Jds

[Martin Boekers]

I recieved an email from the Pres. of JDS (as I'm sure many have)

I guess it sort of confirmed what I thought about why they were out of stock on many items. Between the economy and the logistics about buying goods made in China it made it difficult to keep inventory levels where they need to be.

They expressed that they would be back in their high standards in a few months as they are working hard to achieve this. The sooner the better;)

JDS has always been a great supplier for me and I look forward to them
getting back to their normal level of excellence!

Marty

[Larry Bratton]

Yes, I received and read the same letter. JDS is a great supplier, but it worries me that they and all of us have gotten so reliant on Chinese produced goods to keep our industries going. What happens when they decide they don't want to sell us anymore. I guess that's another discussion.

[Martin Boekers]

I know all to well! I had issues with a marble supplier a few years back it took over six months to get the product I ordered! Not only that when it finally reached the states I was told it was in customs and that took 2 months!

I try to buy as much USA things as I can, but it is difficult in this field.

It still can take a month are two to reach the warehouse after it ships.


Marty

[Tim Bateson]

Yes, I received and read the same letter. JDS is a great supplier, but it worries me that they and all of us have gotten so reliant on Chinese produced goods to keep our industries going. What happens when they decide they don't want to sell us anymore. I guess that's another discussion.

What gives me concern is why is China moving production plants further inland & away from mass transportation/shipping? I have my own political/military theories, but I'm open to any other logical reasons.

[Larry Bratton]

What gives me concern is why is China moving production plants further inland & away from mass transportation/shipping? I have my own political/military theories, but I'm open to any other logical reasons.
Good point Tim, I wondered that too.

[Liesl Dexheimer]

I haven't received the email yet but I'm glad I read this post. I just purchased some things from JDS a few days ago, there were 3 products that I was planning on ordering but couldn't b/c they were out of stock...guess this explains why.

[John Barton]

What gives me concern is why is China moving production plants further inland & away from mass transportation/shipping? I have my own political/military theories, but I'm open to any other logical reasons.

I live here and the reason that factories are moving inland is to cut costs as labor is cheaper inland and more available. Also companies are getting subsidies from cities farther inland who wish to attract investment.

Labor costs on the coastal areas are relatively high and getting higher, labor is in short supply and what is there is fairly transient. It's also harder for companies on the coast to keep their secrets and to not have their key employees leave and start competing firms using stolen IP, contacts and equipment.

The central government is not overtly moving factories inland. Those decisions are made by individual companies based on their own needs.

[Scott Shepherd]

It's also harder for companies on the coast to keep their secrets and to not have their key employees leave and start competing firms using stolen IP, contacts and equipment.

Sorry John, that just struck me as funny. So they stole the IP from some other global source, and now they are worried about someone stealing "their" ideas?

Wow....:eek:

[Tim Bateson]

I live here and the reason that factories are moving inland is to cut costs as labor is cheaper inland and more available. Also companies are getting subsidies from cities farther inland who wish to attract investment...

According to the letter from JDS, they are being told by these factories in China that part of the delay in shipping is that there are fewer workers inland.

[John Barton]

According to the letter from JDS, they are being told by these factories in China that part of the delay in shipping is that there are fewer workers inland.

Well I didn't address the sourcing aspect of this thread. The number one rule in China laowei (foreigners) learn is that you absolutely cannot trust anything that a factory says to you. Nothing.

You have to do your homework, visit if you can, check out competitors, get competing quotes using local people if possible, spec out everything to nth degree, source your own materials, and after all that you give them the PO, pay the deposit and PRAY.

The factories and trade agents will do and say everything they can to get your business. Then once they have your order they will give you every excuse you can imagine as to why it's late or wrong or late and wrong.

I came here wide eyed and hopeful - confident that I was going to change them and show them a better way. I have since been humbled mightily. You cannot go up against 5000 years of culture. We like to think that we are clever? The Chinese people have taken cleverness to unimaginable levels.

Oh sure, we Americans are more efficient, we develop great tech and have processes down to a science. But when it comes to really getting the best of it the Chinese factories win easily.

