What is Ethical Trading?

Here are some definitions per Compact Oxford English Dictionary:

• Ethical: adjective
  1. Relating to moral principals or the branch of knowledge concerned with these
  2. Morally correct
• Trade: verb
  1. Buy and sell goods and services.
  2. Buy or sell (a particular item or product).
  3. Exchange, typically as a commercial transaction.
• Fair Trade: noun
  1. Trade in which fair prices are paid to producers in developing countries.

Fair price and morally correct?

How do you know that Happy-Hammock has paid a fair price for its goods and/or that it has acted in a morally correct way?

These are good questions and ones that we have asked ourselves already.

 

What we know is this:

1. We aim to deal with individuals, groups of individuals, market traders and small businesses
2. We aim to deal with these people when we like the goods that they are producing and think that our customers will like them too
3. Where appropriate and possible we aim to see how and where the products are made and ask questions about the raw materials and production techniques used
4. We seek to obtain an understanding about the local environment and in particular issues around employment and  standards of living
5. When trading with these suppliers we have entered into normal negotiations on price and when both parties meet at a price that both are happy with – we trade. When we come to a position where one or both parties can not reach a price that is viable, we don’t trade. It’s that simple.

The key for us is establishing a trading link that is commercially viable and therefore sustainable going forward, from both ends. This means that fundamentally both parties have to make profit on their goods if they wish to continue and grow the relationship.

Of course other factors come into play such as;

• Combining traditional techniques and methods of production with Western tastes and lead time expectations,
• Education in quality control and communication,
• Growing production of a product in a controlled, sustainable and environmentally friendly fashion
• Commitment and reliability (on both parts)

 

However, for us it tends to start with the basic principal of finding a product that we like made by people we like and at a price where both parties can benefit.

Please bear in mind that this is not a fail proof process. We cannot offer you a 100% guarantee that absolutely everything on our website is what you would consider ‘Fair Trade’ and meets all of our ethical aims – we will provide you with as much information as we can and then you have to make that decision for yourself.

If you would like further information on a particular product you can always email us via our contacts page.

 

Here are some examples of trading decisions we have made:

 

Markets: Happy-Hammock is starting to trade at markets in the UK so we feel it would be unfair not to trade with other market traders in different countries. Where we buy directly from markets we will tell you. We do not ask these traders about the prices they pay their suppliers, just as we do not expect that question from our customers. Market traders need to sell to eat/sleep/pay rent/send their kids to school as much as anyone else and on that basis we continue to love sourcing in markets.

 

Small Businesses: We support small businesses when we like people involved and the goods that they produce. We aim to visit their production sites to get a feel for the atmosphere and working conditions, and to feed back to you on production techniques and materials used. See example.

We do not ask how much workers are paid; we can only tell you our impressions of the place. Where small business owners are reluctant to show us their production sites we will consider much more carefully whether we want to do business with them.

 

Silver: We have made the decision to support the Mexican Silver trade, despite some concerns voiced over mining techniques. Please refer to our specific web page to see the reasoning behind this. See example.

 

 

 

Continuous Development: Where there are any gaps in our information we aim to fill these over the next few years as we visit suppliers again and do further trade with them. If there is a product with no link to a supplier this means that information is not complete and is in the process of being worked on.

 

 

 

Success/Failure: Not all of our attempts to establish trade links are successful. In some cases we have to cease trading with some suppliers/individuals where the relationships are not working and we reserve the right to do this.

Our aim is to use the website to inform you our customers about who and where we buy from. Please visit our artisans and organisations page to learn more about the people we trade with and the places we visit.

We hope you enjoy your experience as much as we enjoy delivering it to you.

For a full list of our aims and goals please click here.