In April 2024, Williams-Sonoma agreed to pay $3,175,000 to the federal government.
The Federal Trade Commission called it the largest civil penalty ever in a Made in USA case.
Among the products at the center of it: Pottery Barn Teen mattress pads marketed as “Crafted in America.” They were not.
Now hold that next to the thing this company actually does for a living. It sells a skillet for three hundred dollars that you could functionally replace for forty. It has done this profitably for fifty years. Last year it earned an 18 percent operating margin, which in retail is extraordinary.
Both of those facts come from the same place. And it is not the copper.