I've noticed that there's currently some kind of manufacturing consent going on in the EU, presumably preparing the population for, which I claim, plans to make it very difficult for European consumers to order from China directly.
Disclaimer: I gladly buy from local EU businesses, but not if they're just a middleman charging an unreasonable fee for importing Chinese-made products.
I saw an electronic scooter in a shop here in Slovenia, but the name of the brand was unknown to me, and the price was quite high. (1500 EUR!)
I searched the brand on the internet, but nothing turned up. Just Slovenian shops selling that same model at a similar price. [1] This seemed strange to me.
So then I screenshot one of those pages and search via image. Turns out that you can buy the exact same scooter on TaoBao for 952 RMB. (~114 EUR.) [2]
This is an absolutely ordinary situation. It was much the same when I was purchasing a bike for my kid -- 300 EUR here vs. 250 RMB there, for exactly the same bike. The purchasing power gap between USD|EUR and RMB is immense.
(I try not to talk about it too much, because it's the sort of thing that really upsets politicians and local vendors, and they'll want to find a way to make it more painful. It's a secret "life-hack" but for real.)
This is the same for almost all electronics. If you buy a toaster, how much do you think it really costs to manufacture the €20 no name brand vs the €80 Delonghi branded one? In both cases, the price the customer pays is many multiples higher than the manufacturing cost.
This is why these Chinese sellers have become so popular - although in some cases, yes they are cutting corners - the main reason why they can sell the products so much cheaper is because they cut out a number of middlemen.
The person who imports the product into Europe has to make a profit. The person who brings it from there into your country and distributes it has to make a profit. The retailer has to make a profit, on top of paying their staff and landlord. It all adds up.
Try returning the scooter once it breaks, if ordered from China.
The problem is that Chinese companies ignore EU laws , taking away customers rights. And local companies overcharging, but providing said rights or at least being held responsible, if they don't.
So what's the moat here? I can start a business and sell the same scooter for 1000euros and undercut everyone. I wonder what is preventing competition here from solving this issue organically
A friend of mine scoffed that I would buy a remote controlled 12v relay for $4 from temu. He said I was risking burning my truck to the ground to save $30. He sent me a link to the Amazon one he bought.
So I sent him a link to the exact same one, on Temu, for $5.
You know that even inside EU, you won’t get the same thing under the same name with the same parameters in different countries, right? For example, the car which you get in Eastern Europe will have worse components than what you get in Western Europe for the same exact model. This is also true for most of the stuffs which you can get in grocery stores in multiple countries. My guilty pleasure Milka whatever has better ingredients, and the packaging contains more in Western Europe than in Eastern Europe, but the name, and even physical size of the packaging are the same. There are news also about this in Eastern Europe all the time, that groceries, cleaning stuffs, etc are worse there for the same brand and product. But it’s true also with gasoline for example. On paper, you get the same thing in Hungary, and Austria, but at the end your car will go about 10-25% more with the Austrian one, and at the end it costs the same per km, just your car will die sooner from the worse eastern gas. Every public parameter is the same, the reality is completely different.
Shoes are another one. I picked up some Crocs knock-offs for about $10 a few years ago, and they're probably the best sandals I've ever had - still going strong. I suspect it's not even a 'knock-off' but simply people who run the manufacturing lines continuing to run the manufacturing lines after the official order is filled and shipped back to the West to be sold at lol markups.
I seriously doubt you can buy such a battery for 952 RMB.
The Taobao link you shared leads me to a 'not found' page.
One thing to watch out for on Taobao, even for legitimate sellers: a listing will often include a main item and several accessories, all as different variants of the same product. So a single listing might include variants for:
- a scooter with battery
- a spare battery
- a charger
- a wing mirror
If you are looking at the price, be sure you have selected the variant that matches the thing you want.'
Source: I lived in China for 9 years, and have placed hundreds of orders on Taobao (including replacement Li-ion batteries for two Vespa-style scooters).
> I gladly buy from local EU businesses, but not if they're just a middleman charging an unreasonable fee for importing Chinese-made products.
I bought LED string lights from a local company (Clas Ohlson in Sweden), and very similar looking lights from Temu.
Clas Ohlson: wires isolated from each other and running perfectly parallel to each other through the entire string. A nice power converter. Lights all identical, properly secured. Made in China.
Temu: wires nearly touching each other in multiple places. No power converter, you plug the thing directly into the power socket. Lights embedded every which way. Made in China.
