Faced with steep tariffs on Chinese goods, a small business owner decided to test Americans’ willingness to pay premium prices for domestically manufactured products. The results challenged common assumptions about consumer behavior in an era of economic nationalism.
Ramon van Meer, founder of specialty shower head company Afina, conducted a real-world experiment after President Trump raised tariffs on Chinese imports by an additional 145%. While many consumers claim they would gladly pay more for American-made products, van Meer wanted evidence beyond surveys and social media comments.
“I’m big on just testing it out with real data and real purchases,” van Meer told Business Insider. “When somebody has to pay for it, that’s the actual real data.”
The experiment was straightforward. On Afina’s website, visitors were presented with two identical filtered shower heads – one manufactured in Asia priced at $129, and another labeled “Made in the USA” for $239. The price difference reflected the nearly triple production costs van Meer discovered when sourcing from American manufacturers.
After several days and more than 25,000 site visitors, the results were definitive – 584 customers purchased the Asian-made product while the American version received zero sales. The add-to-cart rate for the U.S. version was less than 1%.
In a viral blog post documenting the experiment, van Meer described the outcome as “sobering.”
“We wanted to believe customers would back American labor with their dollars. But when faced with a real decision – not a survey or a comment section – they didn’t,” he wrote.
The experiment highlighted a fundamental challenge for reshoring manufacturing. While van Meer had initially explored moving production to the United States to avoid tariffs, he found the economics unworkable. The Asian-made version – with final assembly in China using some Vietnamese components and American-made filters – required just one supplier. The fully American version would need coordination between four to six separate suppliers.
“Staying in China is not sustainable because even if they make a deal, we don’t know what’s going to happen,” van Meer said. “The United States is also not an option, because there’s just no facilities that can make it.”
The shower head maker currently has enough inventory in U.S. warehouses to last until August, at which point the company will need to account for tariff costs. Whether that will mean price increases or surcharges remains undecided, though van Meer hints at further testing.
The experiment offers insights for policymakers promoting domestic manufacturing through tariffs. In his company blog, van Meer suggested that “‘Supporting U.S. manufacturing’ becomes a luxury most can’t afford – even if they want to.”
For small brands hoping to manufacture domestically, the math remains challenging, with van Meer noting that without “serious shifts in consumer incentives, automation, and trade policy,” reshoring often proves financially unviable, regardless of patriotic sentiment.