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.

Empowering women through powerful and long-lasting fair-trade solutions has been our priority since day one. With a female company president, and 5 out of 8 regional offices led by women, gender equality is very much in our DNA. We go out of our way to recruit female artisans and provide a gender balance within our artist community.

Nowadays, as the need to address gender inequality gains more and more traction around the world, socially-conscious consumers are looking for ways to target their support toward women producers.

With our new Women's Empowerment collection, the world's largest online selection of fair trade artisan products produced by women is now available in one place. You can shop all your favorite fashion, jewelry, and home decor treasures knowing that each purchase benefits a woman and her family.

On top of all this, we also require that all artisans sign our Fair Labor Policy agreement, which stipulates they treat their own employees without discrimination on the basis of gender, race, age, religion, disability or sexual orientation.

Sustainable impact is crucial to NOVICA's mission - we knew we couldn't take fair trade one step further without creating long-lasting relationships with artisans based on trust and respect for their art.

When we start working with an artist, we build a local relationship through one of our eight regional offices where we can work on an ongoing basis. Artisans can deliver products on their own terms and schedules and become involved in the supply chain, often for years - a far more empowering system than getting one large bulk order with no commitment to come back and buy again.

To increase our developmental impact and to further help artisans expand their businesses, we also provide easy access to microfinance. In a climate where the world's most challenged entrepreneurs are subjected to painfully high interest rates, we cut out all the financial middlemen and launched the first-ever microfinance website where customers can purchase products and lend money directly to artisans.

Through our own customers, and our partnership with Kiva, we channel 0% interest loans directly to our artisans, using our 8 regional offices as loan dispersement centers.

Artisans like Eka (pictured left) are really feeling the benefits of these programs. She has received several microcredit loans which has helped her build a thriving woodcarving business, despite many personal challenges.

A commitment to doing good wherever we work loses meaning if we harm that community's environment in the process. Operating handmade workshops since day one has been critical in allowing us to be good stewards of the environment we all share.

Artisans use vegetable-based dyes whenever possible when making textiles for apparel, accessories and home goods. They also limit their use of synthetic textiles, opting instead for natural fibers such as cotton, alpaca, wool, jute, and hemp.

Many NOVICA products are also crafted from alternative, sustainably-harvested plant materials. Maguey, reclaimed pine needles, water hyacinth, palm fibers, and grass fibers are the kinds of components you can expect to find in our handmade treasures. Even our paper goods are eco-friendly, with the materials for our albums, journals and other decor items composed of recycled paper or the sustainably harvested bark of Thailand's saa trees.

Additionally, NOVICA artisans are always on the lookout for innovative ways to reuse and re-value materials that would otherwise end up in landfills. They reclaim materials such as teak wood, coconut shells, newspapers, and magazines, transforming them into original works of art. Many also upcycle materials like glass, metal auto parts, and soda pop tops. Our special eco-friendly page groups all these items in one place.