Said It Here

US suppliers that don't charge double Chinese prices

Domestic manufacturers often charge twice as much as overseas suppliers, making it difficult to keep profit margins close to previous levels. This price gap prevents small business owners from moving away from generic items and adding custom branding to their packaging.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

  1. 1
    comparing total landed cost instead of unit price
  2. 2
    sourcing through multi-country wholesale partners or international suppliers
  3. 3
    Using generic packaging
  4. 4
    Buying blank containers and stamping them manually
  5. 5
    Applying printed labels onto generic containers

In their words

Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.

r/restaurantowners1 person · September 2026

I wanna move away from the generic stuff and actually have some branding on the to-go stuff.source ↗

Naturally, I wanna keep my margins as close as I have them ... but I don't mind paying a few more cents per cup/box/bag to get some branding out there.source ↗

Anybody "gotta guy" with a warehouse (even if it's overseas) that's reputable?source ↗

Exciting_Figure_8060 · r/restaurantowners · 3 upvotes
r/smallbusiness1 person · September 2026

is there any us suppliers out there that don’t charge like 2x what the average Chinese supplier is chargingsource ↗

chickenjockeyyyyyyy · r/smallbusiness · 2 upvotes

Where this came up

People with this problem also raised