Trying to buy USA

[Martin Boekers]

This year I'm trying to make a conscience effort to buy American made products when possible. I'm not nieve enough to think that I can fill my store with all USA products. Without checking with the suppliers I know I probably do 5-10% of sales that are American made products. I would like to increase this by at least 10% this year.

I plan on having a section of my store to display these items and maybe put a flag decal on them so clients can be aware of them.

Soooo. if anyone in SMC sells USA products and can recommend them to me that would be great!

I hope not to offend anyone from other parts of the world, as I think when possible, they should consider buying products from their economies also.

The thing that is great about this forum is the diversity that we have and the common goals (or should I say THREADS we all share :).) A true rare commodity in our societies today. That is what makes this the best forum running today.

Marty

[Roy Nicholson]

We should encourage locally made produce no matter what part of the world we are from.

I'm from down here in Australia.. A couple of years ago one of the Australia made groups wanted to buy some printed pens from mne the criteria was that they were to be made in Australia.'

There are or were only two pens made in Australia in those days both if themn throw away utility office type pens... But even these were not allowed to be called Australian Made... the argument was that they were ball point pens and the major part of a ball point pen is the ball and the ink.
The balls were manufactured in Italy and the Ink in Germany. The plastic barrel was manufatured locally and they were assembled locally... Anyway they decided that the pens looked too cheap for the image they wanted to portray so ended up buying pens imported from Taiwan.

Even the pens that are turne dhere would not be accepted as Australian made as the ink and balls are made overseas and the ink is the major aprt of the pen in their view m=not the barrel...

I'm going to cointinue to play ostrich and stick my head back in the sand.

But where possible I do buy local produce.

Regards


Roy N.

[Bill Morrison]

In my opinion the only thing locally made are children. Even when it has a made in America sticker that is misleading. THe majority of large companies have the item put together in another country and only a certain percentage is added on in America to get the made in America sticker. For instance, a pair of pants could be manufactured in another country and the pockets sewn on in the US and that counts as American made. Of course there are purely US produced items but it's becoming smaller and smaller. 2 ladies I know had a dodge and a foreign car. THe dodge was made in Canada and the foreign car was made in Georgia. or someplace down south. Going through New Mexico I stopped in a Native American shop to buy a bull whip, always wanted one, it was distributed by Cherokee enterprises with a little sticker on it that said "made in China." I too would buy American made if it was possible but economics takes care of that.

Just my 3 cents

Bill

[Martin Boekers]

Yes , Both of you are right, many of the things we purchase that say made in USA are from foreign components, and even if something such as a wood plaque that the tree, was grown in the USA, Harvested in the USA, Milled in the USA, then packaged and shipped in the USA, may have be grown with foreign herbicides, harvested and milled with foreign tractors & equipment, packaged and delivered by non-US citizens on work visas.

It's easy for us to say it's impossible to buy anything local to our economies. I believe we are all entitiled to make our choices. Those of us who step forward to start a business earn the right to make those decisions!

I am going to give a good effort to try to find and market Items that are manufactured in the USA. Even if it is only partially. Partially to me is better than not at all. Wood products are the easiest ones to start with. We build flag cases and shadowboxes on site. So that's a start!
Plaques, I am already dealing with suppliers that manufacture in the states. I plan on expanding those purchases while decreasing "Totally" imported ones.

Roy I do find it a bit ironic that when they could have bought an Australian turned pen, but turned it down (sorry bad pun) because of the ink and ball componets, decided it was better to buy a wholly manufactured one overseas instead.:confused:

2009 is going to be an "interesting" year some will fare betters than others, we will all learn to be a bit more efficient at producing products and developing new strategies.

I wish you all the best, and as we approach 2010 we can look back at share our successes as we look to the future.


Marty