A Trade For A Trade of Molt, Montana – sells ethical, socially responsible, and non-exploitive products from around the world.

The phrase "a trade for a trade" has always had a special meaning to Kendra’s family. As the oldest of 5 kids, she witnessed many unfair swaps as everyone grew up. "A trade for a trade" came to mean any deal that was fair to people on both sides of the table. It’s surprisingly useful: "I’ll give you one M&M for one Skittle. A trade for a trade."

For us, it means paying artisans a fair wage, then turning around and offering a fair deal to our customers. We are a youngish husband and wife team, and since we’ve been married, we have lived in Japan, Australia, and Montana, and have traveled extensively. We love research, crafts, and travel, but found that many of the “international” crafts in the U.S. are actually made in Chinese or Taiwanese sweatshops, which often pay their workers an appallingly low wage. Not exactly “a trade for a trade.”

While living abroad, we dreamed of lots of ways to bring back the amazing goods we found. In thinking how to do this, we kept coming back to a website where we could interact with our customers, giving them information about why they should buy ethical crafts, as well as providing a place where they could feel good about the products they buy. To make it easy to jump on board, we’ve categorized products according to our ethical policies, and provide “ethical info” on each product, so you know exactly who you’re helping.

A Trade For A Trade http://www.atradeforatrade.com/ believes business can be a tool for positive change — we strive to be socially responsible by reusing packaging, minimizing waste, and recycling. We’ve also developed a Ten By Ten program that puts us on track to donate an additional 1% of our profits each year to a new, worthy non-profit. By the time we’ve been in business for a decade we plan to be donating 10% of our profits to 10 different organizations. Help us reach this goal!

Kendra Langford Shaw and Johnathan Shaw

http://www.atradeforatrade.com/