Your Questions Answered
People Tree recently commissioned a survey of its customers, carried out by Morar Consulting.
We are very grateful that so many of you responded and gave us some vital insight into ethical fashion and your views on People Tree. The survey generated over 800 suggestions about how People Tree can improve. We've taken these to heart and are shaping plans to better meet your expectations in the future.
Here is what we are doing to address your thoughts:
More menswear please!
Please add more basic styles into the range.
The styles are not quite "me"...
Please make People Tree products more accessible on the high street.
Can you improve on the fit of the clothing?
What is People Tree doing to improve product quality and fabric washability?
Are the kind of dyes People Tree uses less durable?
How do you set your prices?
Could we have less packaging?
Advertise more, improve the catalogue and website.
Do People Tree have an animal welfare policy for their products?
What does Fair Trade mean?
Better customer service please.
More menswear please!
We have increased our range of men's clothing for Spring 2007 - we hope you like the new additions when the catalogue comes out in March. New products take time to develop and we have to test fabric and styles properly before offering them to you, but we are also working on some exciting additional basic items for men that will hopefully be available by Autumn 2007.
Please add more basic styles into the range.
We have worked to improve the shape, fit and fabrics of our basics range and are pleased that you are very positive about them. While we will continue to improve this part of our range, it is handwoven and hand embellished garments that provide more work and promote livelihoods, which is key to Fair Trade. So we will continue to keep the collection balanced with these different things in mind.
The styles are not quite "me"...
Obviously it is impossible to cater to everyone's taste all the time! But we hope that there is always something that appeals to you. Thanks to an increase in sales of People Tree clothes, we are able to invest more time and effort into developing new fabrics and products, so hopefully we will be able to make more of the clothes that you love.
Please make People Tree products more accessible on the high street - in the UK, in Europe, in Canada, across the Universe!
We have watched how some of you are buying organic cotton pyjamas at four o'clock in the morning, so clearly there are advantages of being able to order online and get your shopping done when it suits you! However, many of you want to try our clothes on in shops too. As we still are too small to open our own flagship store we have been working with independent shops committed to promoting Fair Trade and sustainability. The number of stockists is now 70 in the UK, over 20 in Europe and we now have two stockists in Canada as well. So please check our website for a list of People Tree stockists, who are all very committed to promoting Fair Trade.
People Tree also has a concession in Topshop, Oxford Circus, and they stock our Fair Trade knitted accessories too in their Accessories Dept. Timberland opened their eco-store in Regent Street and is stocking People Tree accessories as well, so pay them both a visit when you are next in London. Your support for these initiatives is vital in keeping Fair Trade fashion on the high street - after all, it is customer demand that kept Café Direct on the supermarket shelves and forced other coffee companies to improve their practice! The number of People Tree stockists looks set to double next year with the emergence of ethical fashion boutiques, so hopefully it will be even easier to try People Tree on in the shops in 2007.
People Tree places orders as much as 8 months in advance (so that producers can produce by hand and transport by sea freight). Conventional fashion companies have lead times of 4-12 weeks so People Tree and its shop buyer partners give orders early to make Fair Trade Fashion a reality. Please support them.
Can you improve the fit of the clothing? For example skirt and trouser lengths for petite people and tall people?
Safia, People Tree's founder, is petite - and sometimes finds a size 8 too big - and Deborah, our General Manager is very tall - so they both welcome your feedback! As Spring/Summer products are in their final stages of completion now, we cannot add these, but will do from the Autumn/Winter 2007 catalogue. Please be patient until then - Safia and Deborah have promised to do their own alterations in the meantime!
Two new fashion technicians/production specialists will be joining us from January 2007 and they will be treble-checking the fit consistency of our clothes. Please keep telling us your thoughts so they can respond to your feedback.
What is People Tree doing to improve product quality and fabric washability?
People Tree has been making huge efforts to further improve the quality of our fabrics and tailoring.
People Tree's designers and technicians visit partners in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Peru and Kenya and regularly run workshops on quality control. Hand-woven fabrics are washed in warm water before cutting and tailoring to reduce shrinkage, and we have developed new types of stronger seams.
Producer partners now have Quality Control teams and check all yarns and fabrics before tailoring, and then the tailored item is checked again. Products are also washed and checked in the People Tree office before fabric and tailoring production go ahead and, after products arrive in the warehouse, products are checked again before despatching them to you.
We are constantly looking at ways of improving the quality of fabrics and more ecological ways of growing organic cotton. One improvement includes drip irrigation, that will mean we can grow longer staple length organic cotton which can be used to weave finer cotton fabrics at the same time as reducing water use.
