Ramon van Meer experimented with consumer willingness to pay for U.S.-made showerheads by offering a domestic version priced about $100 higher than an imported counterpart. His online test revealed that, despite over 25,000 site visits, no customers opted for the more expensive option, highlighting a significant preference for cheaper imports. This finding poses challenges to the effectiveness of U.S. manufacturing policies aiming to increase domestic production, as consumer behavior showed overwhelming support for lower-priced imported goods over higher-priced local alternatives.
I wanted to see how many people would actually pay for the more expensive, 'Made in the USA' version, van Meer said. So, he set up an online experiment.
What he found from his experiment could pour cold water on Trump's effort to encourage more domestic manufacturing. The results were not even close.
I was surprised, and not surprised, van Meer said. I was expecting the cheaper, Made-in-Asia version to win. But I was not expecting that the results were this off balance.
not a single person clicked on the more expensive, 'Made in the USA' model.
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