Everyone Says They'll Pay More for "Made in the USA" So We Ran an A/B Test

When we priced a U.S.-made version of our flagship product 85% higher than our Chinese-made one, 25,650 customers had the chance to vote with their wallets. Here’s what happened. As small business owners, we’ve heard it a thousand times: “I’d gladly pay more to support American-made.” We wanted to believe it. So we put it to the test. We make filtered showerheads. Clean, sleek design. But more importantly, with the best shower filters on the market. Our bestselling model—manufactured in Asia (China and Vietnam)—sells for $129. But this year, as tariffs jumped from 25% to 170%, we wondered: Could we reshore manufacturing to the U.S. while maintaining margins to keep our lights on? An important part to mention is that our most filter materials (KDF-55) is sourced from the US. So technically we partly source from Asia. We found a U.S.-based supplier. The new unit cost us nearly 3x more to produce. To maintain our margins, we’d have to sell it for $239. So we ran an experimen ... Read full article.