Posted on 09/18/2007 1:46:43 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Some Toy Makers Shun the China Label
By MARK LANDLER and IVAR EKMAN
FRANKFURT, Sept. 17 — Playmobil of Germany has long promoted its colorful plastic pirates, firefighters and farm animals as better-than-your-average plaything — toys to be handed down rather than chewed up. Now it can add another selling point: they are made in Europe, not China.
The same goes for Lego, the Danish maker of toy bricks, and for Ravensburger, a German puzzle and game manufacturer, though it does produce small quantities of nonpaper toys in Chinese factories.
With Mattel and the American toy industry reeling from recalls of millions of Chinese-made toys, most because of lead paint, some of Europe’s best-known toy makers find themselves in the fortuitous position of having bucked an industrywide trend of moving production to China.
“Looking back, it feels like it was right to make that decision,” said Andrea Schauer, managing director of Geobra Brandstätter, which makes Playmobil toys. “At the level of quality we need,” she said, “we didn’t have enough manpower to inspect factories in China.”
With parents fretting about the safety hazards of toy cars and trains and Barbie accessories, the not-made-in-China label could prove to be a boon to these European toy makers, particularly in their domestic markets, where the corner toy store has not yet been elbowed out by retailing giants like Wal-Mart or Toy “R” Us. “A lot of the sales still rely on the expertise of the guy whom I call Fritz,” said Sean McGowan, a toy industry analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities in New York. “To the extent that parents are at all concerned about this, Fritz is going to steer them toward Lego and Playmobil.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Signed,
Imperial Hegemon
Ping!
Wake up Republicans! The silver platter that just bumped against your door is only going to shine for so long. Take advantage of it now and you'll have use of what it's conveying for the rest of the campaign; ignore it and in a few months people will have no idea what you're talking about.
Some Toy Makers Shun the China Label....lib/dems won’t shun the hsu money!!!!!
I watched the toy industry in the U.S. dry up and blow overseas, and while I don't like it, I do understand it. As long as U.S. companies can make enough profit acting as nothing more than importers, they will continue to let the Chinese be the ones to (not) worry about OSHA, NLRB, EPA, IRS, AFL-CIO, etc.
(Why have the headaches of running a factory when you can get by with nothing more than an office and a warehouse?)
Finally, we have shunned the Made in China label for years, and willingly paid more for Playmobil (some made in Malta!).
I hope more manufacturers change sources. Is Malaysia THAT expensive?
The biggest problem is a lot of crap made in china isn’t labeled as such.... that’s the rub.
I have ZERO intention of buying anything made in China for my kids... unfortunately finding out where something was made is often next to impossible looking at the box.
All I know is, I won’t be buying anything from Mattel or its subsidiaries anytime soon.
If that means I pay a little more for stuff made by European toy companies (who by and large wisely have indeed stayed out of China) then so be it.
If Mattel goes bankrupt and out of business tommorrow, its still better then the traitors deserve.
Any toy makers that do not use China? I am going to have a hell of a time this Christmas.
There is a Tinker Toy type toy called called “Fiddlestix” that are made in USA.
I also like to get vintage toys off of ebay. You can still find old Risk sets with the wooden armies.
Labor costs are triple those in China. Thailand's are twice. China is the preferred destination today because labor is cheap. The problem they'll start to run into is that land costs are starting to get a little crazy because of communist controls on land use, and Chinese land speculation.
Actually, it's closer to $1 an hour and $3 an hour respectively. And the American equivalent is about $10 an hour (excluding benefits - the benefits packages in the various countries aren't comparable - lunch and lodging might be included overseas, but not stateside). The few dollars might seem like nothing, but it's actually a lot of money, multiplied over millions of units. A successful manufacturing firm makes a 5% net margin. On a $40 pair of sneakers, that's $2.
The PRC will address this problem and regain any lost markets with in 2 years.
My prediction.
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