The question of the day:
Do you care if your snowboard was made in China?
In this day and age, nearly all the snowboard gear you buy is made in China or Taiwan. Is that necessarily a bad thing though? Let’s have a closer look.
Do cheaper costs equal less quality?
Not necessarily. Companies build their gear in Asia because it’s cheaper. It doesn’t always mean that they don’t have quality control checks in place as well.
Look at it this way: If a company’s factory was in the US, they’d still be paying low wages to their workers in a large factory. The only difference is that they keep the jobs in the country, which is a whole different debate.
Don’t forget that just because someone is from a different country, doesn’t mean their standard of work is necessarily going to be bad. One of the best graphic designers I know is from Indonesia, where being paid below minimum wage is a middle class income because of the exchange rate and lower costs of living.
Sure there are companies that employ cheap labour in sweatshops and don’t control the quality of their product, but that doesn’t mean every company employing foreign workers is like that.
For example, I know my friends at Vivo Headwear make their hats and products in Asia, but I also know that the owners personally went to the factory themselves to see where their products were being made and to make sure all their products are made to a high standard of quality.
What I look for in a company
Taking care of their workers, quality control and customer service. That’s what I look at if I want to really know if a company cares about the quality of their product. Just because they’re employing overseas workers, doesn’t mean their gear is any worse than gear made locally.
Personally, as someone who’s been employing skilled workers to help with our upcoming snowboard training products, I don’t care so much about where the person is working from, but rather I care about the quality of the work.
So, what about you? Do you care if your snowboard was made in China?