Quite often those "unreasonable fees" are for quality control
Manufacturing consent has a different meaning. Politicians are always going to argue for their case but that is not the same as how the media and business monopolies in the US have fried the US public on everything. The EU is of course going to start cracking down on imports of goods that do not follow EU law and the platforms that sell these products.
If popular goods disobey safety regulations, it was bound to catch authorities' attention at some point. But:
> they're just a middleman charging an unreasonable fee for importing Chinese-made products
Doesn't most of our economy feel like a scam?
It seems inevitable, when dominant economic frameworks treat consumption as something which must be endlessly stimulated (at ever-increasing prices), instead of stimulating production, forcing cutthroat competition in areas where there is currently little, and letting the unprofitable rent-seekers and parasites get flushed out.
Yeah, it’s an institutionalized scam that’s increasingly dysfunctional and absurd.
It’s only cutthroat capitalism for the less well off majority that make up an increasingly small part of the economy. By dollar value the economy is dominated by financialization and speculative asset bubbles.
> plans to make it very difficult for European consumers to order from China directly.
This has been the case for over a decade now. As a consumer, ordering directly from a Chinese seller/manufacturer was always met with intense scrutiny and taxation the moment consumers would have to pick up their package at customs. It has been made economically unreasonable for the average person to do these kind of things, which is why ...
> they're just a middleman charging an unreasonable fee for importing Chinese-made products
This has become a notorious trend within the EU. Unlike in the US, where consumers could order directly from Chinese vendors without being taxed, the EU implemented policies that only benefitted the cheeky business (wo)men who wanted to make a quick buck by playing middleman.
In my opinion, this pseudo-protectionist behavior by EU lawmakers was a key reason for Amazon's uprising in Europe. Amazon offered the cheap Chinese products the population wanted, yet undercut local middlemen at large.
This feels like a necessary evil when it is often cheaper to buy an entire Chinese product directly with free shipping than to pay for just the domestic shipping of anything at all. This is a market distortion which has a huge cost to the environment among other things.
On the other hand China is the manufacturing giant of the world, and being able to source components directly in small quantities at a reasonable price is probably very useful to small businesses, so I hope that can continue somehow.
Also, there is a limit. If buying locally means the product costs 10x as much and the shipping is another $15 on top, don't be surprised if I choose the option that doesn't cost me an arm and a leg, and don't expect me to vote for anyone who tries to make me pay 20x as much.
You’ll pay the price eventually. China can sweep the European market with products, underbidding every EU company. If they did that with no backlash, we’d see the local economy plunge, followed by wages, buying power, standard of living, and so on.
We need to fend this off, even if it means people will have to pay more for individual purchases, because the larger population does not understand macroscopic effects. China is a danger to the EU, and also the US (even though the US currently is mostly dangerous to itself).
The sad truth is that the majority of common products are like this and the markup is for covering the insane amount of bullshit job to run the bureaucracy enabling this.
Which is exactly why they are trying to close the "loophole", if the poor people can go directly to the source, big government can't put its hand in every single process to tax it in order to pay for all the bullshit.
The industry is complicit because they get to make more profit this way, the whole system is corrupted anyway.
As for the things that are made in the EU, they are barely affordable for the middle class already, precisely because there is very little value creation and it's get taxed to the ground. The ones suffering the most are the poor, who are often the ones actually working to create said value, preventing access to those cheap goods is just another way to force them to stay poor.
China's been antagonized by every political forces in the West for as long as I can remember, this has nothing to do with "manufacturing consent". By now, it should be obvious that the European Union, the organization whose sole purpose is pushing the neoliberal agenda, has absolutely no will to restrict free trade with anyone.
The EU has no sole purpose, but the most important one is harmonising the inner-European market. It did so by introducing Schengen roaming, for example, which allows me to relocate into any other EU country right now, buy a house and found a company, without any restrictions or visa necessary. I can buy goods from anywhere in the EU without tariffs or clearing. I enjoy natural parks and arts, all funded by the EU. If I go on vacation in one of the newer, poorer EU countries, I don’t drive through slums, because they received subsidies by the other members to raise their standard of living. I could go on for a while, but my point is: the EU has brought a lot of positive change and it’s certainly not just pushing a neoliberal agenda. Even if you ignore all of this, how do you think the individual member states would fare if they had to compete against the lunatic in the White House or China alone? If we didn’t band together, we’d be completely impotent against the bigger world powers.
