Sorry to hear it but I understand. The parts market for cruisers is getting so soft it's nearly impossible to do it anymore.
There's still a lot of business on the mechanic end but since I've been doing parts since the late 80's I've seen the market go from
robust to just bust. A month ago we were contemplating the same, as I do the end of every year since the bank crash. Again,I've decided to
test it through the holidays and see what happens in the early months. I have no kids otherwise I would have closed in 2008. The US market
is difficult because consumers have become used to Walmart prices and Amazon delivery schedules. Small shops like yours usually run into
problems trying sell at a price "the market will bear" rather than what it really costs to build it. People see an ARB bumper for 850.00 and associate that value with fair market. The fact that the bumper is made in the orient with steel prices half what they are here and labor costs less than one tenth of what they are here makes no difference. Factor in general overhead in the US verses Thailand and the cost gap widens. I went on an ARB
sponsored run with the second in command at the time. He told me that the cost of production, start to boxed, was less than 90.00
for the ARB front made in their plant in the orient. The costs of shipping , marketing , local support and distribution here added times that to the price. ARB understands the key to offering a products is to offer a limited choice and build in numbers. If you only did group buys of ten your margins would double. There's where the problem lies. It's hard to find ten sales of a premium product.
Thanks for sharing this information
@Output Shaft and
@lcwizard , it seems to go the heart of the dilemma for a manufacturing start-up in the US...all things being equal (from a product quality/performance), cost wins...
But...if ARB is using robots to manufacture their bumpers, then it makes me wonder if the production cost reduction isn't mostly due to the 'automation' of labor (replacing the welder with a robot) rather than the reduction in the cost of labor (replacing a higher paid American welder with a lower paid Thai welder).
So if this is true (that the reduction in production costs is due to 'automation') then in order to be competitive in the US market, a US manufacturer must either automate or differentiate.
If he automates, then the value he adds is no longer as a welder, but rather as a designer.
If he differentiates, then the value he adds is in offering a functionality in the product that overseas manufacturers are not offering (they are playing the economy of scale game, as noted in the example of doing 'group' buys).
Differentiating could mean developing and owning Intellectual Property that adds some benefit (meets a yet unmet need) for the American armor consumer.
A business strategy for building a business off of this would be either to license that IP back to a manufacturer like ARB or retrofitting/recylcing existing, used bumpers (for example) to incorporate that IP protected functionality into a new, re-manufactured product...something an overseas manufacturer can't easily do because they are far away.
Or differentiating could also mean selling a hand-crafted (artisian), one off, customer specified product. Also a business strategy that is out of reach to the overseas manufacturer, because they are playing the cost reduction, economies of scale game. But this artisian strategy means that customers are willing to pay a premium for more control in the design of their product...because, as mentioned above, an artisian style manufacturer can't compete on cost with a competitor building economy of scale.
Just some thoughts off the top of my head...
Lol man o man if we only lived closer... Well you are only 700 miles away... 
I'd be your intern in a heartbeat, working for free! I can only sit here and imagine the knowledge I would receive. Did you notice the can of worms up above? Yes, you were the first to reach out to my noob self when I joined this great forum. It meant a lot! robustbambi did too, and Kline, and I'll make it to their neck of the woods sometime in the future as well, you mark my words!
