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Davion Inc. has built its North Brunswick-based business around making bargain-priced lotions, shampoos, mouthwash.
And by bargain, company Vice President Jimmy Placa means really, really cheap.

The various dollar-store chains around the country are major carriers of Davion’s Personal Purity brand. It’s the reason the company has seen roughly 25 percent year-to-year growth the past five years.

Conquering this value-priced niche has given the company an opportunity to grab a new group of customers, ones hungry for low-cost, quality products that are made in the U.S.A.

They just come with a catch: They are outside our borders.

The export market is one Placa knows his company needs to tap — but one he knew little about. So he signed up for a new program offered through the New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program, the U.S. Commercial Service and FedEx called ExporTech.

It’s a program where Jersey companies can learn the do’s and don’ts of doing business internationally.

“I think we have a lot of room to grow domestically, but I think that the opportunity to go overseas is a really compelling one,” Placa said.

“’Made in U.S.A.’ in and of itself is a brand overseas,” he added. “That, as well as the falling dollar, allows our products to be at achievable price points in international markets. So I felt that now would be the perfect time for us to focus on growing that part of our business.”

Although Davion has done some exporting — he estimates its just 5 percent of his current business — Placa welcomed the idea of participating in the ExporTech program, which got him in the same room with people who have much more international business experience.

And that was the point of the program, said Jeff Hoffman, an account manager with NJMEP.

“They have to work at it. It’s not easy. But by us bringing all this together in this kind of a seminar, we’ve cut down on so much of their time and money in order to get to that point,” Hoffman said. “It’s a return on investment, and I guess really the thing that it comes down to is these companies took advantage of this program because they saw ROI.”