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For example we are talking about special machine vision optics, cheaply manufactured by a chinese company, exclusively made for a well recognized western company with a brand name. The manufacturing process accords to strict standards assured by frequent audits by the said company, but the manufacturer is not withheld from selling the products elsewhere in general, but they must not either sell it with the western brand name, nor to any branded reseller. So one can actually directly buy from the manufacturer, without the "Western brand optics" label on it, but the product is exactly the same.

I would say it is "OEM", but in my perspective it would mean that the manufacturer does sell the products for other brands too, with different labels... but it does not: it either puts one specific label on it and ships to the western warehouse, or sells the products under no specific name "under the counter" on e.g. Aliexpress.

Is there a separate word for these products? I tried googling and inventing word combinations, but I did not find one suitable word/acronym. Should I just say OEM for this too?

Thank you for all ideas!

LimeAndConconut
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These are called "grey market goods". They're not fake and off the correct production line. However, they are lacking compared to the real products in some way. Usually, this is because they are parts recovered from the reject bin and sold.

So one can actually directly buy from the manufacturer, without the "Western brand optics" label on it, but the product is exactly the same.

This doesn't mean as much as you might think. The way factories work, especially in China, the same factory is contracted out to build products for different customers. Sometimes the same product is made for different customers. However, this does not mean the quality control are necessarily the same.

It is highly likely the original (branded) customer of the product demands higher quality control than the other customers. Indeed, if the other customers are selling the same product off the same manufacturing line there is very little incentive to maintain the same levels of quality control as the original customer. That's not to say the original customer can't mark up the price on their product due to branding. So you may be overpaying for the branded product, but the chances that the unbranded version doesn't have the same quality control is very high.

It is quite common for the off-brand parts to entirely consist of rejected parts from the original customer. Might not matter much for a simple consumer good, but matters very much if the product is something like an integrated circuit.

DKNguyen
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Stuff like that is usually referred to by recovering ex-engineers like me as a knockoff- a blanket term for various kinds of bogus products.

BTW there is a 12-step program for recovering ex-engineers but as my presence here amply demonstrates, it is notoriously ineffective.

niels nielsen
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