my wife started a small textile type company once. she had a cute little niche product that was selling very well locally, she started making more of them and selling them around the world. Developed a pretty cool following and she was getting far more orders than she could support. We tried finding a way to make them in large numbers in a way that would keep it made in the USA and keep them at a price point they would sell at. In one market we even bumped the price up to what we thought we would have to do if we were going to farm out the production. This took it over that $10 mark. Sold almost nothing. If we farmed it out overseas we could keep the costs down and sell these things like crazy and we made money. Even just hiring a couple local people to do the work pushed the cost up so much higher that if we were going to make money on the project (that is the goal) we would have had to bump the cost way up. We could have made 1000 of them in Asia for the cost of 100 of them made here. (sort of... obviously not that simple or cut and dry but close) At $9.99 they flew off the shelf. at $14.99 couldnt sell them.... and we could not make them for $14.99 in the USA.. it sucks but that is my little taste of reality when it comes to made in the USA. In the end she got an admin job at school... spends way too much time there and the money is better so we abandoned the project.