NOVICA & Fair Trade

This principle is truly the founding principle behind NOVICA - we wanted to create opportunities for artisans around the world by building a completely new system to connect them to the customers seeking their beautiful creations.

Most artisans in the developing world lack access to global markets, limiting their potential to expand their businesses and increase their financial stability. Even when artisans' products are sold in international markets, the involvement of multiple intermediaries lowers the amount of income that goes directly to the artisans.

To address this problem, we founded regional offices in Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Guatemala, Ghana, Indonesia, Thailand, and India, and built a fully integrated e-commerce platform to best serve artisans and give them a direct connection to the world market. Watch this in action.

For many artisans, supporting their families can mean relying solely on twice-yearly orders from distributors or a few months of tourists' purchases, with no commitment from buyers to purchase again.

But for NOVICA, it's never been enough to do business as usual. We create viable, long-term business opportunities and economic development for artisans and their communities, working with both family businesses and artisan co-operatives who have been marginalized by mainstream trading practices.

With steady year-round demand for their products, artisans now count on NOVICA as a reliable source of income. Complete control over pricing also means that artisans are not adversely affected by fluctuations in their raw material costs. Our system is nimble enough to allow them ongoing price changes if they want.

The NOVICA system is built around a basic concept: Create an efficient market by reducing the multiple layers of middlemen. By doing so, the NOVICA system allows for artisans to make more and customers to pay less.

Artisans are empowered and excited about having complete control over pricing. Too often, their prices are dictated by the amount that local or international distributors are willing to pay - which is rarely at prices that reflect their best interests. Aggressive downward negotiation is not uncommon - and this forces artisans to compromise on quality in order to stay afloat.

Under the NOVICA system, artisans don't have to contend with these tactics. As a result, our customers get high quality handcrafted products at prices well below standard international retail - and artisans remain fairly compensated. We refer to this as our 'Win-Win' pricing model.

Our commitment to the respect and promotion of human rights is an essential part of our business practices and mission. All artisans listing their products on our website are required to sign and adhere to our Fair Labor and Child Labor agreements. These agreements were founded on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the standards of the International Labor Organization.

We are also keen to draw the distinction between Child Labor and bona fide apprenticeships and education. We encourage our artisans to pass on their knowledge to younger members of their community so that their techniques survive - so long as the commitments to their formal education are being fully met.

Having permanent teams on the ground also means we can guarantee that artisans are working in the healthy conditions they deserve.

Many of the artisans with whom we work have small workshops which often adjoin their own homes.

Artisans sign and commit to our aforementioned Fair Labor and Child Labor policy agreement, and our monitoring teams perform randomized workplace checks to ensure compliance.

Due to the autonomy of our artisans - the success of NOVICA very much depends on their own success. To this end, we actively promote their work and engage in marketing activities to increase awareness for the NOVICA marketplace.

Through informational pages on our website, blogging, social media, PR and email campaigns, we promote the benefits of abiding by fair trade principles, and educate our customers to the positive effects felt by the artisans with whom we work.

From the beginning, we have insisted that every artist should be heard and seen - they are the stars of the show - so behind every product we sell, you can read a life story, and see the face of the artists you purchase from. This 'connection' with artisans doesn't stop here... customers can leave personal testimonials, and even create special collections to visibly promote their favorite artisans on the NOVICA website.

For the materials they can't recycle or gather, NOVICA artisans think local. When you buy a NOVICA product, most of the materials (with the exception of precious metals, gemstones and leather) will come from the artisan's community.

On a larger scale, most artisans use the traditional production technologies that have allowed their ancestors to practice a craft in harmony with the environment for centuries. Sculptures and carvings, for example, are made using hand tools. Many of our Guatemalan textiles, meanwhile, are produced on traditional back strap or foot-powered looms, without electricity. In Peru, most artisans use hand-knitting machines - or an artisan will simply knit the sweater by hand at her home.

Whatever their speciality might be, artisans can do incredible things by hand, without the use of chemicals and electric machines.