Longtime Macintosh carrying case-maker Willow Design officially announced on Tuesday the company is going out of business. Willow Design President, Nigel Peck said it was a difficult decision to make, but was necessary based on the economics of offshore competition.
“All Willow cases are hand sewn in small batches by individual seamstresses,” said Peck. “This has guaranteed superb quality, but this has been an expensive way to make the cases. With increased competition of offshore made cases produced at labor rates of .22 cents to .30 cents per hour, we found we just couldn’t compete.”
Peck noted that he did have two other options: decrease the quality of the cases or move production offshore, but neither of those were acceptable to him.
Willow Design is offering a final closeout sale on all of its stock before they close the doors on February 29.