I was having some trouble figuring out how to identify manufacturers for my product. I knew I could search online, but how would I know which companies were legitimate? I really wanted to find a U.S. manufacturer vice going straight to China to manufacture my product. I had read that when searching for a manufacturing partner, most entrepreneurs assume that it is cheapest to look to China. And they would be right if volumes are very high and “per unit” costs are the most important aspect of your upfront costs. Nothing against China, but I really wanted to be able to put “Made in the U.S.A.” on my product.
Just by chance, one day I read an article about a famous woman whose household products we all know. In the article, a small sewing manufacturer was mentioned. It was noted that this manufacturer would work for small batches of product, but possibly not so much for huge orders. It seems that once a company is taking large orders of products, most of them then need to outsource their manufacturing to China. It is just more economical in most cases to do this. This small company that was mentioned in the article seemed like just what I needed, so I followed the instructions on their website for initiating a project and waited for their response.
After a week or so of no response, I asked my helpful hubby to call the number I had for the company to see if they were even still in business. My husband spoke with the woman who runs the company and, while she seemed completely swamped with work, she did finally get back to me via email. But that is where it stopped. I was ready to get started, but my next attempt at contact went unanswered. While I would have loved to use her company, I questioned whether I wanted to start a business relationship with a company that was so clearly overwhelmed.
I was beginning to think I should just go with China…

Want to see how it turned out?