Where and how a thing was made changes what people will pay for it. That’s why these claims are worth making, and why regulators check them.
Customers can’t check where a product was made or whose hands made it, yet they pay for those facts. Three lines of research explain why; one FTC rule sets the cost of getting them wrong.
George Newman and Ravi Dhar (2014) found that people see products made in a brand’s original factory as carrying the “essence” of the brand, a belief in contagion, and so as more authentic and more valuable than identical products made elsewhere. People more sensitive to contagion showed the effect more strongly, and priming the idea of contagion strengthened it Published. Their studies used everyday branded goods, including Levi’s jeans Reported (Yale School of Management).
The founding workshop and the town on the label carry that essence. That’s real value, and it’s why moving production without changing the story is a problem.
Christoph Fuchs, Martin Schreier and Stijn van Osselaer (2015) found across four studies that “handmade” makes products more attractive, largely because people feel handmade products symbolically contain the maker’s love. In one study, people asked what they would pay for a bar of soap for their mother offered $6.56 when it was described as handmade and $5.63 when machine-made Published, about 17% more Derived. The effect held for gifts to loved ones but not to distant recipients, and was stronger when the goal was to show love rather than to get the best-performing product Published. So “handmade” earns most on gifts, and on the occasions people buy them.
Ryan Buell and Michael Norton (2011) called it the labor illusion. In five experiments with travel and dating websites, people who were shown the work being done on their behalf valued the service more, and could even prefer a longer wait to an instant result, with identical results Published. In later field experiments in food service, Buell, Tami Kim and Chia-Jung Tsay found that when cooks and customers could see each other, customer-reported quality rose 22.2% and service got 19.2% faster Published.
Show the work you really do: sourcing, batch testing, hand-finishing, fit sessions. Shown effort is valued; it just has to be real.
The claims customers value most are about things they can’t see. Keep the records they’d want to see.
The FTC’s Made in USA Labeling Rule took effect on August 13, 2021. It covers labels and mail-order promotional material, including material sent electronically. An unqualified “Made in USA” claim requires that final assembly or processing happen in the US, that all significant processing happen in the US, and that all or virtually all ingredients or components be made and sourced in the US Published. Violations carry civil penalties. A qualified claim, like “Made in USA from imported leather,” is the honest alternative when the inputs come from abroad.
Enforcement is active. From 2021 to 2024 the FTC brought 11 Made in USA actions with $15.75 million in judgments Filed. In July 2025 it sent warning letters to four companies, and to Amazon and Walmart about third-party sellers’ US-origin claims Filed.
In 2020, Williams-Sonoma settled FTC charges that it had falsely advertised several product lines as all or virtually all made in the USA, and agreed to an order requiring truthful origin claims. In April 2024 it agreed to pay a $3.175 million civil penalty for violating that order, which the FTC called the largest ever in a Made in USA case. According to the FTC, mattress pads sold under its Pottery Barn Teen brand were marketed as “Crafted in America from domestic and imported materials” but were made in China, and six other products advertised as made in the USA were also deceptive Filed.
A company with a legal department, under an order naming the exact issue, still let the claim run on products it didn’t fit. Copy outlives the facts. That’s what the proof file is for.
This is one chapter of The Proof File, which is free and readable in full on a single page with no form in front of it.