GOOD BUSINESS March 2001

FIRST MONITORING REPORT COMPLETED

WONDERWORLD has  received the first report from International Resources for Fair Trade (IRFT) on our trading practises with silver and hand block print producers in Jaipur, India.   We commissioned  IRFT, a well known Indian NGO who also carry out monitoring for Traidcraft, B&Q, Sainsburys and other UK companies, because our customers were asking for some independent verification of the claims made in our published Trading Policy.

THEIR first report is reasonably positive.   It does give us some work to do in terms of making infrastructural improvements for our hand block printers and silversmiths.  It commends our close working relationship with crafts people and commitment to the preservation of dying arts.   IRFT will be returning to visit our producers again in the future to follow up the issues they have raised and to investigate other aspects of our relationships with producers in more detail.

OVERALL we are happy with the report and look forward to developing the constructive relationship with IRFT in the future.   While the fair trade/ethical trade movement as a whole is debating monitoring systems we encourage every business like WONDERWORLD to seek out appropriate independent monitoring on their own initiative. There are many southern NGOs with the capacity to carry out such monitoring – it will be a growth industry of the new millennium. 

COPIES of the report are available by e-mail and hard copy on request.

ARTISANIAN.COM

WONDERWORLD has secured a grant of nearly £ 10,000 from the Artisan Trust to start a dot.com e-commerce project to sell the products of our traditional hand block printers in Jaipur to a consumers all around the world.   We have registered ARTISANIAN.COM and established Artisanian Ltd, a non-profit distributing company limited by guarantee, to conduct the business.       

IN THE first phase ARTISANIAN.COM will run in prototype mode, carrying some familiar WONDERWORLD designs.   However the longer-term plan is to introduce entirely original and exclusive hand block printed designs generated by a design competition that we expect to run in collaboration with South Cheshire College.   Later this year a winning designer will go to Jaipur to work directly with our producers in the creation of the exclusive ARTISANIAN range.   At that point we will use the bulk of the Artisan Trust grant to promote ARTISANIAN.COM with particular emphasis on securing extensive media coverage of the project.

WE hope that ARTISANIAN will develop as an independent business, using the Internet to give direct access to end consumers, maximising the benefits to the producers.  Eventually there is no reason why the business should not be entirely based and run in Jaipur with effective producer representation.

'CO-OPERATION.COM'

SETTING up a web-site with an e-commerce facility is relatively easy.  The clever trick is then going on to make reasonable money out of it.   E-commerce does not yet deliver profits for the vast majority of its exponents.   Few UK based dot.com company have recorded a profit.   Dot.com companies float on their projected future value but realising that value is a risky business.   Casualties of the bursting e-commerce bubble already make regular headlines on the business pages.

RISKY though it certainly may be – the dangers of not getting involved in e-commerce are also unquestionable.   E-commerce will grow and capture an massive slice of trade currently done in conventional ways, from the retail sector, from wholesale trade and from the service sector.   We all need to be considering our business strategy in relationship to e-commerce.

ONE key issue is very plain.   To have any chance of generating significant sales through e-commerce it is essential to generate substantial TRAFFIC – that means hundreds of thousands of hits a month.  

WHEN major dot.coms with big promotional budgets are still struggling to break even – how much harder will it be for small players operating in isolation with limited marketing and promotional resources?   

THEREFORE a collective approach to e-commerce seems not just politically attractive but good commercial sense as well.   To this end WONDERWORLD is working with Internet experts Ethical Junction create a collective e-commerce hub for fair trade/ethical trade.   

CRUCIALLY – we will to find  ways for retailers to participate by, for example, introducing potential customers to the collective website, guaranteeing orders and benefiting from commissions.  

POOLING resources and effort to build a collective e-commerce website for Fair Trade products will mean that everyone stands a much better chance of meaningful sales.    The project will be structured to have low entry costs, operating on percentage of turnover generated.   The key promotional tool and co-operative requirement from participants will be the generation of the world’s biggest e-mail database of potential customers with an affinity for Fair Trade.     

IF YOU are interested in the project please complete the questionnaire that will be sent to you in the next few weeks.   Doing so does not imply any commitment to take any further part in the project.   It will enable us to seek and secure financial aid, which we believe will be available to this type of e-commerce start-up.    Please contact Steve Knight of Ethical Junction on 0161 236 3637 or David Turner on 0113 285 3517 if you want to talk.

SMOG WARNING

DAVID Turner was in Kathmandu in early February and sadly reports that the once beautiful valley is being wrecked by urban sprawl and appalling air pollution.

ONLY a few years ago a great view greeted visitors as they stepped out of Kathmandu airport. Ethereal, snow capped Himalayan peaks in the Langtang region, 70 miles north of the city.   Today Himalayan vistas are rare. On many days smog obscures even the hills on the valley rim.   Not only do tourists stroll Kathmandu city streets behind filter masks, Nepalis themselves sit with handkerchiefs covering their mouths.    Heavily polluting vehicles and small scale industries, especially brick works feeding a building boom, are the worst culprits.

TEN years ago a bike ride to the stunning medieval town of Bhaktapur would take you through miles of open fields.  Today you would not risk a bike amidst darting traffic and the road is built up from start to finish.   People flocking to live and work in the valley have put extreme pressure on the local infrastructure.  Water quality in the public system was noticeably worse.

TOURISM is the biggest industry in Nepal and the biggest driving force behind the population explosion in Kathmandu.   Now tourist arrivals in the city are dropping.  Anxious discussion of how Nepal might improve the  marketing of its unquestioned tourist potential fill the local press.  Unfortunately the crux issue of environmental crisis in the Kathmandu Valley receives much less discussion and appears  largely irresolvable.  Unstable Nepali governments lack the authority or political to take the draconian steps required. 

SOME tour companies are considering avoiding Kathmandu all together – shipping new arrivals straight out of the Valley to other hubs such as Pokhara.   Socio-economic & environmental consequences of unplanned growth are now looming large for the people of Kathmandu. 

OLD GREY BEARD

Dave Hogg, veteran retailer, imparts more cautionary words.

"Beware of bogus telephone engineers who ring & ask you to key the digits 90# on your phone. This enables them to make very expensive, even premium rate calls at your expense!"