Sub-$5 ties from China

Cafe Society
#1

I was poking around eBay looking for some ties, and was surprised to find that you can get brand new ties from China shipped to your door for under $5. In some cases, very far under $5. I’ve ordered three ties from different sellers to check the quality out, and see if they are any good. I can imagine placing a bulk order of like 25 ties for something like $50-60. Anyways, here are the contenders:

The first contender is all of two dollars, including shipping. You can see the ebay listing here (I ordered A035). As you can see, the vendor assures me that:

I can’t wait to try out my gloriously made tie and be full satisfied in my formal place.

The second contender cost me $3.74, including shipping. This was an excellent deal at 25% off the original price of $4.99. You can see the tie here. Like the first tie, this one is made in a gloriously voluminous manner, but is 100% silk, instead of 50/50 Rayon and Silk. This one seems more promising, as it will fully satisfy my expectation, and not just in my working place, party, or formal place.

The last cost me the princely sum of $4.99, including shipping. The auction is here and, unlike the others, this one does not seem to be made in a gloriously voluminous manner. It seems to be slightly wider, though comes with no promise of fully satisfying my expectations.

I’m not really sure what to expect from these. I’ve always felt that ties seemed to be priced way higher than they should be. For example, if you go to brooksbrothers.com, most of their ties are more expensive than their classic cotton dress shirts. There doesn’t seem to be anything very complex about making ties, and it’s not like they are subject to that much abuse, so build quality isn’t all that important. I guess we will see.

Unfortunately, shipping from China takes a bit. The first one says between Sept 27-Oct 3, the last Oct. 2-16, and I haven’t seen an estimate for the second. I will update as they come in.

#2

I used to wear ties all the time, but not so much now.

My only problem would be with the length of the tie. I often found the cheaper the tie, the shorter it was. This would especially be true if it were being made for a local market where people are not so tall.

I am over six feet tall, so if I have a short tie, it looks ridiculous. Plus, some ties are so short there is barely room to tie it around my neck and it still only goes just to about the middle of my chest.

Then again, you don’t want a “Fred Mertz” tie either - one that is so long that you stick it into your pants behind your belt.

#3

The first one is 57" and the last 2 are 59". That seems to be near standard. For example, this Brooks Brothers tie is 58" for regular and 62" for long.

#4

I don’t know whether I should be proud or ashamed to admit it, but I have bought some of those cheap Chinese ties on ebay—though the ones I bought were auctioned rather than buy-it-nowed, and didn’t have the effusive language in the ad copy. Like you, I figure there’s no inherent reason a tie ought to cost a lot of money. The ties I got were pretty much as advertised (WYSIWYG) and I had no reason to be dissatisfied.

#5

Several friends of mine have been very happy with the prescription eyeglasses you can now buy direct from China from a number of sites for around $20, so I’d think quality $5 neckties should be doable.

#6

You can get glasses their cheap and when I lived there, I bought amazing ties for $1.

#7

The $5 silk tie I bought from a Shanghai street vendor 12 years ago has proven to be my favorite.

#8

In my experience, the difference between a cheap tie and a good tie is thickness. A lot of those you get for nothing are about as substantial as a piece of tissue paper, and the resulting knot is the size of a grape, while a good tie has some heft and weight to it.

#9

They probably figured out a way to put lead in it.

#10

I’m definitely going to follow this thread. Cheap ties like that would be a nice thing to have for my debate team. A lot of the kids have never owned a tie in their lives and having a bunch on hand to loan or give away would be nice. Be sure to post back with a review when they arrive.

#11

Will do. Right now the estimated delivery dates are:

Tie 1: 9/27-10/3
Tie 2: 9/25-10/1
Tie 3: 10/2-10/16

#12

I ordered something similar. A pack of 7 for $20. They’re very ordinary ties. The stitching in the back is loose. Perfectly acceptable for a HS debate team but you wouldn’t want to wear these if you’re dressing to impress. Work tie? Maybe. Depends on how fancy your workplace and your position in it is.

#13

No surprise-what you are buying is the “overage” or QC rejects. Factory X gets an order for 100,000 neckties. They make 120,000, with 2000 rejected by the quality control inspection. Factory X completes the order, has 22,000 left over-these they sell to a “jobber” for $1.00 each-jobber sells to independent vendors for $2.00 each=your $5.00 ties.
Everybody is happy.

#14

I hear about 1 in 10 of those cheap Chinese ties actually turns out to be a venomous snake. True story!

#15

This is relevant to my interests. Let us know how it turns out.

#16

Do you know this to be the case, or are you just guessing? Because you might be surprised by how cheap a lot of products direct from China can be without having to be QC rejects. It could be that *all *of the ties that this Chinese source makes would fail more strict QC inspections, but it’s still acceptable quality for the price-point.

Yeah, that’s where hoop-snakes come from!

#17

Ok, so I did some more searching and came across dramatic music sub $20 dress shirts from China. Which I am pretty excited about. Off the rack dress shirts in the U.S. simply don’t fit me. I have the option of getting the right sized collar and have the waist billow around, or I can get a smaller collar with a better fit around the waist. These are cut for Asians, so I hope they will be a little bit skinnier around the waist without the collar choking me. I suppose I should have asked for the collar sizes, but I am being impulsive. Anyways, so we have:

Shirt 1- $12.99. I chose the white in XL (equivalent to a M/L in U.S.)
Shirt 2. Got the light blue.
Shirt 3 Went for the light purple here.

Unfortunately, like the ties these are going to take a few weeks to get here. Will keep y’all updated.

#18

These look way better than I was expecting!

#19

Sounds like the cheapies found in Thailand. Yes, they are … Thai ties. I don’t wear ties anymore, but when I did, I did get some of these. The quality is generally poor, but it’s possible to find the odd diamond in the rough. I still love my elephant tie even though I don’t wear it now. But I would always wear the real department-store stuff for important meetings.

#20

Yes…I have several Thai silk ties. Thai silk is different from Chinese or Indian silk-it is very lustrous and shiny. What is you opinion about Thai tailors?