Offshore manufacturing can be a smart move when you’re looking to cut costs without cutting corners, but only if you know which products make sense to send abroad. It’s not a one-size-fits-all game. Some items thrive in overseas production environments. Others get bogged down by complexity, delays, or surprise expenses that give accountants nightmares.
If you’re eyeing offshore production to lower costs, boost output, or just get a little breathing room in your domestic facilities, you’ve probably asked yourself what products are actually good candidates. Because spoiler alert: not all products play well in global supply chains.
Let’s break down which products belong on a cargo ship and how ITI Manufacturing helps companies produce them without breaking a sweat (or your budget).
First Things First: What Belongs Overseas?
Some products are simply better suited for offshore manufacturing than others. Here’s how to tell if yours makes the cut:
1. Labor-Intensive Products
If your product needs careful assembly or a lot of hands-on attention, overseas production can be a smart move. Labor-intensive items like furniture, decor, lighting or multi-part consumer goods often cost significantly less to produce overseas—especially when scaling.
2. High-Volume, Repeatable Designs
If your product is steady and consistent (meaning you’re not constantly tweaking the specs), it’s a great fit for offshore production. Offshore manufacturing factories are built to thrive on repetition—the more units, the merrier.
3. Easy-to-Ship Items
Size matters. Large or oddly shaped products can become a logistical pain to import. But small to midsize goods that stack neatly, travel well, and don’t require a forklift ballet during unloading? That’s offshore gold.
4. Products with Tight Margins
Let’s be real: not every item can handle high domestic labor and production costs. If your product needs competitive pricing to stay in the market, offshore production might be the only way to make the numbers work.
So that’s the what, but let’s talk about the who. Because knowing what could be made overseas is only half the story. Knowing who can make the products and make them well? That’s where ITI Manufacturing comes in.
What Exactly Can ITI Help You Manufacture?
At ITI Manufacturing, we specialize in metal, plastics, and custom component parts. Following our proven process, we excel in helping companies produce offshore manufacturing products with precision and reliability. Each part of our proven process is built on visibility, predictability, and accountability.
The kinds of products we know inside and out:
1. Commercial and Industrial Furniture
Not your everyday IKEA flat-pack. ITI helps clients manufacture furniture that needs to look great and survive serious use. That includes workstations, school seating, hospitality fixtures and display units (often with custom specs, materials and durability requirements). Our factories are vetted, and our boots-on-the-ground teams ensure that the product meets both visual and functional standards before it ships.
2. Lighting Fixtures and Components
We specialize in commercial-grade lighting projects (fixtures for retail, schools, infrastructure and more). We partner with factories that understand certification standards and compliance, and we make sure your components work the way they’re supposed to before they ever leave the floor.
3. Electrical and Wired Products
Got wires? Circuits? Integrated electronics? You’re not alone, and you’re not at risk when you work with us. We’ve managed countless electronics-heavy products with the kind of strict oversight that ensures everything is assembled, tested and shipped to your exact specs.
4. Multi-Part Assemblies
We love a good puzzle. If your product is made up of many different parts or materials, we handle the sourcing, assembly and inspections to ensure everything fits and functions just the way you intended.
5. Consumer Goods
From home décor to retail-ready promotional items, we’ve helped clients manufacture consistent, high-quality consumer products. And because we inspect everything before it leaves the factory, you won’t get any “surprise” versions of your product.
6. Custom-Designed Components
Have something unique? A fastener, fitting, or part that doesn’t exist off the shelf? Great! We’ve helped clients produce custom components with specific shapes, finishes and tolerances. Bring your idea; we’ll bring the plan to life.
When It’s Not Just About What You Make
Overseas manufacturing isn’t a vending machine. You can’t drop in a CAD file and expect a perfect product to appear. It takes a lot more than finding a factory, including:
- Vetting the right supplier
- Managing timelines
- Navigating time zones and language barriers
- Ensuring quality and compliance
- Handling freight, customs, and paperwork
Thankfully, that’s where ITI comes in to save the day (and your manufacturing). We don’t just help you pick the right product to manufacture; we guide the process from start to finish. We have bilingual teams on the ground in Asia. We have long-standing factory relationships. And we’ve built a reputation for catching issues before they ever reach your warehouse.
What Sets ITI Manufacturing Apart from the Rest?
At ITI, we’ve been doing offshore manufacturing long enough to know where things go wrong (and how to make things right).
Here’s what makes working with us different:
On-the-ground teams in key manufacturing regions
Bilingual project managers who speak the language and the process
Decades-long factory partnerships
Hands-on, pre-shipment inspections
Consistent, clear communication from kickoff to delivery
Whether you’re producing 10,000 units or 250,000, we handle the details so you don’t spend your mornings tracking shipping updates or deciphering unexpected invoices.
Want to know if your product is a good fit for offshore manufacturing?
If your product is repeatable, high-volume, labor-intensive, or expensive to make locally, offshore might be the right call. And if you want a partner who takes the guesswork out of the process? Contact us and we’ll help you figure things out and handle the heavy lifting.
