No one jumps into manufacturing in China as a 1st choice, especially not small time producers. Who would skip the convenience and assurance of having stuff domestically?
I'd wager they did their research and could not find any in-country manufacturers that would custom produce a design (along with creating any custom tooling required), in such small quantity, at economically viable pricing.
In the past, I've tried to get relatively "ordinary" products (e.g. luggage & cosmetic packaging) made within North America (had to expand local to regional) to almost no avail. I found many "manufacturers" here import their products from China. Only a handful businesses actually make stuff here and their minimum requirements often do not make sense for small/new businesses. And the differences in pricing between local & overseas producers far exceeded the examples discussed here.
That said, as that kickstarter post showed, nominal pricing is only part of the cost of overseas production (they underestimated foreign logistic issues, refinement costs, etc) and final cost may make it not worth making the leap. Many products are simply too expensive for small businesses to produce at home OR abroad. They would have stopped their experiment earlier but they do have 11,280% of requested capital to play with in this case.
I'd wager they did their research and could not find any in-country manufacturers that would custom produce a design (along with creating any custom tooling required), in such small quantity, at economically viable pricing.
In the past, I've tried to get relatively "ordinary" products (e.g. luggage & cosmetic packaging) made within North America (had to expand local to regional) to almost no avail. I found many "manufacturers" here import their products from China. Only a handful businesses actually make stuff here and their minimum requirements often do not make sense for small/new businesses. And the differences in pricing between local & overseas producers far exceeded the examples discussed here.
That said, as that kickstarter post showed, nominal pricing is only part of the cost of overseas production (they underestimated foreign logistic issues, refinement costs, etc) and final cost may make it not worth making the leap. Many products are simply too expensive for small businesses to produce at home OR abroad. They would have stopped their experiment earlier but they do have 11,280% of requested capital to play with in this case.