The coastal areas have lost 20 million workers this past year. The figure comes from the amount of workers who went home to their inland towns and never came back and a much lower figure of new workers coming to the coast looking for jobs. Due to the earthquake two years ago and other incentives there is a lot more work in western China now so people don't have to go to the coast.

Of course there will always be pockets where the prevailing trend isn't present. So it's quite possible that the JDS supplier is telling them the truth.

As I said I live here and am responsible for coordinating about a container a month for the company I work for. Sometimes it's like herding cats getting all the suppliers to get the goods done in the time they promised. And when something goes wrong they just shrug and refuse to do it over since the do-over wipes out all the profit. It's frustrating for me and I am here.

[John Barton]

Sorry John, that just struck me as funny. So they stole the IP from some other global source, and now they are worried about someone stealing "their" ideas?

Wow....:eek:

Yeah, something like that. :-) It's brutal here in that regard. Actually a lot of Chinese companies do develop their own ideas as well. But still most production is built on IP that's not theirs.

[James Stokes]

My wifes company owns a company in China specifically for their own products. They can not get their product here nor can they get the quality control up to standards. They have owned the Chinese company for 15 years, They are now debating shutting it down due to all of the problems.

[Mike Christen]

I for one say this is all great news, very glad to hear that china is having problems. Maybe, i doubt it, but maybe some companies will stop outsourcing and purchasing products from china and there slave wage labor. They have destroyed many companies and their employees. I hope the companies that outsourced manufacturing to china go down also. This is only my opinion I could be wrong or mis-guided. Sorry for anyone I may have offended.

[John Barton]

My wifes company owns a company in China specifically for their own products. They can not get their product here nor can they get the quality control up to standards. They have owned the Chinese company for 15 years, They are now debating shutting it down due to all of the problems.

I understand completely. When I sit around the bar and swap stories with other expats we all can tell the same stories.

It's not that the Chinese are bad people or stupid people. I have a couple theories though. In general the Chinese are not taught shop classes in school. They don't grow up building things for pleasure and discovery. They work with their hands to provide sustenance and they do just enough to get the job done with whatever quality level that they customer will accept or ignore.

My theory of why this is goes like this: They don't have the same relationship to everyday luxury that we do. The average Chinese factory worker comes from a place which makes trailer parks look like luxury villas. We, westerners and especially Americans, have a much tighter relationship to quality because of the fact that we are surrounded by it. We build our own treehouses, we work on our own cars, we have generally five to twenty brands of anything to choose from, etc....

Really though the culture is SO different that it's hard to pinpoint the problem.

I have heard that a lot of companies are considering the same option as your wife's.

China is modernizing. The workers are getting more experienced (not necessarily more skilled) and able to demand higher pay. Taxes are going up, labor is in short supply and turnover is high. This cycle repeats itself every place that industry goes to produce goods. It happened when America was the "sweatshop to the world" from the 1850s though the 1930s and is happening to China now. Many businesses are taking their production to Vietnam and Africa. Chinese companies are outsourcing to Africa. How's that for irony?

Me personally, I have a great crew of people who try very hard. It's frustrating for me sometimes as I have to educate them on basic shop techniques, teach them basic jig making, harp on quality all the time, but at the end of the day I feel I am doing some good. If I have to be here then I might as well try to make the people around me better people. I can do that in my little shop. In a factory environment forget it. No chance.

Politically I'd much rather have the Chinese making toys than weapons. One way or the other the government has to keep people working and if they aren't working on consumer goods then they would be building up the military. But anyway that's all getting too deep.

[John Barton]

I for one say this is all great news, very glad to hear that china is having problems. Maybe, i doubt it, but maybe some companies will stop outsourcing and purchasing products from china and there slave wage labor. They have destroyed many companies and their employees. I hope the companies that outsourced manufacturing to china go down also. This is only my opinion I could be wrong or mis-guided. Sorry for anyone I may have offended.

Well, comments like "slave wage labor" are mis-guided. That's unfair because the cost of living is so much lower it follows that the wages are lower.

It's the same reason a person doing the same job in New York City earns more than a person in Mobile Alabama.

As far as outsourcing goes. You really can't fault business for trying to increase or maintain their profitability. That's what business is there for.

