When you need cheap rugged phone or tablet , the first thing that came into your mind will probably open alibaba or global source and search the keyword . Then you will end up getting thousands of quotations even for the same model , when your job can be quite easy – bargain with the everyone and deal with the cheapest one . If you do just like that you may face potentially big trouble in the future .
How is that possible ?
1. Poor quality product
Numerous factories in Shenzhen have switched to rugged hardware manufacturing as the profit of consumer smartphone drop dramatically in the recent years ,There are at least 300 factories producing the rugged phone / tablet pc currently . and the number is still growing .
Unlike consumer smartphone assembling , rugged phone required a much high level manufacturing capability – the owner need empolyees who well know seal technology , test method etc . Still the factory will meet countless of setbacks and then revise the bugs . During the whole procedures the factories come to know the secrets of ruggedized hardware manufacturing . It is really not a easy thing and definitely can’t build in short term .
In Shenzhen there are always a group of people who care nothing but money – Selling out is the only thing they concern . Lots of them appeared at the rugged world as well , you may find lots of super cheap rugged phone in Hua qiang north – the biggest market place for electronic products in the world . Lots of them do seem like a industrial phone – rubber housing with heavy weight. Are they really waterproof and drop proof ? Test them and you will find they are easily get hurt – How could you expect such device to survive in a real harsh environment ?
So when you see a industrial handheld with extraordinary cheap price – pay extra attention on the quality , you got big chances getting some unqualified rubbish .
2. Refurbished product
A factory can receive lots of faulty ones everyday , Instead of throwing away many of them put the refurbished parts to new devices – which can be a big issue in the future . It may runs OK in a few days and as time passed all the unexpected issues came up . Normally the factory won’t tell you and will give you a attractive discount in order to selling to you
It is really quite hard to tell whether the factory used the refurbished parts or not , you can’t tell the difference between the new one and refurbished one . But there are some ways indeed to avoid such issue .
Firstly working with some reputable factories can be a guarantee to avoid that . Using refurbished parts can be devastating to their reputation once found by guests , a smart people won’t take such risks for just saving some cost .
A serious emphasis to the factory can be helpful to some extend . I used to tell one fixed factory – once I found they used ANY refurbished parts I will stop any cooperation with them immediately . If you let them know that you know the refurbished tricks they will be of less chance to use that .
How to tell if the factory use the refurbished parts ? If there are lots of different issues happening for a batch of rugged devices, there is great possibility some unqualified parts has been applied
3. No service
There is a golden principle sourcing from China -Cheap Price , good Quality , good Service you can only have two . If you pursuit lowest price , quality and service can’t be ensure for most cases .
You pick up the bottom price in Alibaba , which equally means the service standard is awful, why ? The energy and time for a salesman is limited , they can only give their best service to their most valuable guests , some nice words like every guest is god only exist in the ideal world . so if you leave them with very low margin , you probably end with very long respond time for your issues , or even worse situation will occur like they will never answer your mail / phone call again if they really can’t solve your issue .
So if you really prioritize quality more than any other things , leaving some margin to them and not pushing them too hard can be a better tactic .
Always pursuiting the lowest price will let you face lots of troubles in the future , saving the time and energy from bargaining to product development and taking care of your guests can produce more valuable outcomes.