I read years ago about a drill which was sold at Walmart with the same sku as in higher-end stores but the Walmart version had plastic gears. This was due to pricing pressure by Walmart on the manufacturer.

Me, personally, I seek out first Swiss brands then German brands when buying most things. I'm willing to pay extra.

In fact I'm a little pissed off this week because I ordered some oxygen absorbers off a Swiss website that listed a Swiss address but they were shipped directly from china. Investigating the site more closely, yeah, it's just a fake website made to look Swiss.

I did a little research study back in 2003 where I went to various grocers and purchased the same product at these grocers and compared.

Walmart has larger boxes, and less contents, universally, for pretty much everything in a box, and they charge 1/3 more for their 2/3rds of what you get everywhere else. They make nearly 50% more profit from that little slight of hand. And try discussing this with any shoppers and they will say "but the box is bigger", <- actual statement from a CS PhD, demonstrating how it does not matter your education, once outside of that specialization you're an idiot.

There are Chinese machine manufacturers who use fake German brand names because for a long time Germany was selling the manufacturing machinery to China and they have a good national brand image.

Sometimes. My Bosch washing machine died young due to cheap bearings. The AEG dryer had soldering problems and the German dishwasher's time light projector died slowly.

https://www.elektroda.com/rtvforum/topic3652484.html#1966024...

I'm pretty sure that this sort of thing happens for stuff in big box home improvement stores like Home Depot and Lowe's, too. Things like plumbing fixtures that appear to be identical to counterparts in smaller stores will have off-by-one or suffixed product numbers, and are made with cheaper plastic internal parts than when purchased elsewhere.

Yes, I've heard of this effect in marketing. If you make any reference to Switzerland, it's instant sales bump, even if you hold everything else equal. This is also how you got "Häagen-Dazs" ice cream brand. It's fully American, but the name sounds vaguely Scandinavian, so it has to be better, right? Well, customers sure do think so, and are willing to pay the premium.

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