This morning I was speaking with a new wholesale customers for our terra cotta wild bird feeders and houses.
He has a very nice gift store in Skaneateles NY, which is located in the finger lakes region.
One question he had was do we indicate on the goods or literature that the items are indeed made in the US. That was an easy question because all our wares are tagged with detailed info about us and how and where they are made.
He said more and more customers are looking for quality, hand crafted goods from the us.
That does not mean all imports are inferior. It is just that people have become wary of cheap imported goods that are sold in shops and at crafts fairs, represented as hand crafted in the US.
The problem is this practice of misrepresenting goods hurts the reputation of honest artists and degrades the reputation of else wise quality shows to flea markets.
Interestingly enough, while I was doing research for this post I came across a website that caters to country craft type gift stores. The question from the writer is ” Can we remove the made in China stickers from items we want to sell in our store? ” Call me naive, but I am amazed people would be this dishonest, or this stupid to think that just removing a sticker is enough to fool everyone. The answer to the question is no, you should not and a link to the Federal Trade Commission was listed.
The best way we can fight this is to try and educate our buyers, wholesale or retail.
The illusion persists, however and I am getting tired of answering the question, “do you make these yourself?”