business there and actually smart government that invested in education and training, they accumulated millions of skilled machinists, fitters, turners, engineers etc. Who now all have many years of experience doing all sorts of crazy complex and precise tasks.
While collective west was busy pumping out economists and MBAs…
You can copy or buy any design, but you can't copy/buy experience and know-how.
As long as they are built of quality materials and to a standard then fair enough.
After WW2 Japanese made things were considered “jap crap”, hence the joke in Back to the Future about the burnt out components.
If you look at the history of China they were making luxury Chinese goods for Millenia.
This is only really an issue if they use shoddy goods or toxic techniques to create the product.
Then again in Victorian times dog poo was used as part of the hide tanning process for leather and urine was traditionally used as part of the processes in making tweed. How artisanal do you want to get?
I got a bottle of baijiu as a gift once. The strength will knock your socks off, as will the price.
https://www.liquorland.com.au/spirits/kweichow-moutai-flying…
Ngl that looks like a bottle of cleaning product. I guess it would get the shower clean in a pinch.
This stuff will strip paint.
Given that China is the top manufacturing country in the world, it wouldn't bother me one bit.
"Luxury goods" from "luxury brands" are only luxury because of the name. If you want something quality, get an artisan to make it. You want to look like a Kardashian, buy this crap.
Artisan? Almost always, hand-making gives an inferior product. It makes sense in rare cases, such as if you want a one-off table made as decoration.
Sure, just pay $10k for a handbag they made 100,000 of then. You'll be super unique and cool.
So true, Dior, Armani, Hermes etc are for the people that wanna scream “I have money” but aren’t quite there yet.
The random shirt without a logo, on that guy with messy hair walking past, the shirt that just happens to fit him perfectly, could be made from a pure virgin sheep wool, in an exotic country, but because he practices stealth wealth, no body would know his shirt costs more than the fees for berthing his yacht for a month. And that shirt will last him a lifetime.
exposed that most luxuary goods parts are manufactured in China and then shipped to countries and have them put together and stamped made in Italy
this seems to only be news to some muricans. Everyone knows this.
Luxury goods are not luxury. They're crap products that are so expensive for poor people to look rich.
if you didn't already know this, you're a bit slow.
The only thing "luxury" about a luxury brand is the branding and price. You can buy a high quality bag for 1/10th the price of a designer bag, but it won't have the badge to impress your girlfriends.
The fact that these products are made in China and finished in France or Italy shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. It also shows how vapid the consumer base is. They would screw up their face at the junk bag Made In China, but stick an Italian label on the identical product and they'll celebrate the craftsmanship and quality.
Agreed, it's been a well known fact for a long time that the bag only costs a fraction of the price tag that you pay. There's a reason why their profits are in the billions, not because they make tiny margins. The only thing that's been exposed is exactly who's manufacturing it and just how wide spread it is across all the luxury brands.
Mrs found out yesterday that the handbag she paid 40K for (not really, but others do) cost the seller $1000 to have it made in China.
Confiscate your ozbargain licence for spending that much on a handbag.
For 40k, it should come with a person to carry your bag
was it a Birkin?
I think so.
is ok they go up in value……. for now
Sheesh, MR big spender over here. I nearly died when I dropped just under $4k for my wife's LV because I knew it was only worth $400 without the LV logo. I can't imagine spending the cost of a brand new car on a hand bag!
Reading the comment- the Mrs paid for the handbag not the Mr
Why even buy a $1000 bag, why not a $10 one from Kmart?
Heck, a Woolworth tote bag will only cost you $1.What line of work / business are you in?
If you need a loupe to see any difference in the quality of a luxury mass produced product, you really need to question the wisdom of forking out 10x to 100x to buy it.
There is a reason why Bernard Arnault is one of the richest men in the world. He runs and effectively owns LVH.
I like to think im a fairly centered person and ill answer this as unbiased as i can….
