![]() ![]() My inclination would be to write a letter to Foose Design’s Director of Marketing or National Sales Director and ask them if they have any (of this series of rims) made in USA? And in the future you will be more diligent in making sure ahead of time that it is made in USA…. At any rate, my whole point here is perhaps Foose hired Alcoa USA to make the rims and apparently Alco sent it to their factory in China. $1,500 on a bike is not a tremendous amount of money today but 15 years ago it was a bit more and the fact that it had a Chinese frame has really bothered me to no end. Now, with that being said, I did get to thinking last night (after I got home) and I realized that back in the mid 1990's I purchased a $1,500 bicycle that had an aluminum frame made by Alcoa for Giant. And until this thread, I would have never imagined any of his rims would be made in China. Perhaps (in the future) asking them if it's made in USA or Canada before placing an order would be fair. Foose are you listening? Bring it back West. By the way, is it possible that Foose bought this from and American company that later farmed it out to China? Perhaps making it a part of a larger production run? Perhaps it was an unintentional consequence? Mr. Besides, Foose is plenty intelligent enough to know that this could tarnish his reputation it's not like we found this in isle 12 at Walmart. So with regards to low volume (no commodity) products, there is a false economics associated with this. Now with this all in mind, you will need to import enough to make it worth your while and while that inventory is lingering you are loosing percentage points on your money. Additionally, Foose Design strikes me as a speciality market I get the feeling that their products are not a the volume that one associates with importing Asian goods to save costs.… Imagine this, if you import something from Asia, and if the turn around time is (let's say 8 week) before you can get started shipping the 1st lot of production, you first have to make enough to make it worth your while to ship (i.e., container load) and second with sea freight you will want to add around 4 weeks for shipping and customs clearance. And as an American manufacturer myself, I can say with certainty that China is losing their competitive edge 1) their government subsidies are gone and 2) the price of freight has gone up. ![]() I'm really surprised on a few levels, most of which: our demographic group really appreciates made in USA / Canada. ![]()
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