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Comment by somecallitblues | Hacker News Reader

A lot of electronics are just rebranded Chinese goods. I remember some years back a DLink, Netgear, Netcomm etc. modem routers all came from the same supplier in a different case. I used to work for one of them and we’d purchase competitors product, open it up and it’s look the same inside. We could even install our firmware onto their box.

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A lot of items period are like this. I've seen my same fridge with an LG, Electrolux, and Whirlpool logo on it. My grandpa worked at a factory (here in the US) that made chocolate-covered cherries and mid-shift every day they'd have a switch-over on the boxes to switch which brand they were producing. The boxes were the only thing they changed, the chocolate and the cherries were still the same. Even car companies do that, the Chevrolet Aveo was made by Daewoo and branded as a Chevrolet, Daewoo, Holden, Pontiac, Ravon, and Suzuki.

That’s interesting with the cars. I drive a used Camry and my cousin drives a brand new Yaris, and while I’ve had precisely 0 problems with the Camry she has constant problems with the “budget” Toyota model.

Googling it, it looks like Mazda makes at least some of the Yaris line, which used to be the Scion brand before that.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/samabuelsamid/2018/04/09/2018-t...

Yaris and Scion are different badgings that coexisted at the same time.

I'm not sure how it is in other industries, but in automotive this is usually referred to as badge engineering.

It results in some interesting vehicles. In the US, GM used to sell Toyota Corolla badged as Geo Prisms.

And in Japan, Toyota sold Chevrolet Cavaliers rebadged as Toyota Cavaliers.

There is a term for this: OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer).

"An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is a company that produces parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_equipment_manufacture...

When I started working on home power monitoring solutions "cloud" software, we could brand the web page with the company that sold/installed the equipment. If you didn't buy directly from us, you would have little idea where the equipment came from. Even the tech support information was that of our resellers. That changed overtime as the business started using there own branding.

The same is the case for high brand eyewear.

Most "brands" of $100 to $2000 glasses are made in the same factory, owned by the same company (Luxxotica) and use the same materials and craftsmanship (or lack thereof), just with a different design.

Then the same design/materials go off-branded for sale for 1/10th the price or less.

I used to know a guy whose dad had a factory for things like detergent. They did most of the product development and then would put the product into the packages of a lot of name brands. So whatever detergent you buy probably comes from a very small number of manufacturers.

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