3 parts to this reponse;
The Nature of Luxury and Its Perception
Luxury is often perceived as superior quality, enhanced durability, or better service compared to competitors. While this can sometimes be true, it is frequently a result of effective marketing rather than actual superiority. Many lower-cost alternatives offer better quality—for example, Toyota consistently ranks among the most reliable car brands, outperforming higher-priced competitors like Jeep, which relies more on branding and target audience positioning than durability.Luxury and Chinese Manufacturing
There is a long-standing perception that Chinese-made products are of lower quality. However, this is changing, much like how Japanese products were once seen as inferior but are now regarded as high-quality. In reality, most products today—regardless of brand—are manufactured in or processed through China (e.g., the iPhone). Over time, trust in Chinese brands can improve, but this must be earned. A relevant comparison is MG versus GWM in the Australian car market—while MG has yet to establish itself fully, GWM has built a decent reputation for quality.Ethical Considerations of Country-of-Origin Labeling
Labeling a product as "Made in Italy" when much of it is produced in China raises ethical concerns. Each country must decide how to regulate this practice. If Italian craftsmanship is considered superior, the government may legislate that a significant percentage of production occurs domestically to maintain its brand integrity.From an Australian perspective, I believe that a product should only carry an "Australian Made" label if at least 90% of it is manufactured locally. If lower-quality imports were falsely branded, it could damage Australia's reputation for high standards.
Thanks ChatGPT.
this was my own reponse i always run it though the AI to fix spelling and gramma
Always? "gramma"? "." etc.!
@Herbs: well not for that one….
also not sure why im being downvoted think my comment was fairly reasonable but there are some odd people on Ozbargain
China exposed that most luxuary goods parts are manufactured in China and then shipped to countries and have them put together and stamped made in Italy,
Shocked I tell you, totally shocked.. NOT.
what are your thoughts on this, are we people getting ripped off?
Regardless of where they had been made, people had been getting ripped off. The price of this designer crap was just insane even if it was made in Italy like claimed.
$10k handbag!? Come on please….. Someone was making $8k+ in profit even if it was made in Italy.
Exactly, it's not like it was covered with 24 carat gold & flawless natural diamonds. Aside from that, there's absolutely no reason why a bag should be $10k-$40k.
The TripADeal (and others) bargain priced trips to China can shed some light on these sorts of things. On the tour we did last year one of the stops was at a silk factory in Shuzhou and after the demonstrations, you can pop upstairs to the showroom. There were brands of stuff there that we genuine articles without the labels, for a fraction of the retail price. A real eye-opener
So now people making videos and any sort of claims on tiktok are regarded as "reliable news"? lol
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c8rgvv7me58o
The counterfeit market has always been huge in Asia, but a fake item is definitely not the same as the original one, and they're two completely separate markets. That's why you can go to any major Asian city e.g. Bangkok, and find entire malls and markets selling fake items (like MBK) right next to luxury malls selling the original items, at 100x the price.
There are specific requirements for "Made in Italy", "Made in EU", etc… logos, if the products were made in China and not labelled accordingly, that would constitute fraud.
Not sure why you've negged, a simple Google shows multiple news sites have outed this as fake news.
Yes, high quality fakes are being made in China but the real thing is made where the tag says it's made. Apparently some videos mention they can make other Western products like cars for cheaper. Yeah sounds totally legit…Sadly, some people seem to be so brainwashed now that they might feel the need to react when someone goes against the narrative they watch all day on tiktok.
Not really, the logo and finishing touches weren't made in China. Only an unfinished product was made in China so they are not lying when they state that the final product was made in Italy or France. It's just unethical to prey on the vanity of people (particularity women) who don't understand this and think that a $10k handbag is a must have product. However, you can't blame them if people are dropping $10k-$40k for their $2k bags. Why wouldn't you give the people what they want, especially if it means that you profit like no tomorrow?
Not really, the logo and finishing touches weren't made in China.
Do you have any proof? Cause I haven't seen any, except some random people on tiktok.
As I already mentioned, there are specific requirements for "Made in Italy", "Made in EU", etc… logos, so I suggest you do some research before making any claims.
EU regulations allow a product to be labelled "Made in Italy" if the final production process, like assembly or the last stitch, occurs in Italy, even if materials or some production stages were done elsewhere, such as in China.
@TheFreaK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_Italy
Regulation
In 2009, the Italian law 135[7] stated that only products totally made in Italy (planning, manufacturing and packaging) are allowed to use the labels 100% Made in Italy, 100% Italia, tutto italiano in every language, with or without the flag of Italy. Each abuse is punished by the Italian law.[8]
Compared with "Made in Germany" ('all essential manufacturing steps') and "Made in USA" ('all or virtually all'), Italian regulation is more restrictive ('totally') in determining what qualifies for the use of the "100% Made in Italy" label.[9]
Article 16 of Law 166/2009 introduced more stringent regulations regarding the proper use of the “Made in Italy” designation. It established that products labeled as such must be entirely conceived, manufactured, and packaged within Italian territory, thereby preventing misleading practices and reinforcing the authenticity of Italian craftsmanship.
