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Strange boots - counterfeit or kosher?

fatbob

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To be honest I'd be happy if I got six of the little models. Reminds me of a UK comedian who did a whole routine about buying a wooden dresser on Ebay and finding it was dollhouse furniture she'd paid full size for.
 

Wilhelmson

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I make my own boots with my 3d boot printer. Its nice because i can scan my feet and customize the shell.

Really though, i knew a barber that bought off brand tuna reels on baba and said they were as good or better than thousands$ reels.
 

Wasatchman

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Thanks Matt - I assume that you know this. It was certainly the case when eastern europe was opening up that lots of close outs went east - and it was to everyone's benefit.

I'd expect sooner or later that we must see production opening up in China:
  • Huge potential market
  • Increasing chinese ownership of western brands
  • Shipping costs from the west
  • Ongoing risk of tariffs in trade disputes
  • Wider expertise - ok, they may not have the boot expertise yet but there's a heck of a lot of expertise in moulding 'stuff' over there which must be highly transferable.
  • Possibility of [as a result of low labour costs] shipping stuff west - though the tariff issue could play both ways.
There's obviously a reasonable amount of ski production in Japan and Rexxam with boots [is there anyone else making boots there?].
Why does there need to production in China? Huge potential market but they could import ski gear just like we import stuff from them.
 

raytseng

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Why does there need to production in China? Huge potential market but they could import ski gear just like we import stuff from them.
I would say because its not just "market potential" and the invisible hand of a free market. It's an official directed govt effort that by 2022 olynpics they want 300 million skiers as a planned effort. Sure many if not most of that target are 1time renters of rearentry boots, but with a specific plan with such a huge target number and a set deadline you need to have funded sub tasks to make that plan happen and not be dependent on imports or whims of foreign companies.
 

graham418

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Screenshot (1).png


This is what I just got off Alibaba. The first one I got to. There are many more
 

Wasatchman

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I would say because its not just "market potential" and the invisible hand of a free market. It's an official directed govt effort that by 2022 olynpics they want 300 million skiers as a planned effort. Sure many if not most of that target are 1time renters of rearentry boots, but with a specific plan with such a huge target number and a set deadline you need to have funded sub tasks to make that plan happen and not be dependent on imports or whims of foreign companies.
If China wants to hit their goal badly enough, they have the resources to make it happen. And they can certainly invest in domestic production of ski gear if they want. I won't be buying that gear though unless I was convinced there was something innovative or inherently higher quality about it.

As a consumer, I will continue to support existing and trusted brands or new innovators, arguably of which there are already too many relative to the size and growth of the sport (although I welcome this competition as a consumer).

Concern I have of cheap Chinese knockoffs is 1) unknown quality and track record in a sport that is already inherently dangerous, and 2) concern that cheap knockoff competition would ultimately hurt existing innovators and stifle innovation longer term for the sport.

It would be one thing if I thought the ski equipment industry needed more brands and competition, but I don't. If anything, I think if anything there is already too many brands out there for the health of the industry manufacturers.

As an aside, this was touched on in a specific thread about K2, but I think it was an enormous mistake on their part to move all their production to China (although I do still own some K2 skis).
 

johnnyvw

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I believe my wife had a pair of Volkls that were made in China. They make all sorts of high tech equipment, pharmaceuticals, etc....ski boots are low hanging fruit from a technology standpoint. And they have absolutely no regard for copyrights, although their courts are starting to show some response to infringements
 

Wasatchman

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Ironically, we are all typing on computers that probably came from China.
True. I still won't be buying any cheap Chinese knockoff ski gear though.......

Edit: but wow, think of the increase in head to head product comparisons you can do. I'm looking forward to the K2 Mindbender versus the Baba Mindrender head to head matchup. Who knows, they might even be made in the same factory..... The Baba Mindrenders might get made in a secret nightshift or something.......
 
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Wasatchman

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I make my own boots with my 3d boot printer. Its nice because i can scan my feet and customize the shell.
That's an interesting concept. Isn't there some tech in the material though that's hard to replicate from the major boot brands? How do you adjust stiffness, etc? How does the cost compare by the time you add buckles and liner, etc.

I wonder if people like Surefoot have looked at doing something like this? A custom shell sounds pretty darn cool! Or could one argue you can get the same affect via custom molded liner? That said, I once got a new liner cooked on a pair of boots and could never get it to work.
 

raytseng

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True. I still won't be buying any cheap Chinese knockoff ski gear though.......

Edit: but wow, think of the increase in head to head product comparisons you can do. I'm looking forward to the K2 Mindbender versus the Baba Mindrender head to head matchup. Who knows, they might even be made in the same factory..... The Baba Mindrenders might get made in a secret nightshift or something.......

