Do you know that you can have your own OEM feather shuttlecocks if your club's requirement is big enough?
The qty is 100 cartons which will fill only half a container. Each carton consists of 50 tubes, with 12 shuttles in each tube. The cost of all the labels on the tubes and stickers inside the shuttles is HK$5,000 for 100 cartons (5,000 tubes). The 100 cartons can be shipped over a few shipments albeit at a higher shipping rate than shipping in one shipment. As a matter of fact such sizeable shipments are being routinely shipped to Malaysia as OEM shuttles. However, Malaysians prefer the lower grade of shuttles because of lower costs.
Quality is very subjective and the only way to find out is to test them against other brands that cost about 20% to 30% higher. There are various grades that can be OEMed, although currently there are 2 grades on offer. Malaysian OEMs all prefer the cheaper model because at a price that is about 20% cheaper than the more expensive grade, the lower grade is very playable. I myself play with the lower and cheaper grade most of the time but at other times I do switch to the higher grade or to an even higher grade, the last one not currently available for the market yet.
i see, can you give us an indication of the cost per tube of the lower and upper grades? just as a point of reference.
BTW, all shuttlecock brands are OEMs. That includes Yonex, Aeroplane, RSL, Victor, HiQua, etc. A few like Victor have a very small shuttle plant which produces less than perhaps 5% of their shuttles, the rest are OEM. The company with the largest non-OEM component of their shuttles is RSL. If you want quality, then you send your own qc people to the manufacturers to test check your own brand. You pay for what you want. Even well known brand shuttles have lower grades of poor quality.
Thats what i mean... the problem is most people who have their stuffs OEM's does not have consistent monitoring of the products that they asked people to make. And unless if you have good connection from the manufacturer in mainland.. you will most likely get the stuffs and the grades that you want. I've known some people got their shuttlecocks delivered but with a totally different grade as promised. OEM stands for "original equipment manufacturer"
OEM, meaning Original Equipment Manufacturer, has two meanings as used in the business world. One is the actual manufacturer of an equipment, say a certain jet engine, which is used by many aircraft companies that make and assemble a complete jet. The manufacturer of the jet engine is then the OEM and all the other aircraft companies just add value to the jet engine by building a complete aircraft around the engine, which becomes an entirely different product. The other is relatively new and refers to any company or entity that buys goods from others and put their company brand or label on them. Such marketing companies are also called OEMs. A very good example is Nike, perhaps the most famous shoes OEM company. Nike doesn't own a single plant making shoes nor does it make a single pair of shoes. It merely contracts manufacturing to others. Another is Yonex badminton shoes, in which Yonex is the OEM of shoes but it doesn't make a single pair of its own shoes, as most of them are contracted out to others, including China. To clear any misunderstanding about the quality of OEM products, there is a quality range or range of grades within each OEM. For example, RSL Classic is at the top of RSL's range, Tourney #1 next, and so on, and so on until you reach near the bottom grade #7 or #8 training shuttles. You cannot say RSL shuttles have poor quality because the statement is meaningless. However, if you find some shuttles in the same RSL Classic tube are not as good as the others in the same tube, then yes we might have a quality or qc problem here, which shouldn't normally happen. The lower grades of #7 or #8 are expected to be poor in quality because that is what you have asked for and paid for. The same applies to all other brands. Almost all famous badminton shuttlecock brands are OEM and I believe they have pretty consistent quality for the top grades, as it should be, and inconsistent quality for their very cheap grades, again as to be expected. That is applicable for shuttles that leave the factory floor. The shuttles then go through a rather complex distribution chain, and things can get a bit messed up here. If you get the shuttles directly then the quality you asked and paid for will be very consistent. If you get them very, very late then many things can happen.