Under this provision, competent authorities are granted the power to verify production processes, enforce compliance, and sanction offenders who falsely attribute an Italian origin to their goods. In doing so, Article 16 not only protects consumers from deceptive claims but also safeguards the reputation and economic value of Italy’s traditional manufacturing and artisanal excellence.
Edit: this is from Amazon
Requirements for selling in the artisanal section of the Made in Italy store
The products featured in the artisanal section of the Made in Italy store must be handcrafted or produced in limited quantities, made entirely in Italy or have undergone their last economically justified substantial work or modification in Italy in accordance with all the applicable legal requirements that govern the use of the "Made in Italy" label. The products listed and marketed as "100% Made in Italy" must be designed, manufactured and packaged exclusively in Italy and must comply with all the legal requirements relating to the use of the "100% Made in Italy" denomination of origin.
@RiseAndRuin: what would be the line between a handbag legally allowed to use "Made In Italy", and not allowed?
a handbag's steel frame/clasp is made from raw steel that must be mined in Italy? it is made from steel stock made in china but turned into a clasp in Italy? the clasp is produced in china, but is a component inside the leather and fabric body outer/lining and the fabric is woven in Italy?
@quick-dry: You might want to do your own research. People here don't seem able to accept reality and I don't want to waste my time educating them (not referring to you, just in general).
It's funny how Chinese people with any spending power keep buying all kinds of "overpriced imported products" when, according to most people here, they can easily buy the exact same products locally, at a small fraction of the price. Instead, they even travel abroad to buy such items, whether it's Europe or other Asian countries, and you can always see them queuing up outside the actual brands shops, but I'm sure ozbargainers know better…
@RiseAndRuin: like any good ozbargainer who makes extensive use of claiming tax back through TRS, I'm well familiar with the number of wealthy chinese people buying luxury bags from luxury brands.
I just couldn't find much other than marketting fluff about how "mad in italy" is such a valuable branding and blah blah blah.
"Made with Italian semi-finished products"
which could mean a lot of things, and I couldn't see publicly available documentation setting out what it specifically meant.
@quick-dry: There are a number of laws and regulations that you'd have to google about each specific trademark, the wikipedia article I linked earlier mentions some of them.
Either way, google says that as of 2023, almost 20% (5 million) of Italy's labor force was employed in manufacturing, yet people here want to promote the silly idea that they basically don't produce anything because everything is made in China, and that "it's a well known fact". So I'm wondering why they even bother being on ozbargain instead of buying everything from those Chinese manufacturers.
If people want to consider random tiktok videos as "news" or absolute truths, that's their problem, and I'm sure they'll be happy with their luxury bags from Temu hahaha.
This is not some new revelation, it has been well known to anyone that cared to look for a long time. China are just pointing it out clearly to counter a lot of garbage about where stuff is made.
I haven't actually seen a single website that reliably sells these products to the same guaranteed quality.
Ie looked at DHgate, which you have to buy through a freight forwarder. And the reviews suggest you have to go a size up.
If my shoes are going to be 60$ + $50 Shipping. That's $110 for the shoes I was going to buy in Aus for $170. Might have size issues, we don't know.
When these 'luxury' goods were made in their countries of origin the workers were still being exploited and paid minimum wage. I don't see why them being made in China is lower quality, those workers have more experience than the ones in Europe now. People simply assume these goods used to cost a lot more to make when they were produced in Europe, they didn't.
The entire premise of luxury brands is a facade, if you have money and want high quality goods you get them tailor made, you don't spends thousands on 'luxury' branded mass produced items.
The truly disgusting part is really that a lot of these luxury brands also destroy old or unsold stock rather than sell at a discount to artificially maintain the price premium.
you dont think other companies do this?
I'm not sure I want an LP bag (Louis Panda), even if it's the same quality… doesn't sound right.
Kidding, but the guy in the video should seek cultural feedback. He was saying sth to the effect of think about it and twisting his finger around his ear. We mean a different thing when we do that in the west.
China makes a lot of the world's leather. It is rumoured that a lot of those expensive handbags are actually Chinese leather.
