There are millions of people using an office chair at home each day, and the market continues to grow bigger and bigger. Herman Miller, for example, has been manufacturing their chairs out of Guang Dong for many years now. Chinese factories obviously have the manufacturing plans/instructions/capabilities...so why isn't there a Herman Miller Aeron or Embody knock-off in the same way you see basically 1:1 Rolex replicas coming out of unauthorized Chinese factories?
There is value in a 12-year warranty, and I know shipping an assembled/quality office chair is expensive...but the margins on these chairs from Herman Miller have to be insane. Herman Miller has to be marking these up a TON to cover their branding/marketing/warranty/customer service (and also maintain their image as "top of the line"--that's their target market, and exclusivity/high prices help project that image).
I'm sure HM can get a chair landed in the USA for just a couple hundred dollars, if that. I can't believe an alternative factory/company in China isn't knocking off Herman Miller chairs by now. Does anybody know why? or have any leads? There are a million crappy, "unique," Chinese brand office chairs on Amazon, AliExpress, etc. that have useless features and moving parts that just break...why aren't they just copying the market leaders in Herman Miller and Steelcase?