Vise Grip moves to China Options

[stock93]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26531610/

This pisses me off. I've bought a bunch of their pliers and really like most of them. I for one won't be buying them anymore. Now if I manage to break one they're going to give me a china made replacement. If anyone wants to send them feedback here's their page http://www.irwin.com/irwin/consumer/jhtml/contactUs.jhtml
I sent them a letter myself.

John

[VaccaRabite]

For good or ill, we are a global economy. Businesses need to balance cost and quality against their target market.

The people that will buy quality no matter the cost is a small market, and already has good penetration.

The people that buy quality = cost are looking at Craftsman grade tools, and that market is still relatively small with good penetration by a few companies.

The majority of the market wants cheap tools that will only need to be used a handful of times. They are going to buy purely based on cost, and even then probably won't use the tool enough to wear it out or break it.

There is money to made selling tools, but the only markets that arn't saturated are the once selling to cost. You have one guess at where cost driven items are made.

Dismal? Maybe. Raising tariffs and closing borders would not be a good long term solution either though. For most consumers, it would not even be a good short term solution, as they are not interested in the quality products - they are buying on cost. Tariffs would raise their final cost, possibly putting American businesses out of business by removing their bread and butter items.

I've got several sets of vise-grips that are over 20 years old. The company has not made a dime off of me. If they want to stick around, they need to make a product that will sell to a cost point audience.

Zach