What's the Mission - Fair Trade or Lifestyle?

As we worked on the concept, we often asked ourselves whether we'd like to be a fair trade store selling lifestyle products or whether we'd like to be a lifestyle store promoting fair trade. For some, the difference is not big between the two.

But there is, when you think about why anyone should be interested in buying our products. We want to offer irresistible and quality products to our customers and they will buy it - not because they are fairly traded, but simply because they are irresistible and quality products.

The way I am looking at this - it is almost a cycle. Use of terms like 'conscious consumption' suggest that the onus is on the consumer to make a 'conscious' decision while buying a product. But that approach excludes a significant majority of the population from fair and sustainable trade. This results in lower volumes, higher prices, and, in turn, lower consumption.

In a discussion with the owner of an organic food processing business in India, one of my questions on how an average Indian family of 4 can afford and benefit from organic food remained unanswered - suggestions around lower medical costs and conscious buying decisions were vague. All this in a time of high and volatile food prices. This is not to say that organic food is the wrong thing - it just means that any food product with its organic origins as its only USP is bound to remain outside the mainstream. That neither helps the cause nor the business.

Fair trade, ethics, sustainability - these are not meant to be privileges, but responsibilities. These should be inherent in what we do. It should not be a contrived effort, because that will result in cynical consumers - and cynicism is high out there, when it comes to these principles. The onus will always be on the manufacturers and retailers, not on the consumers, because they will go for what's the best for them.

Sometime back there was an excellent article on Subaru in Businessweek - it manages to invest resources in its recycling efforts only because its cars sell. For all the companies marketing their green credentials, most people buy their cars based on many other factors aside from the green technology. For a great car, it adds to the good feeling that it is green too - but for a bad car, nobody would care if its green or not.

So, there we are: we will be a lifestyle store promoting sustainability and fair trade. You'll find out soon about the irresistible products we are talking about in the next posts. Stay tuned!