Made in China vs USA.

[Jackalope]

So the wife and I recently set out to get quotes on 3 ring binders for a business she's getting off the ground. Turned edge, cloth-covered, debossed, with a foil stamp logo on the front and spine similar to this..

Reached out to about 9 companies here in the USA for some American Made products. The lowest quote we received required a 500 piece minimum and the binders were on average $47 each... The most expensive was $68 each and required a 250 piece minimum. We thought we found a company at a decent price and they even sent us a sample of their $9 binder. I wouldn't give it away for free as it was cheap, thin, bendable, and reminded me of a kid's thin cardboard folder for elementary school. These were all prices before shipping. Add another $2-3 per binder for shipping. Most suppliers took a couple of days to respond. These prices are pretty steep for a product that she's going to bring to market at $98.


So out of curiosity, she looked on Aliexpress which puts buyers in touch with foreign manufacturers in china, India, etc. She browsed through the product offerings and capabilities and reached out to about 9 different companies for quotes. Like US manufacturers they all had about a $250-500 piece minimum purchase requirement. but that is where the similarities ended. The first thing we noticed was time for response and quality of response. They were Johnny on the spot with replies, answers to questions, pictures, quotes etc. Even in what was 10 or 11 pm their time a response came within an hour. Many would send pictures. One lady sent a video she recorded just for Jessica going over their products and capabilities showing examples. American companies wanted the logos in special transparent backgrounds and had requirements around file size etc, and if you needed their help they had a designer who would cost $100-200. The Chinese companies, "Send us what you're thinking and our designer will make it and respond with examples to get the logo and words in the font you want. No charge. Prices.... The most expensive quote came back at $13 per piece and 2$ per piece shipping.. the cheapest was $7 and $2 shipping.. so $9 each.

Well, how about quality. I mean China is known for cheap junk of poor craftsmanship. Yeah, not from what we've seen. Quality products are available if you want them. I think why we have that opinion is US companies are requiring the cheapest product they can reasonably bring to the market. I don't think it's a Chinese quality problem so much as a US merchant price point demand that is making these Chinese products so crappy. In reality, the $9 biner from China looks to be better quality than the $47 dollar made in the USA binder.

So I ask you. I'm all for buying American made and supporting American workers and industry... However, the market simply can't bear it with such a disparity in cost. There is no way we will be able to cost-justify a +$38 added premium on a product with a $98 price point to put a flag and "Made in USA" stamp on it.. And the consumer more often than not, is not going to place a +$38 dollar value on that. Before we can revive the "Buy American" revolution, some of these manufacturers will have to get their heads out of the clouds and become competitive on a global scale. But it's not even cost, its customer service, ease to work with, required demands, and the list goes on. We are quite simply getting beat in every category of business.

 

[Big_Holla]

Any idea what tariffs will up the price? I hear you on cost/quality/etc, that’s why it’s so easy to keep using China for things. Especially for a small business owner or consumer.

 

[Jackalope]

Any idea what tariffs will up the price? I hear you on cost/quality/etc, that’s why it’s so easy to keep using China for things. Especially for a small business owner or consumer.

$9 per piece door to door, payment held in escrow by aliexpress until inspected on delivery. Includes tax, tariff, customs fees and shipping.

 

[brock ratcliff]

I found the same to be true with the smokers. Then again, they started selling my product directly for what I was buying them wholesale using my name...

What if your the guy that had the US patent on Rage broad heads... make the mistake of making them in China and then next thing you know your product is being sold directly by the people you pay to do your manufacturing. Screw China. If we pull away from them as we should, our manufacturers will step up their game given a little time.

 

[Jamie]

the posture of many American manufacturing companies is what it is because they have been forced avoid competing with Chinese imports. the playing field has not been level for 50 years. and the mother fucking chi-comms steal ideas all the time. we went through this about 10 years ago when Nancy tried to get a business off the ground. could not find an American company even close to being competitive with Chinese manufacturers. Patent Attorney (who, interestingly, was also a class 3 weapons dealer) pretty much told us defending a patent against chi-comms would be impossible and a waste of time and money.

 

[Jackalope]

I found the same to be true with the smokers. Then again, they started selling my product directly for what I was buying them wholesale using my name...

What if your the guy that had the US patent on Rage broad heads... make the mistake of making them in China and then next thing you know your product is being sold directly by the people you pay to do your manufacturing. Screw China. If we pull away from them as we should, our manufacturers will step up their game given a little time.

Absolutely. They'll rip you off if they can manufacture the same end product cheaper. It doesn't even need to be made in china, look at Yetis hard coolers. Made in the USA, shitons of Chinese knockoffs are around. Most not even sold by a Chinese company but rather other US companies who had them made in china.

I'm not hopeful that our manufacturers will step up if we pull away from China. I think they'll do what capitalism has taught them to do when faced with a lack of competition and that is make profits. I have little hope that if we banned the sale of binders made anywhere but America that any manufacturer would produce a $9 binder. Rather the price would go up exponentially.

 

[Buckmaster]

I sell made in the USA fasteners. If my customers want cheaper I go to China or Taiwan (no tariff) and can save them 30%. Quality suffers slightly but a bolt is a bolt right?

 

[brock ratcliff]

Fixed costs vs productivity Our manufacturing as a whole is hardly at capacity in any area. I believe the more we produce here, more manufacturing on line, cost per unit would come down.
Screw China

 

[brock ratcliff]

I sell made in the USA fasteners. If my customers want cheaper I go to China or Taiwan (no tariff) and can save them 30%. Quality suffers slightly but a bolt is a bolt right?