When a factory comes into your town they are there because it makes financial sense to be there. When the factory is losing money or is barely breaking even then the owners of the factory have to look at what they can do to keep it running or shut it down.

Business doesn't owe anyone a job. From small to large business hires as needed and downsizes as needed. That's just the business cycle. The needs of the owners/shareholders will always be directly opposed to the needs of the employees. I personally feel that the best method to run a business is to make every employee a shareholder. Then the interests are aligned and the employees work very very hard to grow the business they are invested in.

But that's another topic.

Back to outsourcing and China specifically. Every business in the world would like to have it's production be as close to it's consumers as possible. No one likes to outsource and especially not half a world away.

China is getting more sophisticated. They now have a middle class that is larger than the entire American population. By middle class I mean people who own their homes, own cars, can afford to travel, etc....

Factory owners in China are finding that they can sell products to the domestic market for as much or more than the retail price of those same goods in the USA. So they don't have be the bottom of the food chain anymore and take the smallest slice of the pie.

Again this is normal in the cycle. So increasingly foreign companies are having a harder time with their Chinese production, especially small to midsized companies. The big boys in China, the big multi-nationals, have imported their own people to run things and generally they have a great handle on their Chinese operations. (generally, but there are notable exceptions).

So as a result a lot of companies that jumped on the outsourcing train are now looking to get off and explore other options. Communities in the USA are offering subsidies for companies that bring jobs to their towns. Free training, tax breaks, preferred land, free roads, etc... Companies are looking at the lower wages in rural America and other alternatives to see if they can bring production and service closer to the consumers of their products.

The world is changing for sure. I happen to believe that everyone on Earth deserves the opportunity to make the best life they can. To me it's not an us vs. them kind of thing. We want happy secure lives and so do they and it's possible for all of us to have it.

[Mike Christen]

The world is changing for sure. I happen to believe that everyone on Earth deserves the opportunity to make the best life they can. To me it's not an us vs. them kind of thing. We want happy secure lives and so do they and it's possible for all of us to have it.

Agree completely

[Doug Griffith]

It's the same reason a person doing the same job in New York City earns more than a person in Mobile Alabama.

I've never been there myself but know many who have. US manufacturers looking into outsourcing. While it may not be slave labor, it is not comparable to the lowest income areas of the United States. Their working poor make our working poor look like kings (relative to their own people).

[John Barton]

I've never been there myself but know many who have. US manufacturers looking into outsourcing. While it may not be slave labor, it is not comparable to the lowest income areas of the United States. Their working poor make our working poor look like kings (relative to their own people).

Well, all I can say is that it's hard to understand how things really are until you actually live here. Even visitors only get the barest glimpse into what life is like here. Things that appear to be one thing to the western visitor are not.

When I said I live here I mean that I really LIVE here. My wife is Chinese. I deal with her family every day. I have a workshop with seven employees and am confronted with culture issues every day. I have been to more factories than I can count.

It's not slave labor in China and nowhere close to it. To make that comparison really discounts the true horror of what slavery is.

That's not to say that there aren't instances of REAL slavery in China. There are and it's an offense punishable by death and when convicted the slaver is executed within days of the sentence being imposed.

In China every worker is free to choose where they want to work and for whom they want to work. It is PRECISELY this freedom which is part of the problem that the factories are facing in China - due to the labor shortage workers are gravitating towards the factories which offer the best pay, housing and benefits.

I don't want to get too deep in socio-economics here. It's just not a fair comparison to use the term slave-labor to depict either the wages or the real labor climate in China. It is also not easy to compare a highly developed country like America and a developing country like China. China has a broad facade of modernity and from the outside it appears in some ways to be as developed as the USA and Europe. But once you live here you understand that this is mostly just surface glitter.

[Dan Hintz]

John,

I for one am quite glad you're here to offer at least a glimpse into what the Asian connection is like. It's all too easy for foreigners (and us Americans in particular) who have never traveled the globe to make snap judgments with no more evidence than what they saw on the Fox news network. I don't believe I've spoken with a single with a single visiting foreigner who isn't amused and/or appalled by the sheer arrogance Americans (appear to) have for the rest of the world, and it's both a blessing and a curse. Our hearts are generally in the right place (trying to bring stability to unstable regions, disaster relief, etc.), despite potential ulterior motives like oil, but in doing so we end up having to play the part of the school bully. No one likes a bully.

