The patio furniture reshoring test

Before Cindi Marsiglio, vice president of U.S. manufacturing at Walmart, took the keynote stage at FABTECH in Atlanta, a dramatic video played, showing shuttered U.S. factories coming back to life. Walmart has pledged to spend $250 billion over the next decade on products made or assembled in the U.S. It’s what Marsiglio called a “250 billion purchase order,” which the company announced a year ago at the National Retail Federation’s annual conference in New York.

Marsiglio added, however, that bringing products stateside of course has to make business sense for customers and company shareholders. “We would like nothing more than to sell gas grills made in the U.S.,” she said, before pausing a bit before adding a telling coda—“sold at the right price point, of course.”

Data released today from consulting firm A.T. Kearney Inc. show that reshoring is lagging imports. The trend may come from the fact that while many companies have set up assembly operations, they lack the supply base for all the parts, especially electrical components. Some parts are just more expensive to source locally, while other parts just can’t be found at all. A Wall Street Journal blog cited Stanley Black & Decker’s Charlotte, N.C., assembly plant, which relies heavily on overseas suppliers for component parts.

Still, Patrick Van den Bossche, a partner at A.T. Kearney,” told the Journal that “I think we’re definitely on an upward trend in terms of U.S. competitiveness.”

The data seem to confirm what Marsiglio emphasized during her FATBECH presentation last month. Businesses are reshoring when it makes sense to do so. This includes items requiring quick-response, such as seasonal items that hinge on less predictable demand factors, like the weather.

“It was a nice summer,” she said, “and I would have liked to have more patio furniture to sell.”