3) Description of your products or services: The aim of eShopAfrica is to create sustainable businesses for traditional African artisans and to raise a global awareness of their work. Many African artisans currently live in chronic poverty despite their skills which are dying out as their children see no economic benefit in learning them. At the same time hand made items and cultural heritage are valued more than ever in the industrialised world. Through our website we are giving traditional African artisans access to global markets where their work is valued and where they can receive a fair price and achieve a decent standard of living.

As well as offering products for sale, eShopAfrica also fosters a sense of community between the customers and the artisans which adds value for both sides. The customers know about and appreciate the work of the artisans and often place repeat orders to give them increased benefit. We pass design ideas and feedback from our customers to our artisans which gives the artisans a feeling of inclusion and inspiration for other products.

As members of the Fair Trade Federation we make sure that fair trade principles are applied to all our dealings.

4) Description of the operational model: Before listing an artisan on our website we carefully assess the quality of their products, their reliability and their overall production capabilities. We also examine their pricing model and financial position. We make them aware of the meaning of fair trade and discuss how they can implement fair trade principles. If they are able to meet our criteria we photograph their products and list them on the site.

We promote the eShopAfrica website both online and offline in order to attract customers. We are listed on many websites and have also received press coverage all of which has increased our profile. Our ideal customers place regular, repeat business to small business sized orders as these orders give the artisans the most benefit.

Customers can purchase through our secure website and also find out more information about the products and the artisans who make them. When an order is placed it is passed on to the artisan who fulfils it within the agreed time frame and to the agreed quality criteria. When the artisan delivers we pay them and ship the products to the customer. For larger orders we sometimes give the artisans a loan to cover the cost of raw materials.

Customers can request particular styles or colours and changes in the product and whenever possible the artisans are happy to comply. These interactions between the customers and the artisans increases the sense of community.

5) Description of the financial model: As a fair trade site our financial dealings are open and fair. First we assess the artisan’s asking price to make sure that it is fair to them and to us. After that we add on operating costs such as transport and communication costs with the artisan. In this way we arrive at out “point of sale” price.

We then add on a percentage to the “point of sale” price according to the quantity ordered. If only a single item is ordered the percentage is higher to reflect the work involved fulfilling a small order. If the order is larger then the percentage is lower. We set the quantities for each artisan and for each product.

As an ethical business we have the twin aim of making a profit and creating sustainable businesses for African artisans. As we scale up and achieve more profits, we will be putting these profits back into the business offering loans to artisans to help them scale up too.

      Client fees represent this approximate percentage of operational budget: 0%

6) Key operational partnership: Our artisans are our key partners - without them we would have nothing to sell. Also our membership to the Fair Trade Federation is key as it is important to us to be part of the Fair Trade movement.

We are supported by the Ghana Export Promotion Council a government agency that is working to increased exports in the non-traditional sector from Ghana.

In the US we partner with Sustainable Village (www.sustainablevillage.org) a web business promoting economic development and affordable environmental solutions process to developing economies. They process our credit cards for us.

DHL are our partners for shipping.

7) Current outreach:

What is the order of magnitude of the potential demand for your products or services? Which
    other low-income groups, countries or regions could benefit from it? Try to quantify (number
    of clients, market size in currency):
We believe that there is great global demand for hand made African products. Our target customers would place manageably sized, regular, repeat orders that the artisans can depend on. Such customers would usually be either retailers who resell the products or designers who use them in their own work. Our challenge is to reach as many such customers as possible.

Within Africa there is an almost infinite supply of hand made arts and crafts. Each country and each region has its own unique handicrafts. We are currently sourcing products from Ghana (where we’re based), Burkina Faso, Mali, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. As the level of our orders rises we could add more artisans both from these countries and from others. Our next target countries would be Senegal, Kenya and Uganda as we already have artisans identified in these countries.

8) Scale-up strategy: