I have been going to China for twenty-nine years. I started my first factory there in 2008. The first city I ever flew into was Beijing.
When the plane landed, I told the man next to me, "Wow, that's a lot of fog." He said, "That isn't fog. That is pollution." I could barely see across the runway.
The first town I went to work in was Tianjin. I was looking for someone to manufacture the waterwall designs I had chosen to build there. I walked into one acrylic factory, showed them my drawings and material samples, and they said they would have a prototype made for me. I spent the rest of the day visiting other factories. Within an hour they called — they had a prototype ready and would meet me in town with it. It was strange to see my own design sitting on a sidewalk in China. It wasn't bad for a first try. I told them what to change and they went off to build another one.
I was there about ten days that first trip. I flew home and spent weeks digesting what I had learned. What stayed with me most was the people. No matter what factory or restaurant I walked into, I was greeted with open arms. And it didn't matter what time of day it was — China was working. People were working everywhere, around the clock.
I went back a few weeks later and got lucky. I met a woman who offered me the option to open my own factory. I took it. Within five weeks I was in business. From that point forward, I was all over China's opportunities.
I don't go for products. I go with designs.
I have always looked for high-profit products. They don't come along often, so I usually design my own. Anything I can think of, I can produce in China. The country has some of the best craftsmen in the world. They are used to building low-end products, but taught properly — taught by me — they become extraordinary fabricators.
That is why I don't go to China to look for products. I go with my own designs and have them made. The work I design in China sells in the U.S. for retail prices that are sometimes ten, fifteen, twenty times my landed cost.
The reason it works is simple. The Chinese fabricators have the hands. I have the market. They sell to me at a small profit because they don't have a U.S. following — they have no distribution, no design eye for Western luxury, no thirty-year customer base. I have spent decades building all of that. When you put both halves together, the math takes care of itself.
Real examples.
I had an idea. American garages are full of cheap white melamine cabinets. Why not replace them with full steel cabinet systems — drawers, uppers, toolboxes, the whole wall — and sell them not to mechanic shops but to homeowners, through new-home builders as an upgrade option.
Landed cost: $430 per unit. Wholesale to home builders: $3,200. Retail to homeowner: $9,800. Over 12,000 units sold.
This door had not been built before. Solid copper, complex decorative panels, copper inlay throughout. I was quoted $78,000 to have it made in California.
Landed cost: $6,800. Sold for: $54,000. The customer saved $24,000 versus the California quote.
I designed these. My Chinese metal shop fabricated them. They went on to flank the entry of a private estate.
$380 each to fabricate. The pair sold for $13,700.
The same logic applies to the machinery that builds the products. About 60% of my equipment comes from China. It took me years to find the right factories — but once you have, the cost difference is dramatic and the quality is nearly identical.
U.S. retail: ~$176,000. Landed in China for my own operation: $38,900.
The pattern.
The pattern repeats across categories — illuminated signage, custom fixtures, sculptural water features, architectural metalwork. I have had sculptural pieces quoted at $75,000 and $96,000 in California fabricated in China for $4,600 and $7,400. Every project is its own design, registered in my name, made by partners I have known for years.
My designs ship to clients all over the world. I only see about a third of where they end up — the rest live in homes, plazas, hotels, and corporate lobbies I will never visit. That is the nature of the business.
The relationship continues.
I travel all over China to find talent — art, trade, local shows, fairs, anywhere skilled hands gather. The country is full of brilliant people. I love the food. I love the architecture. Both my book and my magazine are at the top of their categories in Mandarin.
I will always be working with China.
