I only see threads talking about fake yonex rackets. On ebay you can find lots of these counterfeits, but you can also find carlton rackets or wilson rackets sold at VERY low prices ! How is it possible ? Do you guys think that there are also fake carlton manufacturers ?
The chances are very low for fake Wilson and fake Carlton rackets. Most of the fakes comes from the Chinese market where Yonex is very popular, but quite expensive for the Chinese people, especially the casual players who want to play with something the pros would use. SO they make fakes. But if you look at the top asian badminton players, most of them use Yonex, maaybe Gosen, but not Wilson or Carlton, so there is no desire to own a counterfeit Carlton or Wilson. The market niche is not there. The prices on Ebay are not that astonishing. If you were to go to a british website for a Carlton Airblade Lite, it would be around $100 Canadian dollars, however, in Canada, particularly at Canadian Tire, you can gte the same Airbblade Lite, albeit an earlier model, for half the price. And Wilson rackets in Canada are also not that expensive. Their badminton rackets, in comparison to their cousin models in Tennis are much cheaper, so you cannot use the same price standards for badminton. Also, Wilson isn't that popular, same goes for Carlton so their prices are much cheaper. Also you must factor in the cost of sponsorships. Yonex sponsors almost all of the best professionals. Carlton meanwhile mainly sponsors the Englaish Team and Wilson sponsors players on the Danish team like Anders Boeson and Pernile Harder.
george33 is right. Anyway, these Wilson or Carlton rackets are made in China afterall, so why do they want to make fake ones while the real ones are just made next door. The cost for making these rackets is cheap like hell, they just come out from the molding machine! Most high-end Yonex rackets are made in Japan, the cost for producing them is not very higher, just that the the amount of money that is put into R&D plus sponsorship is huge.
