I didn’t really come into this project thinking it would be easy. I just didn’t think it would be difficult. Searching online for USA made products has proven to be fairly painless. However, expanding the information by brand or retailer quickly becomes a challenge.
Challenges with Manufacturers
Challenges with Retailers
Manutailers do Share
Doing it my way; the hard way
Manufacturers
I contacted several manufacturers asking which of their products where made in the USA. In some cases, the response I got back was vague. Here is an example:
“Many of our products are still made in the United States, and the majority are assembled in the United States. We have manufacturing plants in Blytheville, Arkansas and Jackson, Greenwood and Kosciusko, Mississippi. Because of the global marketplace, some items are sourced overseas, as are parts in just about every item you purchase today, from automobiles to consumer electronics.”
The last word, “If you have a specific Model number that you are interested in, I will be happy to tell you where that specific item is manufactured.” Now I’m thinking, do they not know where their items are made? Do they not want to tell me where the items are made? Or, do they simply have so many products that they can’t provide that bulk of information? At this point, I’m still mystified. Their products are not included in this website simply because I couldn’t verify which products are made in the U.S. or which are “sourced overseas.”
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Retailers
My success with retailers was nil. For the most part large retailers do not know which products they sell are actually made in the USA. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, they are in the business to sell goods and make profits. They do not want to alienate any of their selections by blatantly pointing out what is American made. In many cases, searching a major on-line retail store for the “Made in USA” label resulted in zero findings. That is not to say the retailer didn’t have any Made in USA products, only that their product descriptions lacked the information or the search engine wasn’t working properly.
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Manutailers
On the other hand, manutailers (companies who are a combination manufacturer and retailer) have been more than willing to provide information. Perhaps, this is the exact Made in USA product niche the consumer, not to mention the large retailers, are missing.
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Doing it my way; the hard way
The awareness of American made products came primarily from on-line news sources or the company website. Occasionally, I would follow a lead from a book such as A Year Without “Made in China”, written by Sara Bongiorni or How Americans Can Buy American by Roger Simmermaker. Now and then I would reference one of the Consumer Resource web sites, an on-line store, or other related websites.
Mostly I researched products and companies mentioned in news articles, things in my home and anything I happened to find in the store while I was shopping. Verification that products were actually made in USA, came easily in some cases and extremely difficult in others. Again, when a product could not be verified, it was not included in the data.
The process started with trying to find the website of the company whose product was allegedly made in the USA. Once the company website was located, I would then search the website for some indication of the manufacturing location or Made in USA claim. Since companies are obligated by law to ensure that their products are “all or virtually all” made in the USA before they make the claim, any indication on their website of the manufacturing location would have to be accurate, otherwise they would be violating the FTC Regulations. If the claim was made or the website indicated the city and state where the manufacturing plants were physically located, verification was complete.
Another technique for finding products made in USA was to surf an on-line store and use the search feature if one was available. This was not always a reliable way to obtain definitive information. However, when available, the feature was useful, particularly when the web site included the product origin as part of the product description. The search results proved to be very accurate for Amazon.com but were deceiving in other cases. Much of this had to do with the search engines’ abilities. For example, if the phrase Made in USA were typed into the search field, some search engines would search for each word but not necessary find the words in order. That particular search engine might require “Made in USA” in quotes to find all the words in order. In other cases, the search engine would find all occurrences of the letters, which would produce results such as - rocking.
Each day as additional news reports would come in, new products type or brands would be mentioned and the process would start again.
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July 29th, 2008 at 4:40 am
I saw Nike products being manufactured in another country. Why is it listed here?
July 29th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Great Question! Companies produce many items under
single brand names. Each of the products can be
made in one or more countries. In this case, Nike
makes Dri-FIT socks in the USA. Though I haven’t
found the exact location the origin is advertised
on both the http://www.nike.com website and on the
http://www.basspro.com website.
The search database at http://www.madebyyankees.net will
help demonstrate these kinds of situations.