If you think it about for a moment, I doubt Italy raises enough cows for there to be enough Italian leather to support the whole industry.
In Italy their artisan leather goods use Australian leather as a premium option
It should always be how it's made not where it's made
Its funny how things have come full circle. It was only 180 years ago that China was synonymous with luxury. The Europeans couldn’t get enough of Chinese porcelain, silk, tea, lacquerware etc. The British was bleeding so much money they initiated one of the biggest drug trafficking operations in history to balance the trade, cumulating in the Opium War.
Not really. At the height of the opium trade, the British were exporting approximately 6,000 tons into China annually. While there is no official data on fentanyl import into the US, customs ceased around 9,500kg in 2024. Even if we assume customs only stop 1% of fentanyl imports, that’s only 950 tons, a fraction of what the British were doing.
Measuring it on tonnes isn't the correct comparison. Fentanyl is thousands of times more potent than opium.
@tenpercent: not quite, it is 50-100 times more powerful. regardless fentanyl isn't coming in as pure fentanyl, generally it comes in as tablet form or low concentration imports. really makes it impossible to compare based off available data. Regardless it really is nothing like the scale of the opium wars.
@tenpercent: It doesn’t matter, you were talking about the scale of the operation, not how potent the underlying product is. Adding the idea that one is more powerful than the other after the fact is a cop out
a cop out
Nah it's not. I always understood the conversation to be about the "biggest" in terms of impact. I'd even accept "biggest" in terms of monetary value.
biggest drug trafficking operations in history
@tenpercent: Lmao really? The opium trade and the subsequent social upheaval and war lead to the complete downfall of imperial China and is considered as the beginning of “century if humiliation” by the Chinese. China went from the richest nation in the world at the time to one of the poorest. It
Fentanyl may be responsible for a considerable amount of death each year, but I hardly doubt the US is about to disintegrate and become some third world country over it.
Funny how people don't realise that components can be made anywhere and a country can say it's made in as long as they put the pieces together
For food, we have made in, and packed in for this reason.
So maybe these products should be the same. Made in China, assembled in Italy.
If you buy an luxurious car, the govt charges you a luxury car tax of 33% over a certain threshold. If a shop sells luxury goods above say $100, they should come with a luxury goods tax above the GST. That will clarify what is luxury.
A standard pair of steel cap work boots that 90% of miners in WA wear are $200+
https://steelblue.com/au/product/argyle-zip-scuff-cap/
I'm not sure my jacket is a luxury good.
https://www.rsea.com.au/workwear/jackets/eleven-workwear-jac…
I only purchase goods made by underage underpaid employees #Morals
What's a luxury good?
I would take this with a grain of salt. If it was true these factories would be under a ton of NDAs and why would they risk losing millions dollar contracts with LV, Gucci etc to expose their employers? Chinese love money so hard to believe they would risk their current money cow
True. These are likely factories that have made for the brand in the past or make for a competitor brand, i.e. they make 'fakes'. The prices they quote are still too high, it doesn't cost $1000 to make a $40,000 handbag, more likely under $100.
This is all driven by contract manufacturing at the lowest possibe price. When a company has a brand to protect they will maintain quality because it's profitable to do so, whether they are in China or anywhere else.
The implication that this is about knowledge doesn't hold, when there is a knowledge gap it is quickly surpassed, even if it's illegally stolen knowledge. If China was not able to make quality goods then why is there a concern? Noone is telling me to avoid products made in Cambodia, why?
There were many brands that were made locally that are now manufactured overseas. The price of Bonds clothing didn't decrease when they moved manufacturing to China, it is still priced above house brands. Everything made by this brand used to be Australian made www.apgandco.com. Solomon Lew became a billionaire by outsourcing local jobs.
I can tell you that they cannot move those factories back to Australia now, that knowledge is lost, and the cost of modern machinery means the payoff period is too long to be profitable. They install the semi autonomous robots in the Chinese factories and make high quality goods at impossibly low prices, while people in Australia still believe 'low quality' is the concern. The concern should be that we are a banana republic with no skilled labour
Before they became billionaires by outsourcing local jobs, they became multimillionaires by exploiting Australian labor. We should be glad we're not the wageslaves anymore, and that the Chinese are.
