Can consumer goods from china be trusted? The answer is NO due to the following reasons;
In the year august 2007, there was a recall of about 967,000 toys by Fisher-Price in the United States. Reason being it was later learned that the paints that had been used to make the toys between April and July of the year 2007 had been contaminated by lead. There was no quality-control testing for companies like RC2 Corp which is popular for the Thomas & Friends toy line, Marvel, and also Hasbro which is famous for its Easy Bake ovens. China uses lead a lot because it lowers costs. Since there a has been a push of lowering costs, there has been grave repercussions of insufficient funding that is meant for testing as well as other quality control measures (Czinkota & Ronkainen, 2007).
Another reason as to why China consumer products cannot be trusted is because of the case that happened in the year 2008 in the month of December, whereby six deaths were reported and almost 300,000 infants were taken ill due to baby formula which was inform of baby powder was found to be contaminated. This resulted to closure of numerous stores and moreover many officials who were in charge of regulating food got dismissed.
The china baby formula scandal was not new as earlier there had been another case involving melamine; whereby in the year 2007, food meant for pets was found with traces of melamine. This resulted to the food being recalled in the United States after many animals were reported to be sick.
All the above cases as well as many others make products from China not to be trusted by consumers. A U.S Food and Drug Administration program was started in China by the U.S so that it could be able to insure both consumer safety and quality control.
There were reports that the Chinese government was aware of the above problems but it did not take any action. The farmers were also bribed so as to keep quiet about what was going on. This shows how far the Chinese government went to hide the truth and still export products that it knew were not fit for human consumption.
There is a lot of corruption in the Chinese government as stated by media analysts especially after it prohibited the media from reporting about the incidents. It shows that due to lack of quality control when it comes to the export industry coupled with immense corruption, China goods are not to be trusted (Czinkota & Ronkainen, 2007).
The Chinese government continues to be under strict watch with its export products and so until it is established it is exporting safe goods, its goods should not be trusted.
2. Has increased globalization caused more product risk? Yes it has because of the subsequent grounds.
In today’s time people are able to get whatever they want to but with the assistance of a trading system that have been very much improved. Therefore, globalization is a process where worlds are brought into one single society and function (Ross, 2012). Globalization has resulted to slow function of liability and regulatory risks. There are many changes occurring in Europe, United States and the world at large when it comes to liability and regulatory risks.
There are manufactures that have come to have the impression that there is effective management of risks in the United States and so the other parts of the world will also fall in the same category.
Container based shipping that is of low cost has brought about globalization, which has given corporations a chance to move manufacturing where there are low costs. This has resulted to Chinese government being the main manufacturer of many products.
The global manufacturing of automotives has also felt the effect of globalization especially after the Japanese Tsunami (Ross, 2012).
More probably many manufacturers will face being sued at any place they sell their products and this could very much affect US litigation.
Recalls and retrofits of products is another huge risk caused by globalization.
There have been a lot of international debts faced by numerous governments after being affected by the value of currency internationally (Ross, 2012).
3. Two opportunities and challenges that are in international marketing and have been brought about by information technology advances.
Opportunities
Firms are now able to reach their customers at a faster rate especially due to social media (Czinkota & Ronkainen, 2007).
Lengthening of product life cycles.
There has been creation of new jobs- industrialized countries have also recruited their own talent and so people like scientists; engineers do not need to emigrate as they can do their work from their home countries (Czinkota & Ronkainen, 2007).
Consumers the world over are now able to get a massive variety of products at prices that are very low.
Advances made in technology gives firms the leeway to separate their activities by context and content.
Challenges
New technology advances are sometimes hard to adapt with and so may take time learning how they work which may slow down international market.
Adoption of new ways of working which may require employment of new people who are familiar with the use of Information technology programs and this may require time to recruit them.
Reference List
Czinkota, M & Ronkainen, I. 2007. International Marketing. US: Cengage Learning
publishers.
Ross, K. 2012. Product liability goes global. Retrieved on 4th October 2012 from
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