Buying netbooks from China? Thoughts?

[3rdalbum]

I've stumbled across a website called China Esale where you can buy all sorts of electronic stuff from China. Obviously things are very cheap in China compared to the Western world so this is appealing from a price perspective.

They have a section for netbooks, and the pricing on these is pretty good; so good that I had the idea of importing them and selling them.

What's holding me back is that:

1. I could only import products that aren't already sold here (parallel imports are illegal here)
2. I imagine that the quality of no-brand Chinese goods is probably bad, and I'd dread having to send a machine back to China for warranty repairs
3. A quick search didn't yield any reviews, positive or negative, for this online shop.

Anyone have any thoughts? The two machines I was looking at buying are these:

http://www.chinaesale.com/89-netbook-laptop-via-c7-16g-cpu1gb-ramssd-8gbwifi-p-405.html

http://www.chinaesale.com/102-netbook-mini-laptop-16g-cpu1gb-ram120gb-wifi-p-399.html

[wmcbrine]

I imagine that the quality of no-brand Chinese goods is probably badTruthfully I imagine that the quality is the same as everything else. There are a handful of real manufacturers in China that make some huge percentage of all the world's laptops, and then just badge them with whatever international brand-name "manufacturer" contracted for them. No real reason to expect the quality to vary much there.

No comment on the rest.

[Eclipse.]

First thing that springs to mind with me in power adapters.

[gn2]

You'll probably struggle to return a profit by the time you pay import dues etc.
Everyone wants Intel Atom CPUs and the comfort of a familiar big brand name and good warranty back-up.

[mkvnmtr]

You of course know your market but those prices are what I would expect to pay for a brand I recognized in the US with no shipping charge. For equipment without a brand name and local warranty service I would expect to pay less. When buying from China from the US you have to put the money up first and if the product doesn't come or is defective you have no recourse. I would assume you face the same. You might find a better business model buying from an established importer.
I do have a bit of experience buying and selling China imports.

[WatchingThePain]

I'm sure someone has thought of that already.
I remember being in a shop in Toronto with baskets full of cheap pc components.
Nothing like that in the UK though.

[snowpine]

Those are not wholesale prices. You need to buy your inventory at less than 50% of retail to run a profitable business.

A brand new eee 901 from Amazon is $279. Dell sells the base model Mini 9 for $199. The consumer electronics business is very, very competitive right now because of the economy.

(edit) I didn't notice you were in Australia; my prices are in US$ and my advice may or may not apply in your jurisdiction. :)

[3rdalbum]

Okay, I see... thanks for your thoughts everyone.

It looks like people in the US get a good deal on netbooks. Something like the EeePC 901 with XP would retail here for $599 AUD, which is around $430 USD. The 10 inch China netbook came in at around $408 AUD not including shipping or import duty.

Currency-conversion (and overpricing of netbooks down under!) aside, I think you're right - there's no percieved value in Via processors and especially not if there's no brand name behind the computers.

I guess I was hoping for someone to put their hand up and say "Yeah I've dealt with those guys and the netbook I bought from them works really well" :-)

Cheers!

[LowSky]

Those are not wholesale prices. You need to buy your inventory at less than 50% of retail to run a profitable business.



to be fair most electronic companies are making less than 25% profit on their goods. Unfortunatly computer tech doesn't fair as well as many other products.