Many still think of China as the National Geographic story from 30 years ago, but it's not (generally) the slave labor camps most picture in their minds. As you said, the main difference often comes down to fundamental cultural differences in what is important. When you're trying to build a country up from poverty, copying ideas is a quick way to get going. But now we're entering a transition time where copying simply isn't cutting it anymore, there needs to be innovation.

I expect to see those changes happen throughout my lifetime, but I doubt they will happen fast enough to see the country completely like the US was 30-40 years ago before I die. I'll cross my fingers, though...

As long as we can keep the political rhetoric to a minimum (as I believe we have so far), these types of conversations should continue to pop up from time to time as a friendly reminder. That's my opinion, anyway...

Cheers!

[Scott Shepherd]

You really can't fault business for trying to increase or maintain their profitability. That's what business is there for.



I'd disagree with that to a degree. I think you can fault a business for taking work out of the country. Being I'm one of those that watched it happen from the inside. China wasn't the mouth watering greed center at the time, it was Mexico. I was right inside of all of it and I can tell you without a doubt, in our industry (machinery that produced food), it was all a lie. A myth. I provided data point after data point in comparisons to show that moving to another country would hurt business, not help it. It would raise cost, not lower it. It would reduce quality, not increase it. It would cause on time delivery to go down, not up.

My analysis was that it was a huge mistake and would cost us our quality, delivery, and reputation. They didn't listen to me, instead, they listened to the bean counters who can't or don't measure so many real world things that do cause businesses to succeed or fail, and guess who was right?

Our quality went down, our on time delivery went down, our non payable service calls went up due to quality issues, and we lost business because of it.

When you stop getting castings locally because you can pay $25 each instead of $80 each, you think you're getting a bargain. However, when you got it local, the castings were pure. They machined beautifully, they didn't have trash in them, and they weren't made with unpredictable materials, along with the fact if you needed one, you could have it in a day or two. Fast forward to buying them from Mexico or China for $25 each. You get customer orders coming in for them, a batch of castings shows up, you start to machine them and find out they are fill of pits, or even worse, contaminated materials. Now you've wasted all the setup time for the machine, and you have no castings to delivery finished products to the customer. Now what? Call them up and get more? Great, that'll be 4-6 weeks. Okay, so my customer that's got a machine down in a production line now has to be down for 6-8 weeks before they get the finished part. It just don't make sense, other than to a bean counter on a piece of paper. In the real world, it's bad business and bad customer service.

If you are running a retail store, it might be a fine business model, but in my experience and opinion, in the manufacturing/service world, in the long run, you'll pay the price for trying to chase a dollar that exists on a piece of paper. In the end, that $1 you saved might cost you $5.

And once you take all that work and send it out of the country, then why should I be loyal to you as an employee? You're already proven to me that you don't care about the people that make you money, and as soon as some bean counter finds another penny to squeeze, you'll cut me out too. So what's that to my moral? What's signal does that send to people to be innovative inside the company? It sends the signal that says no matter how hard your work or how many great ideas you have that will make us money, if we get the chance, we'll send you to the curb.

To me, that's a huge mistake, but few companies understand the things you cannot (or they chose not to) measure that shows just how meaningful your people are in your company.

I don't blame anything on China, Mexico, or anywhere else. There aren't Chinese CEO's making these decisions, it's American CEO's making these decisions and that's who I blame.

[John Barton]

I'd disagree with that to a degree. I think you can fault a business for taking work out of the country. Being I'm one of those that watched it happen from the inside. China wasn't the mouth watering greed center at the time, it was Mexico. I was right inside of all of it and I can tell you without a doubt, in our industry (machinery that produced food), it was all a lie. A myth. I provided data point after data point in comparisons to show that moving to another country would hurt business, not help it. It would raise cost, not lower it. It would reduce quality, not increase it. It would cause on time delivery to go down, not up.

