Fair Trade House Party
Tammy Cody is a guest blogger and the views expressed herein are her own and do not necessarily represent the views of Shared Interest Society.
Tammy is the founder of Dignity Regained, an online store that exists to bring attention to the fair trade movement and the positive effect that it has on the fight against human trafficking. If you would like to be a guest blogger, please contact us with your interest.
When we closed our brick and mortar shop in December of last year, our only avenue of sales became our online store. While an online store has it’s upside (we can run it out of our home office which lowers the cost of running Dignity Regained significantly), it can also be somewhat frustrating at times. The interaction we have with our customers is limited to them visiting our website, reading as much or as little as they want, and looking at some pictures of products. We really want our customers to be able to hold and admire our products, while we tell them the story of the artisans and the importance of fair trade to their lives. We needed a middle ground.
I was a bit reluctant at first to try having a House Party. I didn’t want our customers to feel like a captive audience or trapped into buying something. (Even though I own a retail store, I am not the most sales oriented person for the job. Education and availability are more of a focus for Dignity Regained.) So when I discussed the idea of having Fair Trade House Parties with a friend, I was pleasantly surprised when she immediately volunteered to have one.
This past Thursday she gathered some of our friends from church, made up some snacks (of course everyone loves food) and opened her home to the store. I brought some inventory, set it up in the corner of the room, made some Fairtrade Soy Chai Lattes and set out some samples of Fairtrade chocolate. It was a smaller group, seven women. It was the perfect size for my first House Party because that is how I am most comfortable. For the first 20 minutes was sat and I explained the concept of fair trade, what human trafficking is, how fair trade prevents trafficking, and how Dignity Regained was started. I then pointed out a couple of items that I especially love, and told them that the products were available if they wanted to look or shop, but to not feel obligated. During this time some shopped, some asked questions and we did a giveaway.
It was a complete success. Everyone bought at least one thing, I was able to show them our website on a laptop computer so that they could shop later, someone booked another party for next month, everyone had fun and they left knowing about fair trade. I feel confident that House Parties will be a very good way to not only expand our store, but to also educate our community around us.
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may that be the first of many fair trade house parties!
Sally