I have enough experience and knowledge to know what not to buy
What kind of experience do you mean here? Do you go by brand name, or specific clues in product images? Because I have a hard time trusting the product descriptions on these massive online marketplaces (Amazon included).
I'm glad for any initiative that leads to less crap reaching the markets that is either dangerous or has a shelf life of a few months before breaking down. The EU as a whole will become even less competitive if we don't re-gain some level of quality awareness and place quality at the center of the things we consume and produce.
This should not be understood as anti-China but should apply to all products on the EU market. China has some well-respected quality-conscious consumer brands (e.g. Hifiman, Fenix Lights, DJI, Anker, Govee...) but it seems a lot of smaller companies there put easy revenue over any concerns for quality.
I want to emphasise your latter point - I have a Lenovo work laptop, Fenix head torches and various other high quality Chinese products. Any company selling into the EU needs to meet the QC and regulatory requirements, and many well known Chinese brands already do so, and so their products naturally sell at a premium to the cheapest options. A little more thought in purchasing by buyers would go a long way in helping the commissions efforts to reduce harmful goods.
The key thing is: Europe has product standards (and not just on safety), sometimes very strict ones. We have democratically agreed upon these, often enough only as a response to the industry being unable or unwilling (cough Apple and USB-C) to do the right thing on its own. In addition, we have warranty requirements (a minimum of two years), minimum wage and workplace safety regulations.
Now Temu, Shein, lots of the shops on Alibaba, Amazon and eBay... they all push stuff into Europe that violates these standards and can be sold cheaper as a result.
That is bad on three sides: First, for the dangerous stuff (such as the toys with choking hazards, lead paint or the "chinesium" Big Clive routinely pulls out of shady eBay sales), that's directly endangering our people and/or our environment. And second, all the stuff made and imported that violates requirements is undercutting our domestic production and economy who does have to follow the regulations or otherwise it gets fined. And finally: a lot of the stuff particularly on Temu and Shein is outright garbage, falling apart after a few uses - and then it ends in our landfills and waste disposals. A horrible waste from an environment perspective, especially given that a lot of the junk comes in via air freight of all things!
> they all push stuff into Europe that violates these standards and can be sold cheaper as a result.
I understand that and I agree that it should be regulated. But on the other hand, I can order 50 zippers on Temu for 2$, and if I go to a local store they sell one for 10$. I bought both, and they are exactly the same.
So one zipper on Temu costs 4 cents, versus 10$ in a local store. That's 250x more expensive. Doesn't seem reasonable.
Maybe the one in the local store wouldn’t need to be $10 if more people bought them there? Also, they need to charge for the risk of putting the crap on the shelf without testing it first.
They are not. With the one you buy at your local store, you get the two years warranty, and should the thing contain, say, lead paint you can hold the seller accountable.
Good luck doing the same against Temu.
In addition, you pay a markup at the physical store for stockkeeping. Yeah sure, I can order the small capacitor for some fried PLC adapter on Amazon. No doubt. But I'll need to wait about two days for shipping, whereas the local electronics store has it right now when I need it.
> unwilling (cough Apple and USB-C) to do the right thing on its own.
There was, and still is, no reason that Apple should have been forced to adopt USB-C with the proliferation of Lightning on the market - a connector with significantly more lifetime and reliability than USB-C. If you want a device with USB-C, go pick an Android device that ships with USB-C. Forcing these regulations has just forced everyone to sell the same amorphous brick of glass and sand under the guise of "consumer choice".
(And remember: It's okay when Google goes anti-competitive, but it's not okay when Apple does it! --Margrethe Vestager)
Apple was not forced to abandon the Lightning connector. If they would think that Lightning is a better product and keeping it would be positive thing for their customers, then they could still use it (beside a Type-C connector).
By taking a look you'll find that regulations are commonly written by civil servants and various experts (which are typically not chosen by a vote) and then approved by people that you do get to choose by a vote.
We vote on the representatives, who in turn spend an awful lot of time talking to all sorts of interest groups - manufacturers, other parts of the economic chain, consumer and environmental protection organizations, lawyers, industry organizations, god knows what else - and in the end usually come up with decent regulations as a result.
I agree that the results can be sometimes weird, sometimes annoying, and sometimes outright dumb. But I'll rather pay that price than not have USB-C, two year product warranties, no lead in kids' toys or access to clean and safe drinking water.