My analysis was that it was a huge mistake and would cost us our quality, delivery, and reputation. They didn't listen to me, instead, they listened to the bean counters who can't or don't measure so many real world things that do cause businesses to succeed or fail, and guess who was right?

Our quality went down, our on time delivery went down, our non payable service calls went up due to quality issues, and we lost business because of it.

When you stop getting castings locally because you can pay $25 each instead of $80 each, you think you're getting a bargain. However, when you got it local, the castings were pure. They machined beautifully, they didn't have trash in them, and they weren't made with unpredictable materials, along with the fact if you needed one, you could have it in a day or two. Fast forward to buying them from Mexico or China for $25 each. You get customer orders coming in for them, a batch of castings shows up, you start to machine them and find out they are fill of pits, or even worse, contaminated materials. Now you've wasted all the setup time for the machine, and you have no castings to delivery finished products to the customer. Now what? Call them up and get more? Great, that'll be 4-6 weeks. Okay, so my customer that's got a machine down in a production line now has to be down for 6-8 weeks before they get the finished part. It just don't make sense, other than to a bean counter on a piece of paper. In the real world, it's bad business and bad customer service.

If you are running a retail store, it might be a fine business model, but in my experience and opinion, in the manufacturing/service world, in the long run, you'll pay the price for trying to chase a dollar that exists on a piece of paper. In the end, that $1 you saved might cost you $5.

And once you take all that work and send it out of the country, then why should I be loyal to you as an employee? You're already proven to me that you don't care about the people that make you money, and as soon as some bean counter finds another penny to squeeze, you'll cut me out too. So what's that to my moral? What's signal does that send to people to be innovative inside the company? It sends the signal that says no matter how hard your work or how many great ideas you have that will make us money, if we get the chance, we'll send you to the curb.

To me, that's a huge mistake, but few companies understand the things you cannot (or they chose not to) measure that shows just how meaningful your people are in your company.

I don't blame anything on China, Mexico, or anywhere else. There aren't Chinese CEO's making these decisions, it's American CEO's making these decisions and that's who I blame.

I totally see your point and I understand you as I am also thinking of business from the engineer/logistics point of view. "Business" however is mostly bean counters. They rule the roost and not the engineers and logistics specialists.

I think that most of us need to understand that we are all in a big social experiment.

Sam Walton wrote in his book that his biggest regret was not extending stock options to all of his employees much earlier than they did. Now of course we can argue that Wal Mart today isn't exactly the poster boy for treating their workers right but Sam did care about them when it was his company.

But honestly, we live on a globe and industry has always gone where labor is cheaper. Whether that means setting up one town over or one state, or a country industry has no permanent home. Once upon a time America was the low wage place to have goods made for the Europeans. Industry exploits resources and labor until it's no longer "profitable" and then it moves on. That's been the cycle for a long time. Of course there are some companies that make it a point to put down roots and be a pillar of the community. Those are exception generally kept as private holdings and run by exceptional people.

I agree with you that the decisions made by "business" that adversely affect quality in order to increase profitability are generally crappy decisions. I still don't see business as a charity though. At the end of the day it's the bean counters who run the company and their responsibility is to the shareholders. Which is why I think that employees ought to earn stock so that they too can vote on and also have a stake in the health of the company.

I am a big fan of open-book management where the employees are able to see all the accounting of the company and they become involved in seeing how their actions affect the bottom line. In the few examples I have read of companies who practice this they have employees who work hard to make the company more efficient and competitive.

One of my former friends and former partners used to work as a delivery driver for a German brewery. He told me that he used to swipe a keg or two a week and sell them on the side to his friends for parties. I used to ask him why he thought that this was ok. He said that the brewery was big and wouldn't miss them. I said well, you have 13 drivers and if all of you do this then that's 13-26 kegs a week that go missing, which equals x-amount per year - so they downsize to 11 drivers to make up the lost revenue and you have to work harder to make up the routes in the same amount of time. He still didn't get it. I feel that this mentality is prevalent in a lot of big companies where individual employees could care less about the "health" of the company, and even if they did care they couldn't find out how healthy the company is if they wanted to. So many companies are bloated and inefficient that no one has a handle on them.