People Tree has been making huge efforts with quality of tailoring. Increasing Fair Trade orders enables partners to invest in buying better sewing machines, finishing machines, invest in better quality checking and on-going training and to source high quality accessories. People Tree produces in small workshops, often in villages, so access to high-quality, environmentally sound, non-azo dyes can still present a problem, as can access to high quality zippers etc. By giving regular orders and helping to source these we can ensure that even small scale producers can benefit from trade.
Are the kind of dyes People Tree uses less durable?
People Tree only uses low-impact dyes, free from harmful azo chemicals. These are not less durable, but we have had colourfastness issues in developing some of the red pigment-based dyes used to screen print organic cotton t-shirts. People Tree also uses natural dyes (like those from the fruit hortoki and coir from Bangladesh that are used in Swallows best-selling Natural dye trousers) are best washed in cold water or at 30°C. In Japan people wash all their clothes in cold water so People Tree customers do not find colour fastness an issue there. Preserve your clothes and energy and do a cool wash!
How do you set your prices?
Generally, you felt People Tree was good value for money despite the fact that Fair Trade fashion does cost more than conventionally produced clothes. For example, a handwoven Fair Trade shirt costs three times as much to produce, partly because mass-produced fashion does not reflect the real social and environmental cost of its production.
Gradually, as our orders grow we hope we will be able to cut costs on transportation, spend even more on support of producers and set up more pioneering environmental projects as well as passing on savings to you. Unfortunately, as People Tree is still not making a profit we cannot lower our prices for now.
Could we have less packaging?
Unlike many fashion importers and retailers we do not repack products in the warehouse, we sell the product in the packaging from where it was produced. The plastic bags provide protection to the garments against the moisture and humidity of a long sea shipment. We constantly try to reduce non-essential packaging in every way possible.
Advertise more, improve the catalogue and website.
We have improved the Spring 2007 catalogue with clearer and better photography and we hope you like it when you see it in March. Many of you found the website difficult to use early this year and we have improved it considerably. Because People Tree is a very small company, we still do not have enough resources to employ dedicated specialists in every area, but we are improving the website bit by bit, as we can afford it.
Please recommend us to a friend! That's the most effective type of advertising there is.
Do People Tree have an animal welfare policy for their products? Some products are vegan/vegetarian - please label them clearly.
By running a Fair Trade company that has the highest standards in terms of Fair Trade and environmental protection, we are also able to protect wildlife. For example, supporting and promoting organic farming creates habitats for entire eco-systems in India that are poisoned by conventional pesticide use. And because Fair Trade supports community development and education, often including environmental education, which promotes awareness and environmental protection.
In Peru our Fair Trade partners Minka, as well as empowering poor families, supports the conservation of an endangered species. Coloured alpacas are fast becoming extinct as textile factories exclusively use white alpaca fibre because it is easier to dye. The alpaca breeders had no choice but to kill their coloured alpacas to sell the meat and fur to survive. People Tree supports the declining population of the alpaca by choosing to use a variety of natural alpaca colours. Currently sales sustain around 1,000 animals, which live in the Peruvian highlands and are officially certified organics by the Peruvian goverment.
Ideally we would use certified organic wool for all our knitted products, as organic production has much higher standards of animal welfare, but buying certified organic wool for production in Nepal is not practical as yet, although we are working on developing this locally in a way that makes sense to animals, people and the environment.
We are also working to develop cruelty-free silk, made after the silk worm has flow from the cocoon. But the silk made from this is much coarser, which would reduce orders for producers as it is not so popular, so this is a difficult balance. It is so difficult to find an alternative to the synthetics everyone is so used to.
We will take on board your feedback about labelling products in the catalogue and hope to start doing this next year. A good few of us at People Tree are vegetarian, but we are not a vegetarian clothing company. We feel that a material that is a natural and biodegradable by-product, like cow bone in Kenya, is desirable over plastics and other non-biodegradable materials.
What does Fair Trade mean?
Fair Trade is an alternative approach to conventional international trade. It is a partnership between producers and traders, which aims at sustainable development for excluded and disadvantaged people in developing countries. On a personal level Fair Trade enables people to put food on their tables, to live and work with dignity and develop their communities. On a global level Fair Trade has the potential to alleviate poverty by changing the unfair structures of world trade and campaign for sustainability.
Better customer service please.
Some of you had experienced problems with delivery; out-of-stock products, wanted an easier returns process, or found response to emails was not fast enough.
People Tree is growing, but we are still a very small team, and sometimes our responses are not as fast as we would like - but there is no excuse for unhappy customers!
To improve in the areas you highlighted, we have been talking to the warehouse that manages our stock and prepares your orders, to improve their systems. We will also be improving our own internal systems and providing more training for our customer services team. Ultimately, we need to invest in a better over-all logistics system that will cost considerable time and money to develop, so this is scheduled for late 2007. We do apologise for the problems you have faced and will be monitoring service to keep improvements on track.
Thank you for all your suggestions; we are doing everything we can to meet your needs, so please keep talking to us!