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P&G to build $100M Gillette factory

Labor costs are supposed to be even lower in Vietnam than in China. It could also be a useful hedge against political risk in China, and maybe in Russia too.

What will they make? I would guess a range of products, probably including the Guard, some disposables, some other cartridges, and maybe some DE blades. Right now I think the Vietnamese-branded Gillette blades are made in Shanghai.
 
I'd imagine they're just going to shift production of their part of their mainstream cart product line there, because labor will be cheaper than wherever they're being made now.
 
It's all about the labor. As mentioned above, China's burgeoning labor market is beginning to cut into profit margins. I had read where some manufacturers were studying the feasibility of moving operations into Africa in the pursuit of lower per-hour labor rates.
 
I think Gillette is in reality hedging its bets against the growing animosity between the West & Russia.
 
I found 2. One seems to be all plastic with 5 blades with and the other is plastic handle and metal head...
Can't get the pics to load. Says not valid image file.
but cool they're still being made. Not to the robust standard they used to, but nice to know that eyes still make them.
 
The more Gillette diversifies, the better for us because it ensures that there are factories to produce DE blades in case of political turmoil. Since hundreds of millions of men still rely on DE, having multiple factories is helpful even if 95% of this factory is used to make cheap cartridges. With most of Gillette DE production in Russia, China, and India, the possibility of politics disturbing supply is non-trivial.
 
Gillette manufactures blades in Vietnam now. I would imagine that they will produce DE blades for the near east market and possibly low cost carts to try to convert that massive market to their higher profit line

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Potentially stupid question: Can carts and DE blades be manufactured in the same factory if the same steel is used for the blade? I would venture a guess that there would be more equipment for carts because of the plastic used. However, if you simplify both down to sharpened and treated steel, would it be possible to produce both carts and DEs in the same factory?
 
Manufacturing in Vietnam is nothing new to P&G. They have had a presence there since since the country opened to private foreign capital investment in the mid 1990s. DE blades are already made there. Someone here posted a reference to the Dollar General (or Family Dollar, I forget which) DE blades made in Vietnam, though it is not clear if those have anything to do with the already extant P&G presence. It could be very likely that DE may be made there, or perhaps aging cartridge technologies such as Trac II compatible, since those are low-margin goods made in lower-wage countries. Estimates vary, but somewhere around 40% of the shaving world, including 500 million men in India alone, still use DE. Only in the industrialized world can Gillette charge what it needs to recover product development costs of up to $1 billion.
 
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