Will Valentine is a merchant adventurer at Ethix Merch (asi/189731), a distributor with locations in Sutton, MA, and Seattle that specializes in sourcing products specifically for socially conscious clients. With the tagline “Merchandise on a Mission,” Ethix supports American-made goods, union workers and the environment, and never sells products produced in sweatshops.

Q: What end-buyer industries do you serve primarily?

WV: Our traditional targets have been labor unions, non-profit organizations and schools. Over the past six months, we’ve started doing a lot with small startups and local retail that want to be more ethical in their purchasing. We’ve also started creating and selling webstores, where clients are offering their ethically-sourced merchandise. We try to help out our customers and accommodate them by sourcing smaller quantities (fewer than 100 pieces).

For us, ethically sourced can be made in the USA (our base ethical standard), union-made (our biggest seller), or fair trade-certified. It’s a complicated process to source from overseas, and to make sure those factories are staying true to their production standards. We have very close relationships with all of the ones we partner with. Generally speaking, our labor standards are up to snuff here in the U.S. But overseas, it’s a different story and big corporations have products manufactured there to try to save money.

We had a challenging situation recently, when a client wanted a bunch of camo shirts and in the middle of the order, one of the vendors switched to importing the items. We couldn’t promise our client it was ethically made when we weren’t sure. We want to be as transparent as possible.

These mugs and coasters were handcrafted in Wisconsin for the Annual Conference of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC).

Q: What have been some recent sourcing challenges?

WV: We’re seeing a number of companies start to import more, because it’s more economical for them to source from overseas. Camo shirts, for example—there aren’t a ton of options that are made here. USB drives are another challenge; there isn’t one single factory in the U.S. that domestically produces all the components. They might assemble them here, but most of the components are still made overseas, and that’s a deal-breaker for some people. It seems like every time I look for something new, I find it’s not produced here.

Q: What prospecting tools do you use?

WV: Cold-calling still works, but we get a lot of business from references and word-of-mouth. We get lots of labor unions this way: a union or non-profit client will tell their affiliates about us. We also make appearances at workers’ rights conferences across the country (recently, Washington, D.C. and Indianapolis) and fair trade conventions. We give them the opportunity to sign up for our newsletter, which is informational, educational and promotional for us, and includes discounts and specials on our products. We do serve a pretty niche market, but we’ve tried a lot of things, a lot of outbound methods, and we have a good idea of who would be interested. We try to target those who would definitely buy from us.

Q: How do you target and qualify leads that are good fits for fair trade products?

WV: We generally know early on if they’re interested in the ethical aspect, versus just the price point. If they want T-shirts, union-made is usually at a mid-range price. We always give them a few price options if we can. We want to show them we’re not just trying to make more money on them, so we give them options so they can support workers’ rights too. Most of the time, the solid leads are larger companies. Smaller retail stores are less open to the higher price point, and sometimes they want such low quantities, like 12 shirts. It’s up to us to explain what we care about and why. One of our recent customers is a group that advocates for veterans’ rights. They want better healthcare for veterans and more work opportunities for them when they return home, especially if they’re injured. It’s cool to connect with a client who believes in the same things we do.

Check out Ethix Merch at www.ethixmerch.com and on social.