The EU should enforce much larger warranties than the current 2 years.
The higher the price, the longer the required warranty:
A 1500€ electric scooter should have, say, 7 years warranty. A car, 10 years - after that date, the battery interface becomes open source hardware for easy OEM replacement.
Results:
+ Sweatshops exploiting people in miserable conditions are no longer profitable
+ Protects the environment via resource utilization reduction
+ The EU can compete in manufacturing - via quality - with competitors that mostly offer cheap labor.
I generally like the idea of stronger warranties but it's not always reasonable to relate them to cost. For example batteries: they last for a specific number of uses, and it doesn't matter how expensive they are.
It would also stifle innovation. Foldable phones, or any new technology, always starts out expensive and less durable. There's no way they could give a longer warranty on a foldable phone than on a cheap normal phone. Note, I'm not really a fan of foldable phones but it's the best example I could think of right now. You can replace it with almost any new technology.
A regulator can tell temu/shein/amazon/etc to take down the seller, or even the brand and the next day two new ones prop up selling the product from the same factory.
To my knowledge, no one has solved this yet. Maybe a good use of AI? Unfortunately not monetizable really.
> A regulator can tell temu/shein/amazon/etc to take down the seller, or even the brand and the next day two new ones prop up selling the product from the same factory.
If that game remains afoot for too long, the buck stops at the distributor - who can't hide from the EU behind ever-shifting randomly generated brands.
I don't disagree. The question is how they'd do it.
There's an interesting dilemma here you're not considering. Any more red tape here would make it extremely difficult for legitimate small businesses to sell anything online.
Simple solutions that you have just thought about usually don't work, especially when the topic seems like it might employ several researchers and lawmakers.
It’s trivial to solve. Make it so that the company that runs a store is liable for products sold in that store. Amazon will figure this out instantaneously if they’re actually responsible for damages. As long as they aren’t then they’ll continue to do nothing.
That's my question as well. If he's so concerned about this then what about other services? Polish Allegro quite recently had to add a filter on their site to sieve out all sellers from outside EEA because they flooded it.
Moreover, there are physical stores that also sell this "dangerous" stuff. My friend worked in one and she complained all the time on chemical odour these items were generating.
If the stuff is physically imported into EU by a company then the company is legally responsible for that (GPSR and in addition various national regulations), this article is about direct sales from outside of EU to EU consumers.
I buy some arts materials from China, but only simple things that I cannot find in EU or tyat are just the same product re-sold a lot more expensive here. I'd be glad to buy in EU if that's cheaper.
I still buy EU arts materials that are more expensive than Chinese products, but that are (at least supposedly) better tested for toxicity.
I noticed in the past year or two art stores like Casa Piera/Arte Miranda have had more products like watercolor paper and paints from China. I hope new regulations will make sure these are compliant with EY regulations, without raising the price to consumer too much.
Readit News
Disclaimer: I gladly buy from local EU businesses, but not if they're just a middleman charging an unreasonable fee for importing Chinese-made products.
I searched the brand on the internet, but nothing turned up. Just Slovenian shops selling that same model at a similar price. [1] This seemed strange to me.
So then I screenshot one of those pages and search via image. Turns out that you can buy the exact same scooter on TaoBao for 952 RMB. (~114 EUR.) [2]
This is an absolutely ordinary situation. It was much the same when I was purchasing a bike for my kid -- 300 EUR here vs. 250 RMB there, for exactly the same bike. The purchasing power gap between USD|EUR and RMB is immense.
(I try not to talk about it too much, because it's the sort of thing that really upsets politicians and local vendors, and they'll want to find a way to make it more painful. It's a secret "life-hack" but for real.)
[1] - https://www.telekom.si/e-trgovina/sport-in-prosti-cas/skiroj...
[2] - https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?abbucket=5&id=869342176534
This is why these Chinese sellers have become so popular - although in some cases, yes they are cutting corners - the main reason why they can sell the products so much cheaper is because they cut out a number of middlemen.
The person who imports the product into Europe has to make a profit. The person who brings it from there into your country and distributes it has to make a profit. The retailer has to make a profit, on top of paying their staff and landlord. It all adds up.
The problem is that Chinese companies ignore EU laws , taking away customers rights. And local companies overcharging, but providing said rights or at least being held responsible, if they don't.
