Additionally, production is more easy to automate than repairwork, and what you cannot automate you can outsource to countries with cheaper labour. As long as

Additionally, production is more easy to automate than repairwork, and what you cannot automate you can outsource to countries with cheaper labour. As long as demand (and other circumstances, i.e. currently somewhat of a "Ha!") are sort of predictable, hiding the length of your supply chain can be easily done by shipping things over in bulk and sufficiently in advance. People won't care whether their widget was produced five minutes ago in the back room of the store or three months ago on the other side of the globe and then shipped over on a slow boat, as long as it's available when they want to buy it. For repairwork on the other hand, the same procedure doesn't work out as well, because you can no longer hide the latency inherent in minimising shipping costs.