Plan a Fair Trade Sale Using These 5 Tips
Selling fairly traded coffee, tea, chocolate, cocoa and snacks to your community is a way to give them an opportunity to buy high-quality, fairly traded gifts for the holidays and add some additional income for your group. Here are 5 tips for how to make a successful sale happen.
Tip 1: Choose the best products
Here are some of our gifitiest and best-selling products:
Coffee: Sisters’ Blend, Congo (whole bean), Breakfast Blend, French Roast and Decaf
Chocolate bars: Dark Chocolate with Mint, Coconut Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate Caramel Crunch with Sea Salt, 71% Very Dark Chocolate, Dark chocolate with Orange
Tea: English Breakfast, Peppermint, Green, Rooibos
Because the products aren’t sold on consignment, you want to figure out how many cases of each product to order for your sale. We share some quantity recommendations in Choose the Right Products for Your Equal Exchange Sale.
To see all of our product options, view our full wholesale case pricelist.
Tip 2: Order your way
Shop online or call in your order to our Customer Service team at (774) 776-7366. We recommend leaving 10 business days for your order to arrive, but check with our team for a personalized shipping estimate. We also offer expedited shipping if you’d like to have things arrive more quickly.
Tip 3: Dress up your table to draw people in
Use a festive tablecloth and a string of lights to make it eye-catching. A colorful sales table and a smiling person behind it say “come on over!”. Organize products neatly and re-purpose empty shipping boxes turned upside down under a tablecloth to create extra vertical space to showcase products. Order our table signs and posters to share information. You might even want to offer samples of Equal Exchange coffee, tea or bite-sized chocolate pieces to entice shoppers.
Tip 4: Set prices that help you reach your goals
You can raise funds for special projects, trips or activities by marking up your products 25% to 40% of your wholesale unit cost. Round up to the nearest dollar to help cover your costs and make giving change easier. Examples of reasonable prices are: $8 for 12oz bags of coffee, $10 for 1lb bags of coffee, $4 for chocolate bars, $5 for tea, $15 for olive oil and $7 for cocoa. Remember to tell folks what you’re raising money for — they’ll love being able to gift shop and help your cause!
If fundraising isn’t your goal, charging your unit cost with just a small mark-up (round up to the next dollar to avoid handling change) is a great way to make fair trade products accessible to many people. You can sell multiple items at reduced prices to help encourage more sales, like 2 chocolate bars for $5 or 3 bags of coffee for $20.
After you decide what you want to charge, use our handy price list template to list items and prices to post at your sale table.
Tip 5: Promote your sale and share the mission
You know that fair trade is important for our global community, and now is a great time to tell shoppers why it matters. Edit these Customizable bulletin inserts and e-bulletins/newsletters to promote your sale at gatherings or in an email blast.
Try this example wording: “Give gifts that give more! Join us for our Fair Trade Sale [insert date, time, and location] Equal Exchange products are sourced from small-scale coffee, tea, cocoa and olive oil farmer co-operatives worldwide and profits from our sale go towards [insert your group, committee or reason for the sale here]. Through fair trade, farmers are better able to support their families, protect the environment and strengthen their communities.”
Create a poster announcing the sale and use colorful mission posters by your sale table to drive the points home!
If you use social media to promote and are planning the sale to be a fundraiser, you might find these social media graphics helpful!
The meaning behind the products you sell will really set them apart from other options – so don’t be afraid to talk about it! Our talking points and brochures also help make it easy!
