Thank you for your objective reception and reply. Yes, I have various first hand experience but unfortunately am not at liberty to expound in this censored environment, tragically.
I had to laugh at another thread I saw on here where pf.c0m was asking for help to design some attachment. Then, announced it would be some 6 weeks till they would become available, coincidentally the time it takes for a boat to cross the ocean. So, unwitting suckers are doing their design work for them, then pf.c0m with no acuity doesn't lift a finger, sends it overseas, and it gets sold back to them. Pathetic business.
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Getting customer feedback & suggestions is a valid part of almost every business. Customers end up getting what they want, business gets a design that will sell well. I'd call that a win/win situation. Nobody force the customers to provide the help, and as a matter of fact that's the whole point of forums in general, people communicating & helping other people.
It's not like it's a secret that PF or ETA are in the business of making & selling stuff. As advertisers, they are the major source of funding for this very message board. Having vendors that cater to the forum, listen to our feedback & openly provide support in a public manner is a great thing.
Laying out a half million or whatever for a container full of something is a pretty good gamble to me. There is also a **** of a lot of logistics involved (as with any business, even domestic manufacturing), quality control (which they seem to have), support & returns issues... There is a lot more to running a business than you seem to think.
As far as the stuff being made in China, that boils down to 2 things. No american jobs, which sucks, but welcome to globalization. The other is the straw man "cheap Chinese crap" argument. You can take Chinese out of that statement. Cheap crap is cheap crap, even if it's made in the U.S.A. If a company cares more about price than quality, it will show up no matter where something is made. Chinese goods just exacerbate the issue, people are looking to pinch every penny possible & find Chinese labor cheaper. You can get decent or good quality stuff from China, but you have to pay more, and some manufacturers (and customers) aren't willing to pay for quality. I haven't seen any issues with my PF pallet forks, so they have done a decent job there. Pallet forks aren't exactly rocket science, but it does take some measure of quality. Could the welds be cleaner? Could the paint be better? Probably, but scraping them them with pallets, dirt, rocks & banging them against whatever else I can find would have them would have them looking no better in no time. Know the quality you need.
I looked at forks from ETA (presumably made in the USA) & liked what I saw, but the weight/capacity/quality/price equation for Pallet Forks just worked out a little better.
And as for a censored environment? I haven't seen much censoring around here.
And no, I'm not related to any vendor around here, other than being a satisfied customer that dislikes ignorant borderline racist comments.
