US Merchants Makes its Mark in Injection Molding

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US Merchants Makes its Mark in Injection Molding | Plastics Technology

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In less than a decade in injection molding, US Merchants has acquired hundreds of machines spread across facilities in California, Texas, Virginia and Arizona, with even more growth coming.

US Merchants’ Ontario, California, injection molding facility features 46 1,200-ton LS Mtron injection molding machines. Photo Credit: US Merchants

Now the owner of hundreds of injection molding machines, Jeff Green speaks frankly about his company’s molding knowledge when he acquired his first presses in 2014. “We didn’t know anything about injection molding,” Green says. “I knew as much about injection molding as you know about flying a 747 airplane.”

In a second-story conference room at US Merchant’s Beverly Hills, California, corporate headquarters, I’m seated across from Green at a glass-top table. I’ve just met the president and CEO of US Merchants, but his assessment of my aviation abilities is accurate. Nowadays, Green does know injection molding, and what he’s always known is retail, from sourcing, packaging and merchandising to shipping and logistics.

In the hallway leading to the conference room, the walls are decorated with two of Green’s formidable collections: sports memorabilia and patents for his packaging and product display concepts that are now ubiquitous at retailers, including the warehouse club stores that he grew alongside starting in the 1980s.

Beginning in retail himself in 1979 with a tennis store in Beverly Hills dubbed with the pun-intended name — The Merchants of Tennis — Green grew into the wholesale business at a time in the early ‘80s when warehouse club chains were just getting started. One of Green’s patents is for the Pallet Program he devised as a means for those retailers to turn pallets of shrink-wrapped and boxed-up goods into ready-to-go, point-of-purchase displays with nothing more than a box cutter.

“When you have to farm things out to third parties, you’re only asking for issues with delivery and excuses why something can’t be done.”

Over the years and owing in part to Green’s desire for maximum control, US Merchants vertically integrated everything from graphic and package design to thermoforming and thermoform die manufacturing to shipping and logistics with his own fleet of trucks. “Our business started to grow, and not just in packaging,” Green says, “but now we offer a nice menu of items that a manufacturer or retailer can select from, be it packaging or logistics or transportation or buying the product and reselling it, which a lot of manufacturers like. We’re really a turnkey solution for them.”

Back in 2014, one of those manufacturers requested something that wasn’t on the menu, asking US Merchants if it could make it a better 27-gallon storage container. “I do have engineers in my packaging and machine area that understand what injection molding is and they said to me, ‘Jeff, this product requires different equipment than what we currently have,’ and so I said, ‘Will you look into it and let me know what the cost is,’ and I went back the very next day to the customer and said, ‘If you give me a commitment…’ — because we don't do anything unless we have a firm commitment — and that customer gave me a commitment, sight unseen. I guaranteed that the product would be better than what they were currently selling. I went ahead and I bought some equipment, and that’s how I got into the injection molding business.”

Jeff Green, president and CEO of US Merchants, grew his business alongside the warehouse club stores that emerged in the ‘80s. Photo Credit: US Merchants

Today, US Merchants operates seven facilities in California, with additional sites in Virginia, Texas, Canada and Arizona, as well as a planned expansion into the U.K. The company has standardized on LS Mtron injection molding machines, and it credits the Korean press maker and several other vendors with helping it transition from a molding newbie to an old plastics hand.

Specifically, Green and US Merchants credit Shingo Hirate, president of equipment distributor Hirate America Inc., Anaheim, California, with helping the company understand what would be needed to get started in injection molding. Green and Larry Khemlani, US Merchants VP of Operations, met Hirate while walking a plastics trade show, and Hirate’s willingness to get into the nuts and bolts of starting a molding business from scratch won him a new and prodigious customer. US Merchants would order four full molding machine cells from Hirate shortly thereafter and then another three in quick succession.

Working closely with Steve Gwon and his machinery distribution company E Solution Inc., Hirate and US Merchants soon switched over to LS Mtron injection molding machines. Eventually, Gwon and Hirate would help US Merchants not only source machines but molds, hot runner controllers, auxiliaries, robots, chillers, material handling systems, gantry cranes, mold tilters and more. Beyond sourcing, they also gave the rookie molder advice on everything from part design and employee recruiting to laying out and commissioning new plants.

In June 2023, US Merchants opened a facility in Glendale, Arizona, covering nearly 640,000 square feet, which will have 69 LS Mtron presses when fully commissioned, including 2,500-ton and all-electric machines. A second facility is coming to Houston, and the company will be opening its first international molding facilities in Montreal and the U.K. The molding operation we tour in Ontario, which was purchased in 2017, has 46 1,200-ton LS Mtron presses divided into three rows.