I think the debate here is overly focused on the word choice of "must see" in the prior post as if it were up to us or even up to the current boot industry. Perhaps the better term is "inevitable" or "going to happen".

In perspective, the worldwide skiers right now is approx 125million. So China's (not just abstract concept, but the actual government) target of 300m, is to add +2x the entire WORLD skier population, and triple it for the 2022 Olympics and through 2025.

Imagine if the US government said 300million US (the entire US population) is now going to learn how to play badminton or ping pong over the next 5years. I don't think they're going to be just be importing majority from the established (mostly foreign) badminton industry.
 
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Wasatchman

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I think the debate here is overly focused on the word choice of "must see" in the prior post as if it were up to us or even up to the current boot industry. Perhaps the better term is "inevitable" or "going to happen".

In perspective, the worldwide skiers right now is approx 125million. So China's (not just abstract concept, but the actual government) target of 300m, is to add +2x the entire WORLD skier population, and triple it for the 2022 Olympics and through 2025.

Imagine if the US government said 300million US (the entire US population) is now going to learn how to play badminton or ping pong over the next 5years. I don't think they're going to be just be importing everything from the established (mostly foreign) badminton industry.
Ahh. Okay. I Agree it probably is inevitable at some point. And if it does happen, I won't be in a rush to buy Chinese made boots if they are simply cheap knockoffs of current producers for the reasons mentioned.

Now if the Chinese made boots were higher quality or innovative or something, then I would be interested. But not just buying a cheap Chinese knockoff.

Separately, the Chinese goal of 300 million skiers sounds unattainable. That equates to roughly 25 percent of their population for a sport that is notoriously expensive (at least here in the States). But given their stage of economic development, I have a hard time believing they get anywhere near that. Now the government could subsidize the hell out of it to make that happen I suppose, but I doubt it's that high of a priority for the govt to spend the money to make such a lofty goal actually happen.
 

raytseng

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Ahh. Okay. I Agree it probably is inevitable at some point. And if it does happen, I won't be in a rush to buy Chinese made boots if they are simply cheap knockoffs of current producers for the reasons mentioned.

Now if the Chinese made boots were higher quality or innovative or something, then I would be interested. But not just buying a cheap Chinese knockoff.

Separately, the Chinese goal of 300 million skiers sounds unattainable. That equates to roughly 25 percent of their population for a sport that is notoriously expensive (at least here in the States). But given their stage of economic development, I have a hard time believing they get anywhere near that. Now the government could subsidize the hell out of it to make that happen I suppose, but I doubt it's that high of a priority for the govt to spend the money to make such a lofty goal actually happen.

I think part of the is a lot of the infrastructure money is already getting spent for the Olympics and put on the global stage so all that infrastructure is already sunk cost. So if you're going to build it all, you might as well push it 1 step further and really use it and make regular people a little healthier/happier plus the get a small common experience with the Olympics and aligned nationwide initiatives. Government owns the resorts, not some for-profit private org, so it's just the running costs of the resort and they can pack them full.

I don't think it will be as hard as it seems in terms of priority when you think big picture of the whole country with vast resources that has a top-down decision based government. Any subsidization pays for itself with having a less protesty/more productive populace. Remember it's not outfit everyone with ski gear, it's to just try it (rental setup for maybe a couple hours).
If you can rollout a 1child policy, telling everyone go ski for a day seems really easy in comparison.
 
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Wilhelmson

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That's an interesting concept. Isn't there some tech in the material though that's hard to replicate from the major boot brands? How do you adjust stiffness, etc? How does the cost compare by the time you add buckles and liner, etc.

I wonder if people like Surefoot have looked at doing something like this? A custom shell sounds pretty darn cool! Or could one argue you can get the same affect via custom molded liner? That said, I once got a new liner cooked on a pair of boots and could never get it to work.

I dont know much about ski boot material or 3d printers. This type of tech would probably flow down from high tech or military applications and become more luxury mainstream after 20 years.
 
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skipress

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These guys are [apparently] doing 3d printed boots:

Screenshot 2020-05-29 at 16.09.29.png


On the other points - whether China gets that many skiers who knows, but there is definitely a huge potential for growth. So [and this might sail dangerously close to politics... I ll do my best....].

Let's assume that the market expands - it's fair to say that the relationship between China and the west is a bit up and down and both sides continually wave tarrifs at each other. That being the case there is a strong logic for boots to be made there even if only serving a home market, add to that lower labor and shipping costs and the argument strengthens [to the point where it's almost unarguable].

What will the products be like - who knows. There are obvious comparisons to be made with cars where emerging nations do 'knock offs' or something different [think of the first Japanese cars that were exported for example]. It's the same with Chinese cars, albeit exported a lot less. but it doesn't take long for people to get creative and there is a lot of very smart electric car tech' being worked on in China.

