Anthony bird-dogged a report on a fellow who had trouble sourcing in China, Matthew Burnett. Now no surprise there, he had not taken my seminar so these things happen. After hav ing problems in China, what he decided is to have his garments made in USA. The next problem was to find USA suppliers of garments. Hard to do.
So, in his suffering (passion) he found joy in solving the problem. He organized a website that showcases garment related manufacturers in USA. This is what the internet is good at, widening the access and lowering the cost of research and communication. (I wonder if he checked out Thomasnet.com for say "denim jeans" and if so, why that did not do the trick?)
Anyway, from the article...
Nicole Levy is one manufacturer who likes the new website. Her small factory, Baikal, makes fashionable handbags in Manhattan. She got a lot of calls from designers who saw her video online. She even had to hire more workers to keep up with demand.
I would test the reaction she gets from Thomasnet.com vs. makersrow.com for both number and quality of inquiries.
"It could revolutionize the industry domestically because it could create a lot of labor for domestic factories and keep them around," Levy says.
Maybe, on the other hand, it may just reiterate the reason people go overseas, which is the crazy make-work regs, the absurd minimum wage laws, employer-mandate and confiscatory tax regime in USA that drives creative people to seek management of production overseas.
Also, a "Made in the USA" label could be a good selling point for American consumers who want to avoid ethical questions about overseas manufacturing.
The way to avoid ethical questions is to decline to act unethically. If one acts unethically, then it does not matter where you produce. Where you produce does not determine ethicality.
Some new designers don't quite understand how domestic manufacturing works. Their rookie mistakes and naïve questions can be irritating to an old-timer like Terry Schwartz. His company,Sherry Accessories, has been in New York's Garment District for decades.
"The ones I can't handle are the ones who are making a product, who want to know why I can't make it for the same price as the Dominican Republic," Schwartz says.
Mr. Schwartz need to dummy up that MOQ order offer page to repel the unserious and attract the serious.
"I do have some things that are very unique," Schwartz says. "I honestly never saw things like this before, and I'm trying to create these for these people, to make them work."
And here is where the rubber will meet the road. Mr. Schwartz is not competing on labor rates, he is competing on the cost of managing the design and production process of the items in question. Can Mr. Schwartz out-hustle the Chinese factories in China and the Chinese factories in the Dominican Republic? Will the Chinese managers require less compensation for the same level of expertise of result?
The answer to that question will determine if garment making comes back to USA, if the investors in makersrow.com ever see a profit from their investment in the website.
But Matthew Burnett has had the "experience." He found out joy is not something you can get directly, but it is a by-product of passion (suffering.) He found joy in working on a problem.
There is no stopping him now.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
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