Business owner tests if people will pay more for the United States

As a small business owner, Ramon Van Meer says he is used to hearing people say that they would be ready to pay more for products made in America.

When President Donald Trump reduced prices on Chinese products by an additional 145%, Van Meer decided to see if buyers would put their money where their mouths are.

“I wanted to know the answer, then use it for my own business,” the founder of Afina told Business Insider.

Thus, the serial entrepreneur began to find American suppliers to make his best -selling product: a specialized filtered shower head.

Van Meer said that its filters are made in the United States, some additional materials come to Vietnam and that the final product is made in China with a single supplier.

To move everything in the United States, he had to find four to six separate suppliers that would manage various aspects of the production process, he said. All in all, he found that it would cost three times more to produce – more than the cost of simply paying the price.

Armed with real, he decided to take a test with two identical products, the only difference being their origin and, critically, their price. AFINA website visitors were presented with the possibility of a Chinese manufacturing item for $ 129 or an American manufacturing version for $ 239.

“I am very testing it with real data and real purchases,” said Van Meer. “Do not ask customers, not an investigation, not even additions.”

“When someone has to pay for this, it’s the real real data,” he added.

He said that after several days and more than 25,000 visitors, he sold 584 low -cost shower heads and not a single American version.

In a blush Post which has become viral, Van Meer described the results of “sober”.

“We wanted to believe that customers supported American work with their dollars. But faced with a real decision – not a survey or a section of comments – they did not do it,” he wrote.

Nowadays, Van Meer said that he spends most of his time trying to move the production of China to a country with a lower rate rate.

“Staying in China is not durable because even if they have an agreement, we don’t know what will happen,” he said. “The United States is not an option either, because there is simply no installation that can do so.”

Van Meer said that Faina had enough inventory in her American warehouses to last until August, when he should start to charge the price.

When asked if he was going to roll this cost in the price or apply an additional supplement, as other companies said, Van Meer said he had not yet decided.

“We are probably going to do tests,” he said.