Fair Trade and The Economy

Yes, the current state of the economy is affecting sales in most businesses but in the case of ventures that are interested on creating social awareness and not getting the cheapest price, the hit is hard.

Not only gas prices make everything more expensive but the weak dollar reduces considerably our purchasing capacity and by default, reduces the amount of business we bring to the artisans and fair trade farmers.

Fair Trade ventures pay higher, much highter prices to the artisans creating the products in order to provide them with a fair wage and most projects, just like ours, buy small quantities which means spending a lot on transportation costs, usually more than the actual cost of the products

Even though according to the latest studies, most people are now familiar with the fair trade concept, there is still a small minority that decides to support the movement by choosing our items over some cheap product on sale at Walmart or some other big chain selling for sometimes less that what it costs us to buy it.

The Fair Trade Resource Network has a great quote on a little handbook that says that we, as consumers have a huge power in our dollars. Every time we spend on something we are voting for a paticular business model. This is true but most times we just don't think that our decisions are THAT important in the lives of the producers. Often, we just worry about spending the least amount of money even though the cost of doing that is great; especially for those ones that needs us the most. Children, women, poor workers in general trying to make a living with decency and hard work.

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