Originally Posted by
Serpentza
This is a bit of a rant, but I feel it's something I have to do in order to help anyone else planning to import Shineray motorcycles so that they can save some time by not dealing with this company.
A quick background.
Our little Churchill customs company has reached the stage where we've decided to OEM and export various different models of Chinese bikes to overseas markets, mainly our home countries (USA, Australia and South Africa), with our first big push into America, I won't bore you with the details, but the funds are all but secured and the channels, distribution network and paperwork have all but been completed, the only thing we need are bikes that are reliable enough to meet the high expectations of the American customer. We all know that not one Chinese company can meet those high demands (maybe Qingqi), but we have faith that by working with local factories, doing some very extensive testing here in China beforehand to identify the quality issues and ensuring that the cosmetics are up to scratch that we can achieve a good product that will be acceptable in the overseas market.
Here's where the problem comes in, we approached various different motorcycle factories at the Canton fair, without giving away who (our prototypes are currently being copyrighted in the states so I can't reveal the manufacturers or designs just yet), we secured 3 samples from three different but well known suppliers who were more than happy to deal with us, they shipped the bikes to our workshop and we have already begun redesign and testing (all the time taking to the factory to ensure that we don't make changes that will require re-tooling etc). One of the factories that we were very keen on working with was Shineray, their XY400SS is the perfect base for classic modifications as it is an almost direct copy of the Honda CB400ss or Yamaha SR400 (that sort of bike), after speaking to the salesman at the Canton fair, he ensured us that we could order a sample and even gave us a price, we were very much looking forward to testing it and had a great deal of enthusiasm for the bike. The display model however left a lot to be desired, lots of cheap looking bits, bad frame welds and weak looking hubs, no efi to name a few issues, we were however convinced that after some serious testing, strip down and sourcing of better quality parts and efi to make it epa compliant that we'd have a bike that would sell in the states, we decided that we'd go ahead and spend a considerable amount of time and money helping the factory develop and improve this bike and also help them start to sell it in a new maket (as they currently don't sell it in the USA).
Here's the catch, they refused to sell us a sample. We got shunted from department to department, one guy telling us that "there's nothing wrong with the bike, why would you want to change anything, it's perfect" to another guy telling us that they'd only send us a sample if we ordered 30 bikes, then we got told that they can't sell us a sample because they didn't think we were a serious company and that we had to send proof of our company registration etc, again we did this and they then finally agreed to sell us a sample at the originally agreed price and that they would generate a PI.
We waited a week without any word on the PI, when no word came, we contacted them again only to be told that they've changed their mind and that if we wanted a sample, we'd have to buy one at retail price from a local Chinese dealership... in otherwords, not a sample and not dealing with the factory but with a dealer here as a normal customer on the street.
To sum up, Shineray is an arrogant company with a total lack of foresight, it doesn't matter how big you are, the amount of valuable testing, R&D and the opportunity to move into the American market with relative ease were all thrown away because they refused to sell us a sample, the sample price isn't even that much lower than retail, they would not have made a loss of any kind and only gained from this transaction and yet they gave us the run around for over a month with the end result being that we now refuse to even consider working with them in the future, we have other factories here who are more than willing to do business with us and see the value that we can add to their companies.
Moral of the story, do not deal with Shineray, their products are sub-standard and I suspect will continue to be if they refuse to realise that foreign markets require foreign insight, testing and r&d.
- Rant over
