Cheap dodgy products are really good (for retailers)

Four days after Christmas, I started to think about what kind of product recalls we will be hearing about in the early part of next year. Toys, clothing and generally everything has never been cheaper in Australia since manufacturing got so cheap in China (and now, Africa). As a retailer, it makes perfect sense to sell cheap, potentially risky products. And many have because now you see products in major retailers that really makes you wonder how they afford to sell those products so cheap and still make a massive profit. What really are these things made of? 

Despite being a major shipping route from China, visitors from Singapore have started to catch on that it is cheaper to get baby goods and children clothing in Australia compared to where they are from. So what happenes when a retailer sells a dodgy product? All you get is a forced recall. When you are selling thousands of lines of items at huge mark ups, a few recalls has no material impact on profit. After all, how many people who bought a product subject to a recall actually respond to a recall? We have Samsung washing machines still floating around that potentially could explode and even that risk hasn't ensured all people respond to the recall. 

So as we are always reminded, caveat emptor, or buyer beware, could never be truer than our current retail landscape.