For those of you who follow the Marketing to Women's bible, you know that women support Causes and will switch brands and loyalty to companies that truly walk-the-cause-talk - so when I heard about Fair Indigo I had to learn more about what this store is doing to promote the Clothing with a Consciousness movement.
What happens when you want to work for a company that is driven by a mission to take care of its customers, its employees AND the workers who make the products they sell? If you ask Bill Bass, the CEO of Fair Indigo, his answer might be - build your own company from the ground up - and that is exactly what Bill and the management team at Fair Indigo did. Today, you can pur
chase fair pay clothing on Fair Indigo's web site and in November, in Madison, Wisconsin, opens its first store front.
Fair Pay vs. Minimum Wage"Just like you cannot raise a family on minimum wage here in the US, you cannot care for your family on the standards minimum wage paid that global manufacturing companies provide...so we spent 18 months researching, screening and selecting manufacturers who were willing raise the pay of their workers to meet our standards", said Mr. Bass. To determine what is truly fair pay, Fair Indigo teamed up with the University of Wisconsin to identify the pay that is truly needed to supports families in the 23 locations where their current manufacturing is done. (As an important side note, over 70% of manufacturing overseas is done by women, so when Fair Indigo increases the pay of these workers, they enable women to support their families and break the cycle of extreme poverty).
Any one who remembers the NIKE and Kathy Lee Gifford child sweat shop scandals of the early '90s knows about the reputation for factory worker abuse overseas. The standard retail solution to this problem has been to hire independent monitors to help assure compliance. To Fair Indigo, compliance is more than just a business expense - it is the foundation from which to build upon and improve and it is the promise to their customer. So, Fair Indigo selected one of the strictest third party factory auditors available to help assure compliance AND hired their own local agents to monitor the buzz about the factories in each of the cities where they are located. Beside the great Word-of-Mouth (WOM) story behind fair pay clothing, Fair Indigo has empowered its buyers to register their opinions about their purchases on-line at their web site and in-store at an information kiosk. "Amazon introduced consumer ratings and opinions to the market for the products that they sell, but we may be the first company that allows its customer to evaluate its own products" says Bill.
In addition to these two WOM worthy practices, each customer is given the opportunity to swipe the tag on the item they have purchased at an in-store kiosk and instantly review the product's customer ratings and learn about the manufacturer of the item. A time saver that women will love and a "bridge" the helps the buyer personally connect to the family owned and co-op manufacturers and the workers that are benefiting from this fair pay policy. 
Take for example Maria who works in Fair Indigo's factory in Peru which makes women's knits. Maria works in the testing laboratory where she prepares tests which the company's fabrics must pass before each garment is made. Maria's company was selected not only for its exceptional quality standards, but because it addition to fair wages, if also offers extra benefits like free medical services and profit sharing. Maria is not planning to use her bonus money to pursue a science degree at a local technical school.
Finally, as a truly ethical global player, Fair Indigo understands that to break the cycle of poverty, education is necessary so the company created the Fair Indigo's Foundation, a non profit arm which supports education programs where their manufacturers are located. At the time of purchase, whether on or off-line in the store, a customer can donate to the Foundation.
So, lets take one more look at Fair Indigo's WOM worthy traits. First we have a great Cause, second - we have a Commitment to the Cause that is more than just "pink", third - we have Communication tools such as peer reviews, fourth - we have Connection through stories about the workers, and fifth, we have Caring beyond the call of duty with the creation of the Fair Indigo Foundation - these WOM worthy elements earn Fair Indigo a 5 Star rating in our Win-HerTM Hall of Fame!
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