Even though obviously most people still have to work to survive here, there exists a clear 2-tier system where migrants wageslave for peanuts (i.e. ubereats, $10/hr under the table jobs, failing pizza hut franchises) while having no access to welfare benefits, government jobs, free education that provides a leg up or a way to do no work for a few years.
I don't think many Australian citizens realize just how tight the leash is we have on these 3rd worlders who come here hoping to make a quick buck they can remit to their family back home or step up into 1st world living. If they come here on a partner visa, it's ~7 years before they will be able to claim jobseeker. They will NEVER be able to bring their elderly parents, as the visa has a waiting time of decades. Not only will they work for half the minimum wage, but they will even in some cases work for nothing, as those desperate to get PR with not many options will go berry picking - paying almost all of what they earn to the farmer for on-site accommodation in huts, while he confiscates their passport - just so they can spend the 2-3 years 'employed' to qualify for further stay/PR. You ever wonder how some of these brick and mortar businesses stay open when they appear to have hardly any customers? There's a fair amount of them that are rackets where you'll have an ethnic Chinese boss advertise to people back home in China that he can vouch for and guarantee them PR here, if they just come and work for free at his business here for 2-3 years. They get PR and meals from the leftovers each day, the boss gets free labor that are tied to him and must obey whatever he commands.
If you were a barber, you wouldn't buy hairdressing scissors made in Cambodia either. Nor India. Nor any other 3rd world dump. You bring up Bonds clothing. Look at ozbargain comments on it, and you'll see generally that people regard the quality of Bonds as trash now compared to before. The Chinese have not even been able to get clothing right, that's how bad Chinese manufacturing quality is.
According to you, 'they install the semi autonomous robots in the Chinese factories and make high quality goods at impossibly low prices', yet the reality is that is they're not high quality (I've given several current examples) and although a lot of Chinese factories use machinery in tandem with their human resources, the Chinese have a pervasive cha bu duo or even unscrupulous attitude and the raw materials they use are often fraudulent or inferior. If a Chinese person drops a box of freshly packed knives, they'll just pick it up and ship it off without investigating, out of lack of care or simply fear that their stuff up will be reflected as a bad mark on their performance report. If the edge on a knife takes too long to hone and chips off if they continue to try, they won't spend the time nor money changing the sanding disc on their machine or forgoing the bad batch of steel or taking extra time to finesse the material to manage it, they'll simply leave it a bit blunt because that's most efficient and doesn't upset anything. By contrast, a Japanese person, generally speaking, literally feels ashamed to ship out a shoddy piece of crap. They will probably stay back to work overtime, pay for the extra material themselves, or use their upmost concentration, to produce quality product. Anybody who has been to Japan can see this is the case, even at cheap gyudon and ramen joints. In China, every 4th meal you eat has a fair chance of giving you explosive diarrhea. As a side note, this is why the 'China is what Japan was in the 1980s' is a bad comparison. Autonomous robots won't change the gutter oil going into the Lao Gan Ma into something else.
You also address it being about 'knowledge', and reject it as being so. I don't know if you were addressing me, or just what people generally say, as I haven't claimed that. I gave the example of Wahl clippers to illustrate that knowledge (designs) doesn't change the picture, the Chinese made Wahl is clearly inferior to American made. Of course the Chinese lack innovation too, which is attributable to several factors, but this is not as much an impediment as the social attitudes of the labor force and the quality of the raw materials, which are both ultimately products of how the state itself is set up.
I do think that low-end factory production can return to Australia, but I think if it does, it will largely employ the 2nd-tier migrant class. I knew a steelworker personally whose business he worked for got undercut on pricing by China. Even then, quite a few of his fellow workers were temporary migrants, sometimes illegally here. I can see it returning to that. If they're willing to pick berries for $5/hr or less to get PR, why wouldn't they do this? Setup some shoddily made, condensed housing blocks somewhere for them to live in, dangle a promise of residency in a few years to them, and they'll come flooding in. I don't see how the knowledge is lost. There isn't much 'knowledge' to begin with. We're talking people here who never finished high school, who were doing these jobs before. And given this semi autonomous machinery you speak of, it sounds as though a lot of the human computation and competency is even more diminished factor.
didn't know you're still into tin hat….welcome to the world boomers
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It's not that something is bad if it comes from China. It's all about QC. When I buy s "brand name" product I expect that there has been multilevel QC and I am getting what I paid for, it can do what it is purported to do, and it is built to last it's expected lifetime.