Look at the expanding ski market in the USA in the 1970s, look at the number of domestic [US] brands doing what were at the time really clever things. Looking at mid 60s US hardwear there is a definite feel of faux european*, both in the design and even the brands. Move forwards to the 70s and you have real innovation. Could the Europeans have designed Spademan bindings, Hanson boots, Molnar skis, The Ski, Hexcel, Scott boots, Smith goggles... I don't think so. That could be Chinese ski gear in 2030 [...or not ogsmile ]...

it might also be the case that manufacturers ship out last season's molds for domestic [authorised] production and then perhaps current models are made there when the market matures and pocketbooks are larger. Many car factories in the east started out by building cars under licence using existing designs, some just went the whole way and bought the tooling too.

* You can make the same case for a lot of resort architecture at the time with faux tyrolean balconies
 
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skipress

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So an update. I chased the supplier for the boots shown. They came back and offered the following [had to crop the preceding images to get in one image] and we have this:

alibaba update.png

Looks like despite the images they don't sell ski boots [or have taken fright at being asked questions]. On that basis looks as if Matt's comments are right.
 

Henry

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I've seen the numbers showing 1.2 million skiers in China. Many of the ski hills are desert hills with man made snow. The Chinese middle class is getting more prosperous and likes to travel, but locally made equipment will be much more affordable for them. Many in the ski resort industry are looking forward to large numbers of visiting Chinese ski vacationers...and Covid changed that as well as everything else. In Japan last January I saw a few Chinese skiers. Most of the foreign visitors were Aussies, and U.S. was probably 2nd most numerous. Lots of signs included 3 foreign languages...Chinese, English, & Korean. (I can identify Chinese, Japanese, & Korean text and speech...don't know a word of any of it except for beer and bathroom.)
 

Uncle-A

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These guys are [apparently] doing 3d printed boots:

View attachment 103487

On the other points - whether China gets that many skiers who knows, but there is definitely a huge potential for growth. So [and this might sail dangerously close to politics... I ll do my best....].

Let's assume that the market expands - it's fair to say that the relationship between China and the west is a bit up and down and both sides continually wave tarrifs at each other. That being the case there is a strong logic for boots to be made there even if only serving a home market, add to that lower labor and shipping costs and the argument strengthens [to the point where it's almost unarguable].

What will the products be like - who knows. There are obvious comparisons to be made with cars where emerging nations do 'knock offs' or something different [think of the first Japanese cars that were exported for example]. It's the same with Chinese cars, albeit exported a lot less. but it doesn't take long for people to get creative and there is a lot of very smart electric car tech' being worked on in China.

Look at the expanding ski market in the USA in the 1970s, look at the number of domestic [US] brands doing what were at the time really clever things. Looking at mid 60s US hardwear there is a definite feel of faux european*, both in the design and even the brands. Move forwards to the 70s and you have real innovation. Could the Europeans have designed Spademan bindings, Hanson boots, Molnar skis, The Ski, Hexcel, Scott boots, Smith goggles... I don't think so. That could be Chinese ski gear in 2030 [...or not ogsmile ]...

it might also be the case that manufacturers ship out last season's molds for domestic [authorised] production and then perhaps current models are made there when the market matures and pocketbooks are larger. Many car factories in the east started out by building cars under licence using existing designs, some just went the whole way and bought the tooling too.

* You can make the same case for a lot of resort architecture at the time with faux tyrolean balconies
Your comment on shipping last seasons molds was one of the things that first crossed my mind when reading this thread. The second thought was a conversation with a friend that is a retired tool maker that specialized in molds for plastic injection. He said that the molds being made in China are at least one third the cost of molds made here in the USA. The quality of the molds is not quite as good but for the overall quality it is not that bad either. Which makes me question are the European manufacturers making their own molds if they can get them one third cheaper out of China? Another thing is what would stop them from reverse engineering several boots so they prepare for the growth in their own market? We always hear about the huge market potential in China but a lot of it never comes to fruition for foreign manufacturers because they just steal the designs and make it themselves.
 

Joby Graham

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Your comment on shipping last seasons molds was one of the things that first crossed my mind when reading this thread. The second thought was a conversation with a friend that is a retired tool maker that specialized in molds for plastic injection. He said that the molds being made in China are at least one third the cost of molds made here in the USA. The quality of the molds is not quite as good but for the overall quality it is not that bad either. Which makes me question are the European manufacturers making their own molds if they can get them one third cheaper out of China? Another thing is what would stop them from reverse engineering several boots so they prepare for the growth in their own market? We always hear about the huge market potential in China but a lot of it never comes to fruition for foreign manufacturers because they just steal the designs and make it themselves.
True about the Chinese knockoffs - check out the Top Gear episode where they went to China, and did a feature on copied Western cars.
 

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