Ramon van Meer, a small business owner and founder of Afina, recently put a widely held belief to the test: would customers actually pay more for American-made products? The answer, according to van Meer, was a resounding no. After hearing countless times that consumers prefer to support domestic manufacturing, van Meer decided to test this theory with real dollars — not surveys or promises.
His test followed the implementation of a 145% tariff hike on Chinese imports under the Trump administration. Curious about how the shift might affect his business, van Meer explored moving the production of his top-selling product, a specialized filtered shower head, entirely to the United States. The results of this experiment were, in his own words, “sobering.”
Domestic Manufacturing Tripled Production Costs
Van Meer’s original shower heads are assembled in China, with filters made in the U.S. and some parts sourced from Vietnam. To shift production completely to American soil, he had to find up to six separate suppliers — each handling a different component of the process. The move to a fully American-made products was not only logistically complex but also financially daunting. The cost of full U.S. production would be three times higher than continuing manufacturing in China, even with the steep tariff.
To gauge if customers would absorb the increased cost for a domestically made product, van Meer ran a live pricing test. Visitors to Afina’s website were offered two identical shower heads: one made in China for $129, and one made in the U.S. for $239. Over several days and with more than 25,000 site visitors, 584 Chinese-made products were purchased — while not a single buyer chose the U.S.-made option.
Tariffs and Manufacturing Dilemmas Leave Few Viable Options
The outcome of van Meer’s experiment delivered a clear message: when it comes to actual purchasing decisions, customers overwhelmingly choose price over patriotism. “We wanted to believe customers would support American-made products with their dollars. But when faced with a real decision — not a survey or a comment section — they didn’t,” van Meer reflected in a blog post that quickly gained viral attention.
Now, van Meer is focused on finding alternatives outside both the U.S. and China. With Chinese tariffs making production unsustainable and U.S. facilities proving too costly or inadequate, he’s exploring other lower-tariff countries for manufacturing. “The United States is also not an option, because there’s just no facilities that can make it,” he said.
His experience reveals a hard truth for businesses navigating rising tariffs and global supply chain shifts: consumer intentions often don’t align with their wallets — and that disconnect has major implications for American-made manufacturing.