Both ends of an extreme. It's terrible.
I seriously doubt you can buy such a battery for 952 RMB.
The Taobao link you shared leads me to a 'not found' page.
One thing to watch out for on Taobao, even for legitimate sellers: a listing will often include a main item and several accessories, all as different variants of the same product. So a single listing might include variants for:
- a scooter with battery
- a spare battery
- a charger
- a wing mirror
If you are looking at the price, be sure you have selected the variant that matches the thing you want.'
Source: I lived in China for 9 years, and have placed hundreds of orders on Taobao (including replacement Li-ion batteries for two Vespa-style scooters).
Did they change the Taobao listing? The price is lower still and the scooter is not at all similar.
I bought LED string lights from a local company (Clas Ohlson in Sweden), and very similar looking lights from Temu.
Clas Ohlson: wires isolated from each other and running perfectly parallel to each other through the entire string. A nice power converter. Lights all identical, properly secured. Made in China.
Temu: wires nearly touching each other in multiple places. No power converter, you plug the thing directly into the power socket. Lights embedded every which way. Made in China.
Quite often those "unreasonable fees" are for quality control
> they're just a middleman charging an unreasonable fee for importing Chinese-made products
Doesn't most of our economy feel like a scam?
It seems inevitable, when dominant economic frameworks treat consumption as something which must be endlessly stimulated (at ever-increasing prices), instead of stimulating production, forcing cutthroat competition in areas where there is currently little, and letting the unprofitable rent-seekers and parasites get flushed out.
Yeah, it’s an institutionalized scam that’s increasingly dysfunctional and absurd.
It’s only cutthroat capitalism for the less well off majority that make up an increasingly small part of the economy. By dollar value the economy is dominated by financialization and speculative asset bubbles.
This has been the case for over a decade now. As a consumer, ordering directly from a Chinese seller/manufacturer was always met with intense scrutiny and taxation the moment consumers would have to pick up their package at customs. It has been made economically unreasonable for the average person to do these kind of things, which is why ...
> they're just a middleman charging an unreasonable fee for importing Chinese-made products
This has become a notorious trend within the EU. Unlike in the US, where consumers could order directly from Chinese vendors without being taxed, the EU implemented policies that only benefitted the cheeky business (wo)men who wanted to make a quick buck by playing middleman.
In my opinion, this pseudo-protectionist behavior by EU lawmakers was a key reason for Amazon's uprising in Europe. Amazon offered the cheap Chinese products the population wanted, yet undercut local middlemen at large.
On the other hand China is the manufacturing giant of the world, and being able to source components directly in small quantities at a reasonable price is probably very useful to small businesses, so I hope that can continue somehow.
We need to fend this off, even if it means people will have to pay more for individual purchases, because the larger population does not understand macroscopic effects. China is a danger to the EU, and also the US (even though the US currently is mostly dangerous to itself).
Dead Comment
Which is exactly why they are trying to close the "loophole", if the poor people can go directly to the source, big government can't put its hand in every single process to tax it in order to pay for all the bullshit. The industry is complicit because they get to make more profit this way, the whole system is corrupted anyway.
As for the things that are made in the EU, they are barely affordable for the middle class already, precisely because there is very little value creation and it's get taxed to the ground. The ones suffering the most are the poor, who are often the ones actually working to create said value, preventing access to those cheap goods is just another way to force them to stay poor.
for my part i am ordering lots of trinkets that i might need, assuming that Temu will be banned soon
I personally buy a lot of electronics from AliExpress. But I have enough experience and knowledge to know what not to buy.
Some of the electronics available are downright dangerous - particularly super cheap USB chargers.
We have regulations and standards for a reason.
What kind of experience do you mean here? Do you go by brand name, or specific clues in product images? Because I have a hard time trusting the product descriptions on these massive online marketplaces (Amazon included).
Tear downs on YouTube are invaluable.
Unless I’m explicitly buying something to take it apart I avoid anything mains powered.
You can replace the plugs and cables with compliant ones. And you can fix the lack of proper earthing. But who knows what other problems there are.
For household items, I do tend to stick to known brands and would probably avoid places like Amazon.
In the U.K. we have various high street shops such as John Lewis that do have reputations to maintain.
I would also avoid anything that has large lithium batteries.
