Made in China. Those words never did fill Americans with a sense of solidity or quality. But neither had they made us gag before with thoughts of antifreeze in our toothpaste or lead paint on our toys.
Now, while the American consumer looks warily for “Made in China” on the merchandise, an increasing portion of the shelving units and store fixtures that bear that merchandise also comes from China. How worried should our industry be?
I remember earlier this decade, when importing fixtures from Asia was picking up steam, that the major concerns were with engineering, timeliness and cost. But American fixture-buyers who dipped their toes into the China Sea reassured everyone that none of that was an issue. China’s factories and equipment were amazingly state-of-the-art. Even given the distances and cumbersome nature of trans-oceanic shipping, things were coming in on time, ready to be assembled. And as for cost, why else do it? Materials were readily available, labor was cheap, crews worked around the clock and everything happened like, well, clockwork. Chinese efficiency – good news for everyone! (Unless, I suppose, you were one of the laborers working 36 straight hours on the powdercoating line.) Nobody much worried about fussy things like regulations, human rights and quality control.
Savvy U.S. manufacturers, seeing their business sailing across the Pacific, became proactive. Some brokered manufacturing deals with the Chinese. Some went into full partnerships with Chinese manufacturers or even acquired their own plants over there.
And so, this was becoming “the Chinese century.” Remember? Until March, when an uncommon number of dogs and cats suddenly died in the U.S. from pet food contaminated by wheat gluten tainted with melamine, traced to China. Since then, other Chinese imports – including tires, toothpaste, produce, seafood, juice and toys – have been recalled or come under scrutiny. Carcinogens. Industrial chemicals. Farm run-offs. Toxic waste. Contaminated water. Illegal additives. Corruption. One Chinese regulatory official was sentenced to death. Another killed himself.
True, nobody’s terribly concerned that store fixtures from China will contain contaminated ingredients. But there is suddenly new concern every time a box from China is opened. Rust? Bad fittings? And what’s in that paint?
It’s a set of worries retailers rarely had when all their fixtures were made in North America. So they’re relying on that same trusted set of manufacturers to ease their concerns. “Retailers have come to depend on their local fixture companies to manage the process overseas,” says Klein Merriman, executive director of the National Association of Store Fixture Manufacturers, “and the manufacturers have been up to the challenge, having a presence in China to manage the specifications, engineering and quality control.”
It’s become even more complicated now, notes Merriman, because of so many changes in the Chinese manufacturing industry in the past decade. “Those Shanghai and Guang Gho companies that had been driving the business have become more expensive,” he says, “so U.S. retailers are having to go farther afield to get the same cost benefits, and maybe those plants aren’t quite so sophisticated.”
It made me think of the state of the industry a decade ago, when most retailers’ relationships with their fixture manufacturers were friendly and long-standing, based on trust and sealed with handshakes. Today, with mergers and consolidations, bankruptcies, bidding and off-shore sourcing, it’s not as easy to know with whom you’re doing business. Retailers may find themselves depending on a new company they barely know to manage the process halfway around the world for a company they don’t know at all.
Progress isn’t always progress, is it?