“This is where companies like LS Mtron and E Solution have really made a difference,” Green says, “because these people are professionals and experts, and we’ve kind of put ourselves in their hands to help us and direct us in the right direction.”

A showroom displays just some of the totes, containers and shelving US Merchants produces at molding facilities across the U.S. Photo Credit: Plastics Technology

As US Merchants’ business has grown, so has its capabilities, driven by Green’s intense interest in maximum control over everything that can impact his business. “You could say I’m something of a very controlling individual,” Green says. “I always felt that we need to control our own destiny. When you have to farm things out to third parties, you’re only asking for issues with delivery and excuses why something can’t be done.”

The resulting vertical integration propelled by this mindset extends into some unexpected areas. To wit, the company’s original 245,000-square-foot facility in Ontario, California, includes a carpentry shop that designs, builds and installs all the office furniture for all of US Merchants’ facilities. Outside the shop, an “Arizona Project ‘22” poster hangs, marking its recent work to fully furnish the company’s newest outpost. US Merchants sent its own carpenters to the new facility where they took measurements for all its furnishings before coming back to California to build all the desks, shelving and more, and then return to Arizona to install it. When it’s not building furniture for the company, the carpentry shop also designs and constructs trade show booths for US Merchants, as well as store point-of-purchase displays.

“We don’t make mistakes because we’re trying to cut corners to make a larger margin. If I give you a better price, it’s coming out of my margin, never out of the quality of the product.”

“I can give a customer a delivery date,” Green says, “and I know that I can meet that date. Why? Because we control the entire process. We do all that in-house and we control it, so I know that if I give somebody a promise, I’m going to be able to deliver because we do everything in-house.”

At the end of the three rows of machines at the Ontario injection molding facility, some totes and other molded products are marked NCM (nonconforming materials) and will be scrapped. Khemlani notes NCM represents less than 1% of the company’s output, with the parts in question not meeting US Merchants rigid and rigorous standards, which are another core tenet of Green’s business philosophy.

US Merchants molds several million of the familiar black-and-yellow totes every week. Photo Credit: Plastics Technology

“My personal belief is quality stands the test of time,” Green says, “and so we as a company don’t cut any corners. I believe that making the highest quality product in the industry, you have the longest staying power.” With its molded products, that ethos extends to the removal of any flash and, if need be, to avoid warp and produce a tote that closes cleanly and securely off the press, longer cycle times.

“I don’t say I have the best standard in the world, but we live or die by what our standard is, so we don’t cut corners. That doesn’t mean we don’t make mistakes — we make mistakes like everybody else. We try to learn from our mistakes and not let them happen a second time, but we don’t make mistakes because we’re trying to cut corners to make a larger margin. If I give you a better price, it’s coming out of my margin, never out of the quality of the product.”

Another guiding principle for Green and his wife, Marie, who is also his business partner since the tennis shop, is to use that reputation for attention to detail and quality to secure order commitments prior to taking on new jobs or new markets. “Our formula, my wife and mine, has not changed since we started our business with our little tennis store,” Green says. “We don’t really do anything unless we have a commitment. Typically, a customer of ours will come to us and say, ‘Can you make…?’”

US Merchants’ newest Glendale, Arizona, facility covers nearly 640,000 square feet and will have 69 LS Mtron presses when fully commissioned.

Nowadays, many of those new requests make use of the company’s now extensive injection molding capabilities, including new sizes of totes and a line of molded plastic glassware. “If you ask me: have I ever made a drinking glass before — the answer would be no. Do I feel that the drinking glasses that we’re going to be coming out with are going to be exceptionally good and very well received? Absolutely.”

When Plastics Technology visited US Merchants’ original Ontario facility where those first seven injection molding machines are still molding totes, the packaging/logistics side of the operation was packing up everything from skateboards and boots to batteries and bags, with finished pallets marked for delivery to New Zealand, Japan, China and destinations beyond. Forklifts navigated a towering maze of shrink-wrapped pallets ready to be loaded onto trucks, including Green’s own. The full scope of the operations is a bit overwhelming, but it all makes sense to Green. “To an outside person,” Green says, “it looks very convoluted, but the truth of the matter is it’s like a jigsaw puzzle — everything fits into place.”

In the foreground, rows of shrink-wrapped pallets ready for delivery. In the background, US Merchants in-house thermoforming lines. Photo Credit: Plastics Technology

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US Merchants Makes its Mark in Injection Molding | Plastics Technology