Could also be that if you're in Singapore you get better stuff. It's possible that European companies pick crappy, cheaper products that they have a higher margin on to cover importing and transport. I have no idea.
replyIt might be possible, I don't know. Singapore is a fairly small market, so we don't really get any bespoke stuff.
replyTransport shouldn't really be worse: once you put anything on a container ship, it doesn't really matter much how long the ride is. But imports could be more annoying in other ways.
We do have a lot more people speaking Chinese here (around 3/4 of the population are ethnically Chinese after all) and lots of personal contacts, so we get a lot of people running small import businesses getting in Chinese stuff.
Of course, there's still plenty of low quality stuff you can buy. But I see that as a benefit: it's good to have the choice available, if you want to take it.