Maybe, but auto parts are not auto parts. Go buy most anything for your vehicle and it’s apparent what lack of quality is. Just one example.

 

[Buckmaster]

Maybe, but auto parts are not auto parts. Go buy most anything for your vehicle and it’s apparent what lack of quality is. Just one example.

Indeed. I spent 8 years of selling auto parts early in life. Auto parts made in the USA are far superior in quality over China. Most of our auto/truck manufacturers currently use Chinese hardware.

 

[Jackalope]

Maybe, but auto parts are not auto parts. Go buy most anything for your vehicle and it’s apparent what lack of quality is. Just one example.

That's what I was hinting at earlier. It's not that China is not capable of producing a same quality product at a lower price point. It's that US sellers are demanding a lower quality or cheaper product

 

[brock ratcliff]

We could stand to have a renaissance in this country. People currently do not take pride in “American made”, and that is partly because the younger folks don’t even know what it is to take pride in our country. Spend five minutes watching CNN and you’ll see there is an indoctrination that America was never GREAT. Contrary to how I was raised. Our society needs to be re-taught what an exceptional land we live in, how fortunate we are and that it was earned. I’m tired of hearing about slavery and how we stole the land from the drunken redskins... there has been a lot more great in our history than there has been less than stellar. I wish everyone in this country had the good fortune of knowing WWII vets Those guys knew what they had fought for and what we had to protect.
Screw China.
Back on topic. I don’t see a problem with getting binders, underwear, or other cheap “wants” from China... but we need to manufacture “needs” here, and I’ll gladly pay for quality. Buy it once cry once, buy Chinese, buy it again, and again... cause it’s freakin junk!

 

[Redhunter1012]

Most Chinese companies are government run and workers are paid pennies on the dollar compared to their American counterparts.

 

[Jackalope]

Most Chinese companies are government run and workers are paid pennies on the dollar compared to their American counterparts.

I'm not sure of their manufacturing location but the video the woman sent us going over the product offerings that we asked about looked like any standard US office. She spoke English very well, had jewelry and rings, etc. Now she could have opened a backroom door and whipped the child labor kids a little after turning off the video but who knows.

 

[Cogz]

Most Chinese companies are government run and workers are paid pennies on the dollar compared to their American counterparts.

There’s the rub. We don’t have slavery or indentured servitude. Or suicide nets.

 

[Buckmaster]

Joe, Have you examined pricing from non tariff country for a price comparison? My China tariff is currently 25%.

 

[Buckmaster]

BTW...I just supported the suicide prevention systems on the Golden Gate Bridge. Now you need to jump twice.

 

[Jackalope]

We could stand to have a renaissance in this country. People currently do not take pride in “American made”, and that is partly because the younger folks don’t even know what it is to take pride in our country. Spend five minutes watching CNN and you’ll see there is an indoctrination that America was never GREAT. Contrary to how I was raised. Our society needs to be re-taught what an exceptional land we live in, how fortunate we are and that it was earned. I’m tired of hearing about slavery and how we stole the land from the drunken redskins... there has been a lot more great in our history than there has been less than stellar. I wish everyone in this country had the good fortune of knowing WWII vets Those guys knew what they had fought for and what we had to protect.
Screw China.
Back on topic. I don’t see a problem with getting binders, underwear, or other cheap “wants” from China... but we need to manufacture “needs” here, and I’ll gladly pay for quality. Buy it once cry once, buy Chinese, buy it again, and again... cause it’s freakin junk!

Oh absolutely Brock. The question becomes how do we then raise income across the board to absorb the consumer expense of a majority made in America goods. Then does it become a self fulfilling prophecy where labor cost to make those goods is factored in to the finished product thus negating the income raise. Our cost of living is based upon the massive availability of cheaper foreign goods. Take these binders for instance. The US made product of the exact same quality is 520% more expensive. Instead of quality If we compare price points and say a $30 Chinese binder to a $30 American made binder, it is the American binder that is complete junk compared to the Chinese one.

Technically since the binder is not the final product I could do like many companies and slap a US flag on it and say "Made in America, from internationally sourced materials"

 

[brock ratcliff]

I don’t know the timeline or the answer, Joe. What I do know is that once upon a time everything this country used was made here. I don’t see why that couldn’t be the case again. As an example, I used my grandpas knife to dress Mason’s turkeys a couple weeks ago. I am willing to bet my grandkids will not be using mine in 50 years. When I was a kid my dad was an engineer at RCA. We didn’t even own a TV but I know the people that did would often pay 800-1000 for a big floor model. They were expensive but would last a lifetime. If there was an issue, there was a shop in every town where a man made a living repairing TVs. Same with boots. My dad had the same pair of redwing hunting boots for thirty five years. If he needed to replace the sole, we had a guy in town that could make them new again. You spend 300 on a pair of boots now, use them like I do and they won’t see three years before they go to the landfill. This cheap, throw away society is crap, and is one reason we now have all this invasive crap on our shores from freakin China! I really wish I could find a pair of boots worth re soling. Nothing worse than getting them broke in enough to be comfortable and then have them split in two.

 

[Jackalope]

Yeah. One's things for sure it didn't happen overnight. How do we start to untangle that web, or is it even possible at this point. Back when your grandpa bought that knife china was getting owned by Japan and being sold as war whores to the Japanese army.