Some basic heuristics can go a long way. Does a £2 USB-C charger that claims to do 200W make sense? Probably not…
This should not be understood as anti-China but should apply to all products on the EU market. China has some well-respected quality-conscious consumer brands (e.g. Hifiman, Fenix Lights, DJI, Anker, Govee...) but it seems a lot of smaller companies there put easy revenue over any concerns for quality.
There's been a problem in London with cheap no brand Chinese bicycle batteries catching fire. Quite a few people dead.
Now Temu, Shein, lots of the shops on Alibaba, Amazon and eBay... they all push stuff into Europe that violates these standards and can be sold cheaper as a result.
That is bad on three sides: First, for the dangerous stuff (such as the toys with choking hazards, lead paint or the "chinesium" Big Clive routinely pulls out of shady eBay sales), that's directly endangering our people and/or our environment. And second, all the stuff made and imported that violates requirements is undercutting our domestic production and economy who does have to follow the regulations or otherwise it gets fined. And finally: a lot of the stuff particularly on Temu and Shein is outright garbage, falling apart after a few uses - and then it ends in our landfills and waste disposals. A horrible waste from an environment perspective, especially given that a lot of the junk comes in via air freight of all things!
I understand that and I agree that it should be regulated. But on the other hand, I can order 50 zippers on Temu for 2$, and if I go to a local store they sell one for 10$. I bought both, and they are exactly the same.
So one zipper on Temu costs 4 cents, versus 10$ in a local store. That's 250x more expensive. Doesn't seem reasonable.
They are not. With the one you buy at your local store, you get the two years warranty, and should the thing contain, say, lead paint you can hold the seller accountable.
Good luck doing the same against Temu.
In addition, you pay a markup at the physical store for stockkeeping. Yeah sure, I can order the small capacitor for some fried PLC adapter on Amazon. No doubt. But I'll need to wait about two days for shipping, whereas the local electronics store has it right now when I need it.
There was, and still is, no reason that Apple should have been forced to adopt USB-C with the proliferation of Lightning on the market - a connector with significantly more lifetime and reliability than USB-C. If you want a device with USB-C, go pick an Android device that ships with USB-C. Forcing these regulations has just forced everyone to sell the same amorphous brick of glass and sand under the guise of "consumer choice".
(And remember: It's okay when Google goes anti-competitive, but it's not okay when Apple does it! --Margrethe Vestager)
On both sides of the pond.
I agree that the results can be sometimes weird, sometimes annoying, and sometimes outright dumb. But I'll rather pay that price than not have USB-C, two year product warranties, no lead in kids' toys or access to clean and safe drinking water.
The EU should enforce much larger warranties than the current 2 years.
The higher the price, the longer the required warranty:
A 1500€ electric scooter should have, say, 7 years warranty. A car, 10 years - after that date, the battery interface becomes open source hardware for easy OEM replacement.
Results:
+ Sweatshops exploiting people in miserable conditions are no longer profitable
+ Protects the environment via resource utilization reduction
+ The EU can compete in manufacturing - via quality - with competitors that mostly offer cheap labor.
It would also stifle innovation. Foldable phones, or any new technology, always starts out expensive and less durable. There's no way they could give a longer warranty on a foldable phone than on a cheap normal phone. Note, I'm not really a fan of foldable phones but it's the best example I could think of right now. You can replace it with almost any new technology.
A regulator can tell temu/shein/amazon/etc to take down the seller, or even the brand and the next day two new ones prop up selling the product from the same factory.
To my knowledge, no one has solved this yet. Maybe a good use of AI? Unfortunately not monetizable really.
If that game remains afoot for too long, the buck stops at the distributor - who can't hide from the EU behind ever-shifting randomly generated brands.
There's an interesting dilemma here you're not considering. Any more red tape here would make it extremely difficult for legitimate small businesses to sell anything online.
Simple solutions that you have just thought about usually don't work, especially when the topic seems like it might employ several researchers and lawmakers.
So you mean basically like Amazon?
Moreover, there are physical stores that also sell this "dangerous" stuff. My friend worked in one and she complained all the time on chemical odour these items were generating.
Why stop those of us who want to buy it?
I still buy EU arts materials that are more expensive than Chinese products, but that are (at least supposedly) better tested for toxicity.
I noticed in the past year or two art stores like Casa Piera/Arte Miranda have had more products like watercolor paper and paints from China. I hope new regulations will make sure these are compliant with EY regulations, without raising the price to consumer too much.