>>1114025Depends. Most of the time they are made in the same factories that the other meme brand products are from. For example the Spark UL 2 Tent is made in the same factory as the MSR Hubba Hubba. It is a fair bit cheaper, a few hundred grams lighter, and it has a higher MM rating on the fly. However the design is a knockoff of the Hubba Hubba, without the attention to detail that MSR has. Its got cheap plastic connectors on the feet, and imo has a shorter lifespan than the tent that costs $80 more.
There are some very good deals within the MEC lines. For example: the Vectair and Reactor 10 Pads are made in the Exped factory. You get ridiculous savings for essentially an actual exped without the name. Get them. The sleeping bags are also truly good value, for what you are getting you can't find it anywhere other than sketchy chinese websites. Some of the older tent models are good value too, and bombproof, particularly their snow rated tents. The newer lightweight tents are pretty trashy
Clothing is overall a ripoff, except during clearance season in late summer and early spring.
I've spoken with product developers for MEC, and they do legitimately try to keep production costs as low as they can. However without a doubt MEC could have lower prices if they wanted too. I feel the reason they don't translate the full savings to members is due to wasteful production runs of "trend lines" like Fjallraven Kanken knockoffs (that nobody buys), and their Quixotic quest to continually build more stores. They make shitloads of money, and that doesn't go back into cheaper gear for members.
Even on MEC brand stuff markup is 200-250%
Honestly the best way to get cheap gear from MEC is to work there. (stupidly cheap; I got a nearly new Western Mountaineering Apache -9 Sleeping bag for $40 )
