Stay away from WOUXUN

[countywacker]

This is why we have warranty laws in the US, as most of the world does.

Without debating the merits of what wouxon.us now says...

I would bet the OP's "dealer" was not an authorized dealer but was just one of the many guys buying wholesale and selling them "as is" with no further warranty.

And IIRC the manufacturer's warranty is pretty simple: Send it back to China, pay the return postage, and they'll fix it.

If that's the case, the complaint is just sour grapes. Cheap stuff is usually cheap for a reason.

You buy a Rolex, it may come with a worldwide guarantee that any Rolex-authorized repair station will honor. You buy a Nikon, Olympus, or a Canon, top names in cameras? Sorry, that's Nikon-US, Olympus-US, Canon-US that you bought it from, if you bought it from an authorized dealer in the US. Bought it gray market? Need service in Tokyo? Too bad, your warranty may be with the US franchise, it isn't global unless the papers say it is.

Folks who play "global village", buy gray market instead of from authorized channels, and fail to read the warranty? Really have no complaint when they get the service they paid for.

Well if you bet then you lost, He was the first authorized US, West Coast dealer. He stopped dealing with Wouxon due to poor dealer and customer service. Basically he was stuck with all the radio problems with no help from the company.

 

[Rred]

If the dealer didn't offer any warranty beyond the mfr's "send it back to China" then his obligations might be very few, depending on what warranty was given. There are state and federal warranty laws, and IF he offered a "US" warranty...then he might also be stuck with taking a loss. That's business.

Without all the facts it is hard to say what coulda woulda shoulda. From the post on the wouxun.us web site, it sounds like a well-intended guy simply never got the business set up properly. Never set aside money for warranty repairs, never set aside inventory for replacements, never got or did a lot of simple things that most businesses can't be done without. I don't know, I wasn't there.

Even here in the US, companies declare bankruptcy all the time, leaving customers with no warranty support even if the brand name is sold and continues with other owners. Sadly, nothing unique there.

 

[countywacker]

After talking to three major Wouxun dealers, they are all pretty much being treated the same by the manufacture. Wouxun is cheap when it comes to shipping products and replacing parts. Overall there communications is just down right horrible.

The retailer is getting stuck with all the grief of the failed product with no reimbursement from the manufacture.

So I would say its not the retailers poor planning, its no support from the company its self. For the little profit margin that is made, I would dump the brand also. Its not worth the aggravation.

 

[prcguy]

Are you referring to the owner of wouxun.us not setting aside money or radios for warranty purposes? That's not how the radio business works and its up to the mfr or distributor to provide replacement radios to the dealer for out of box failures and take back defective radios or give credit, etc. The guy at wouxun.us had been in business for many years under other names before Wouxun radios came along.

In my early career I worked in retail radio sales and except for providing some technical help in checking out a possible defect, its simply boxing up the bad stuff and shipping it back to someone in the US. There is no replacement stockpile paid for by the dealer, any replacements come out of radios paid for by the dealer and intended for resale and profit. With a very small failure rate this can work just fine but when it doesn't, its the mfrs problem and they pay.

The only way to handle warranty replacements for Chinese radios with no US middleman distributor is bulk shipment back to China, or China sends free replacements during the next bulk purchase and the dealer throws away any bad units. Otherwise the cost to ship just one radio can exceed all the profit of the sale.

Wouxun offered 18mo warranty on their radios handled through wouxun.us and supposedly backed up by Wouxun in China and its not a warranty made up by the US dealer. Apparently the Wouxun failure rate was high and dealers end up giving away replacement radios from the profit pile. When that is no longer profitable you pull the plug on that product or it drags your business down the tube.
prcguy

If the dealer didn't offer any warranty beyond the mfr's "send it back to China" then his obligations might be very few, depending on what warranty was given. There are state and federal warranty laws, and IF he offered a "US" warranty...then he might also be stuck with taking a loss. That's business.

Without all the facts it is hard to say what coulda woulda shoulda. From the post on the wouxun.us web site, it sounds like a well-intended guy simply never got the business set up properly. Never set aside money for warranty repairs, never set aside inventory for replacements, never got or did a lot of simple things that most businesses can't be done without. I don't know, I wasn't there.

Even here in the US, companies declare bankruptcy all the time, leaving customers with no warranty support even if the brand name is sold and continues with other owners. Sadly, nothing unique there.