President Trump hopes to encourage more American manufacturing with his import taxes on foreign products. But an online experience suggests that most people are not willing to pay a bonus for a “made in USA” product.
Angela Weiss / AFP
hide
tilting legend
Angela Weiss / AFP
Ramon van Meer sells shower potatoes made in China and Vietnam.
When President Trump imposed steep prices on Asian imports this spring, Van Meer decided to discover if it had business so that his business transformed production in the United States.
“I wanted to see how many people would really pay for the more expensive version” made in the USA “, said Van Meer.
He therefore created an online experience. On its website, where customers can already choose from a variety of finishes – Chrome, Nickel or Black – for their shower potatoes, Van Meer offered two options: the imported shower head for $ 129 and a domestic version costing about $ 100 more.
How he came with the price
The higher price of the domestic option was based on what would cost Van Meer to sew a supply chain from zero – a company to manage plastic molding, another to make the metal veneer and a third to provide the special filter that eliminates chlorine and heavy metals. No company manufactures a product like that of the United States today, and if Van Meer wanted to start, he thought it should charge about 85% more than for the imported version.
What he found from his experience could pour cold water on Trump’s efforts to encourage more domestic manufacturing. The results were not even close. Of the more than 25,000 people who visited the website during the two -week trial, around 600 ordered the imported shower head. Not a single person clicked on the “Made in USA” model.
The Ramon Van Meer company sells filtered shower potatoes made in Asia. He says that making a domestic model pencil, he should charge about 85% more.
Afina Showerhead Company
hide
tilting legend
Afina Showerhead Company
“I was surprised and not surprised,” said Van Meer. “I expected the cheapest, in Asia (version) to quote” win “. But I did not expect the results to be unbalanced.
Then there is Savershower, which is manufactured in the United States
The offers of a brick and mortar store suggest similar purchasing models.
Almost all the shower potatoes exposed in an Ace hardware store outside of Washington are made in China. The solitary exception is a water -made water version made by Rick Whedon’s family business in West Hartford, Conn.
“My father designed the original Savershower in 1976,” said Whedon proudly. “We are shipping 2,000 shower heads per week from here because everyone wanted to save energy.”
In addition to ACE equipment, the Savershowers are popular at Menard’s, a large domiciliary renovation chain in the Midwest.
“Menards buys us because we had a product made in the United States and we were the only one they could find,” Whedon said. “Buyer Ace told me that he did not think of consumers at all where a product is made. And I somehow think that he is right.”
Eight local suppliers are needed to make parts for the cast iron shower head, and they become more difficult to find.
“When we started this, there were 300 machining workshops in Connecticut that transformed brass to make parts,” said Whedon. “Today, there could be 75.”
Whedon’s company manufactures most of the other models in their shower potatoes abroad, with the exception of this original version and economical in water.
It is doubtful that Trump’s new pricing policy triggers a national renaissance in this type of manufacturing.
“There is nobody in the United States who will start to make shower potatoes here, even if the price was 250%,” said Whedon.
David Malcolm looks at Leslie Velasco forges of shower. Malcolm’s company manufactures shower potatoes in California using a combination of national and imported parts.
David Malcolm and High Sierra Shower Shower Potatoes
hide
tilting legend
David Malcolm and High Sierra Shower Shower Potatoes
The California irrigation expert transformed the manufacturer of shower potatoes
Even companies wishing to make in the United States often find it difficult to compete.
“We are billing a reasonable price for our shower potatoes,” said David Malcolm, an irrigation expert in California who transformed his know-how into water for interior plumbing about 15 years ago. “If you compare yourself to the” Made in China “shower heads, ours may be the price twice.
Malcolm bought parts for his shower potatoes in a machining workshop in Merced, but this shop fell back when most of its customers went abroad.
“At the time, everything went to China,” recalls Malcolm. “And so little by little, the machining workshops disappeared.”
Today, Malcolm buys parts from a supplier in Taiwan. Its website announces shower potatoes “built in our factory in the California mountains from domestic and imported parts”.
“If the strategy behind the prices consists in bringing industry back as screw machining stores in the United States, this cannot be done at any time,” said Malcolm. “It must take time.”
So far, neither the buyers nor the president have been patient for this. Trump temporarily suspended his most punishing prices on imports from China after a little over a month. And we don’t know what comes next.
“Uncertainty is really bad for business owners,” said Van Meer, the marketing of the Texas showering. “It will even be very difficult to plan in advance for more than three months.”
Van Meer said he had not abandoned the manufacture of shower potatoes in the United States. But it is not a high priority. He noted that imported products also help to employ American workers.
“Port employees are paid. Trucks. Warness employees,” said Van Meer. “The recently conversation only concerned manufacturing jobs, but not on all the other jobs that are alive because we can do it in other countries and sell it at a price that people are ready to pay.”
