Look for American Made Products at Trade Shows!

by Don Sanders

A great way to focus your time at trade shows is to look for suppliers who feature domestically made products.

Here are four reasons why you should be looking for American suppliers when attending trade shows:

1. Service -- Since they make the products in this country, they don't run out of stock.

2. Quality -- You can't always be sure of the quality of overseas items until they arrive in the factory. American supplier manufacturers deliver batch-to-batch consistency.

3. Open account credit -- Domestic manufacturers understand this to be an essential part of the customer relationship. Credit is usually not available for imported products. If an overseas factory closes, you have little chance of recovering your deposit.

4. Intellectual property -- American manufacturers understand the importance of rights to distributors and end-users.

Markets for domestic goods are often service-oriented. If you're selling to unions, schools, nonprofits and health care organizations, you know that they tend to be value-and-service-oriented, rather than price-oriented. American-made promotional products can show solidarity, help with team building or identify volunteers.

A supplier that we recommend for American made products is the Dooley Company.