How To Support Fair Trade Organizations

how to support fair trade organizations

Find out more: What Is Fair Trade? - Benefits of Fair Trade

Fair Trade: Getting Started

Getting started supporting fair trade can take a variety of forms. You may purchase fair trade products, encourage your local boutique or museum gift shop to carry fair trade products, or you may volunteer with a fair trade organization. Each action positively impacts fair trade, a system that encourages fair wages, economically and environmentally sustainable production, gender equality, and cultural preservation.

Fair Trade Information Resources

If the idea of fair trade is mind-boggling or strange, spend some time online researching your options. Several websites give a good overview of fair trade, and offer links to fair trade organizations, producers and merchants.

Transfair USA is a nonprofit organization and member of the Fair Trade Labeling Organizations. Transfair, along with other FTLO members audit and certify products, offering fair trade certified labels to products meeting the criteria.

The Fair Trade Federation The Fair Trade Federation is an organization that coordinates Fair Trade efforts, markets fair trade and researches fair trade in world markets. The FTF spreads awareness about fair trade products and their benefits

Aid to Artisans provides support, training, economic assistance and a wealth of assistance to producers of fair trade products. They also have an online marketplace.

Fair Trade Product Sources

You can find out if your local gift shops and boutiques carry fair trade certified products by simply asking! Some fair trade product websites list establishments that carry fair trade products. There are some stores that are geared almost exclusively toward fair trade products, easily located in chamber of commerce and internet business listings.

For some great online shops, check out the following links:

Gaiam is a lifestyle company featuring products for organic, environmentally conscious and sustainable living. They have a marketplace of fair-trade items.

ShopTheCause.org --This is the website of Women Thrive Worldwide, an organization that seeks to influence governmental policy for the benefit of women around the world. They also offer a marketplace of unique and beautiful fair trade items.

World-Shoppe.com Another comprehensive online marketplace for fair trade jewelry, home accessories and more.

How to Buy Fair Trade Products

True fair trade products will be labeled with a fair trade certified label from a fair trade labeling organization. Most fair trade products come with story cards or information about the people who produce the product.

For retail establishments that wish to purchase fair trade items for resale, several businesses help facilitate the process. One organization can be found at: http://www.globalcraftsb2b.com They can establish connections to fair trade producers.

Ten Thousand Villages , the business that sprang from Edna Ruth Byler’s original “storefront” (the trunk of her car) in 1958, has grown into a massive retail and wholesale provider of fair trade products.

How to Market Fair Trade Products

There are two schools of thought about marketing fair trader products. Fair trade is a fantastic system of producing and purchasing that benefits the producing communities in ways that conventional free trade cannot. Because of that, highlighting the story of the producers can provide a marketing boost for products. However, fair trade products will not provide great income for the producers or re-sellers if they cannot stand on their own as well. Socially conscious consumers will look for fair trade products before choosing anything else. Mainstream consumers will want the prettiest, trendiest and most stylish or unique product, and may or may not care whether the product is fair trade. Fair trade, in this instance, becomes “gravy.”

Fair Trade Impacts the Bottom Line

Carrying fair trade products can positively impact the bottom line of a store. With consumers growing ever more conscious about their choices, fair trade items offer a guilt-free purchasing option for shoppers. Fair trade products are also unique and interesting—unlike anything that can be purchased at a chain store. All of the handmade items are one-of-a-kind works of art in their own right, which can be a powerful selling point to draw in consumers. Fair trade products are not generally more expensive than other, comparable products. That makes purchasing fair trade easy on the wallet and easy on the mind.

Find out more: What Is Fair Trade? - Benefits of Fair Trade