I honestly don't know which direction the world will go in. I lived in Germany for ten years and have seen factories losing ground because of union concessions that make union members practically unfireable. I worked in a factory where the workers could be sick for months on end and never lose their job. It was often joked that once you were able to get in the union then you had a job for life because the company could not fire you as long as you didn't get stupid. I saw factories going to the former eastern bloc countries to get out from under the union rules and the oppressive taxes that Germany imposed.

All I want to say is that there are two sides and it's not as simple as just plain "greed".

I personally have been on both sides of the fence as factory worker and as company owner. I have owned businesses in Germany, America and now China.

Anyway, I have no answers really other than the dynamics are complex. Frankly I am with you and sometime desperately wish I could source machines and parts from America. Being here in a business capacity is not exactly good for one's mental health.

[Scott Shepherd]

I still don't see business as a charity though.

I don't either. I see it as a partnership, as do most successful companies. We're forming a partnership when you hire me. It's in my best interest to do well for the company and share my thoughts and knowledge to help the company get stronger. In return for me doing that, you reward me with a job. As long as you take care of me, I'll take care of you. When you stop taking care of me, I'll stop taking care of you. When that all happens, who will you turn to that will make your company stronger? Without good people, you have no company. Global sourcing or not. People make and break companies and the one's that break companies, are usually one's where the companies don't give a hoot about their people.

[Rodne Gold]

Business is driven by customers- ask em to stop buying the cheaper imported stuff...let's see if their patriotism and nationalism extends to their short term pocketbook.

[Mark Winlund]

Sam Walton wrote in his book that his biggest regret was not extending stock options to all of his employees much earlier than they did. Now of course we can argue that Wal Mart today isn't exactly the poster boy for treating their workers right but Sam did care about them when it was his company.



Remember when Wal-Mart advertised that their goods were "made in the USA"? When he died, his children were made instant multi-billionaires. In a few short years, they completely changed the character of the company. A good argument for confiscatory estate taxes. Of course, this assumes that the government could do a better job with the money. Not likely.

Mark

[Martin Boekers]

Business is driven by customers- ask em to stop buying the cheaper imported stuff...let's see if their patriotism and nationalism extends to their short term pocketbook.

Sometimes though, we have to give them a choice. I am starting to label
products that are made here in the United States with a flag sticker.

In the next few months I will be photographing and printing a catalog of my product line and that too will have designations for made in USA.

I do sell a variety of locally made items and am trying to come up with a design for a sticker to label those also.

I do think there ought to be a level of support for the country your business is in. Sometimes it matters to a client other times not.
It does matter to me, but in this industry it is difficult and sometimes you have to be creative to find or create these items.

Marty

[John Barton]

Remember when Wal-Mart advertised that their goods were "made in the USA"? When he died, his children were made instant multi-billionaires. In a few short years, they completely changed the character of the company. A good argument for confiscatory estate taxes. Of course, this assumes that the government could do a better job with the money. Not likely.

Mark

Actually I don't remember that Wal Mart ever advertised that their products were "made in the USA". I don't even think that this was possible ever for Wal Mart. Sam Walton started out with a Ben Franklin Five and Dime store and he had to accept a lot of goods that the BF headquarters supplied and he augmented that selection with items he went out and sourced. Of course by the time I was old enough to drive to Wal Mart on my own they had already been in business some 20 years or so. So I am sure that there is a lot about the Wal Mart of my youth that was quite different than today.

As for the inheritance. The Walton family all had shares and were all incredibly wealthy long before Sam died. They actually had set it up as a family trust from the beginning on the advice of Helen Walton's father, an attorney, if I remember the book right. (too lazy to Google it)

I do know that Wal Mart tries to work with US manufacturers to bring the prices to a point that consumers can live with. Wal Mart is heavy handed certainly and they are not the shining example that they once were. But they are not all bad either. You definitely walk on the blade when you deal with Wal Mart.

As for inheritance taxes I find that to be silly at best. To me it's double dipping on the government's part. The income that paid for the property and assets had been taxed once already. There should be no more tax on the mere transference of assets.

