Trade As One

A Trading Post is an on-going place within your church where people can regularly purchase Fair Trade goods. This allows individuals to redirect their spending to Fair Trade purchasing where they can be part of breaking cycles of poverty and abuse around the globe. As individuals, we vote with our dollars so making items easily accessible to congregation members or store customers is a way you can support their desire to use their dollars ethically.

Practically speaking, a Trading Post can be anything from a table that gets set up in the back of your church once a month to a special Fair Trade section of your church bookstore. The program is incredibly flexible to work in a variety of contexts.

Anyone who would like to establish a regular place for individuals to purchase Fair Trade goods may start a Trading Post. It is common for churches who partner with us on an event to use the Trading Post as a next step to support the desire of their members to purchase Fair Trade goods. Often, a church staff member will catch a vision for how easily a congregation can change lives with their everyday purchasing and will either begin a Trading Post or will work with the church bookstore to begin purchasing Fair Trade goods. We also have local bookstores who carry our products, so this certainly isn’t limited to the church context. To see it for yourself, check out photos of Our Trading Post Partners and hear what they’re saying!

You can start a Trading post with an opening order of $500 (for $588 worth of goods) by purchasing one of our special Starter Kits. You are also welcome to select any items on our website and there is not a per sku minimum quantity which allows you to experiment to find best selling items at your church without having to order several of one item at a time. If you prefer to select your items on your first order, contact us to set up an account first. We know that the amount of choices can be overwhelming, so we have created a Trading Post Starter Kit in 3 sizes that includes our best sellers if you want to concentrate on spreading the words and rely on us to choose products. You may go ahead and purchase your Starter Kit today and we will follow up with you to give you support as you start your Trading Post.

You will receive free shipping and a 15% discount off the retail price on non-food items and a 10% discount on food items on your future orders of $500 or more. This discount allows for you to have money to reinvest into additional merchandise or to cover your costs in starting/merchandising your Trading Post – that part is up to you!

As you re-order products, if your order falls below $588 retail value/$500 with your discount, you will be charged for the shipping cost, so we encourage you to maximize your orders.

Email Rachel if you have any questions!

As you begin your Trading Post, you will need to determine the following:

Space: If the church doesn’t have a bookstore/café where the items would logically be sold, you will need to determine a space to set up your Trading Post as well as a place to store the products if the space doesn’t allow for a full-time display.

Frequency: You will want to determine how often the Trading Post will be open for sales. This may be contingent on your staff/volunteer support, facility restrictions or the support of the ministry who leads the Trading Post effort. We know of Trading Posts who are open one Sunday a month, during midweek classes, every Sunday and during regular bookstore/café hours.

Payment Methods: Once you purchase the products from Trade as One, they are yours to sell, so you can collect payment in whatever way the church can administratively support. If you are setting up a table on a less frequent basis, chances are that you will be limited to accepting cash and checks.

Staffing: The amount of people you will need to support your Trading Post will depend on the frequency and size of your Trading Post. We recommend having someone lead the ordering/inventory managements tasks so you have consistency in your relationship with Trade as One and then recruit volunteers from within the church to help staff the Trading Post. This is a great way to get students involved as well!

We know that you are concerned with stewarding your resources well and we want to help you reduce your risk. We will offer an exchange on items you wish to return within 60 days of purchase on your first two orders so you can swap slow selling items for your best sellers. It may take awhile for you to establish the product mix that people in your church are most interested in purchasing at your Trading Post and we want to help mitigate the risk for you. We are not able to accept returns on consumable items (food or bodycare items) due to health safety guidelines.(Fine Print: Obviously, the items have to be in sellable condition! If an item breaks, we will handle that separately.)