Over the past 30 years, Tarlow Design has developed more than 1,000 products. We have built relationships with reliable product manufacturing companies, both domestically and overseas. It is important to know that you are working with a manufacturer that will produce consistent, high quality products at an agreed upon price, in an agreed upon time frame. It is also important to be able to clearly communicate with the manufacturer so that important design features do not get lost in translation.
Some of our overseas product manufacturing companies have offices in the U.S. so that the ultimate responsibility for the product lies with a company based in the U.S. If there is a problem, it can be resolved here instead of 6,000 miles away. Obviously, it is ideal to be able to manufacture products in the U.S., but if there is a high labor content, there may be no choice but to manufacture outside the U.S.
We have worked with manufacturers in Mexico, China, Taiwan, India and Vietnam. We are happy to report that recently it is becoming more affordable to make products in the U.S. because, as the cost of labor increases in developing countries, the cost differential between U.S. factories and overseas factories decreases. Some of our U.S. manufacturing sources have relations with sister companies in China, so that the U.S. company can manufacture initial production runs, and as volume demands increase, can shift over to Chinese production.
Some of our clients require a very short production run before going into full production. In these cases, we have resources to produce between five and five hundred units so that potential store buyers can make purchasing decisions and write a purchase order that can be filled with the first large production run.
We also have clients that need the parts of their products to be assembled, packaged and shipped. Tarlow Design has relations with “Fulfillment Houses” that perform these tasks. We even have access to fulfillment services that employ mentally disabled people who are perfectly capable of performing simple assembly tasks.