But I digress. I could go on and on and on about these topics. It's pointless though to analyze them - at the end of the day I still have get crap done no matter what China and Wal-mart do. :-)

Y'all have a good one and I hope JDS gets their issues worked out - we know all too well what it's like to be out of stock with a basket full of eager customers.

[Rodne Gold]

We have a proudly South African sticker on loclly made goods , problem is it means nothing when a offshore version , no matter that its lesser quality , sells at 1/4 of the price.
Small price differentials might make the patriotic choice an option - but to give an example - I import about 200 000 marble blocks of one size (5x5x2) From china and they land here at 30c including all freight and duty etc - some travertine , some black marble - all just "ok" re quality and about a 5% reject rate. Same block produced here from local quarries , slightly better quality would cost me $6. my customer wont pay $6 for the block a small figurine sits on. China 1 - South Africa 0.

[John Barton]

Sometimes though, we have to give them a choice. I am starting to label
products that are made here in the United States with a flag sticker.

In the next few months I will be photographing and printing a catalog of my product line and that too will have designations for made in USA.

I do sell a variety of locally made items and am trying to come up with a design for a sticker to label those also.

I do think there ought to be a level of support for the country your business is in. Sometimes it matters to a client other times not.
It does matter to me, but in this industry it is difficult and sometimes you have to be creative to find or create these items.

Marty

I think that this is the right approach. I have often found that people are willing to pay a higher price if you give them a reason why. Now I don't think that "made in USA" is reason enough but that's another topic as well.

Still though since "made in USA" is a hot topic why not give them a choice? If I were going to do that then I'd make sure that all my items were labeled with country of origin. That way each consumer can look at the label and decide whether that means something to them or not.

The point I want to make about this is that "made in USA" doesn't say anything about the quality of the product, how the people who made it are doing, the corporate citizenship of the company that made it etc....

Actually if I were going to label things then it would be by quality ratings. I'd have choices based on quality and show my customers why this item or that item is a better value based on the quality.

But that's just me and of course since I am in China I am biased.

Personally I like to source as close to home as possible just for logistic's sake and for the personal touch. I like to be able to drive over to my supplier and wring his neck when something's wrong and buy him lunch when something's right. And I like not having to wait two months for every order.

So I always start out close to home and give every supplier in my immediate area a shot at my business before casting a wider net.

One last piece of advice I can give you all who wish to source "made in USA" products. Form a buying group. Pool your purchasing resources and make it worthwhile for suppliers to tool up and offer you the products you'd rather be buying in the USA. Such a group takes some effort to administer but at the end of the day it's win-win for everyone.

[Mark Winlund]

Actually I don't remember that Wal Mart ever advertised that their products were "made in the USA".

Yes. Big signs when you walked through the door. Also TV advertising. Of course, that doesn't mean that they actually did it!

Mark

[Andrea Weissenseel]

I received a letter a couple of weeks ago, from my plastic films supplier in Germany, that orders need to be made early and that delivery times will increase up to 6 month. Reason for this is, that ingredients needed for the production are all going to China. So it's not only that we cannot compete with their production rates, we can't even produce. Years ago, German companies outsourced production to the eastern countries like Poland and Hungary, because everything was cheaper there - well at the moment it's China but the next one in line will be there.


I import about 200 000 marble blocks of one size (5x5x2) From china and they land here at 30c including all freight and duty etc - some travertine , some black marble - all just "ok" re quality and about a 5% reject rate. Same block produced here from local quarries , slightly better quality would cost me $6. my customer wont pay $6 for the block a small figurine sits on. China 1 - South Africa 0.

but it won't stay like this. For instance yesterday I had to order shirts for my embroidery business and was informed by my supplier that most producers will raise their prices up to 25% by July, due to higher production and labor cost on the asian market.


At the end of the day it's the bean counters who run the company and their responsibility is to the shareholders

I don't think either that business is a charity but IMHO this is the bottomline of the problem.

Andrea

[Scott Shepherd]

This could a perfect time to put the hurting on your competitors that use all Chinese stuff. If you can produce products, you'll be able to offer something they can't. If they can't get products and have long lead times, you'll be able to take that sale from them and deliver.

I see this is a good time for many of us, not a bad time.