Fair Trade is the future

[Henk Veldman]

Within the next two decades there will be two sorts of products in the supermarkets: 1. the cheap brand and; 2. Fair Trade products. Why?! From a marketing perspective it is getting more and more profitable to sell fair trade goods. There is a serious change going on in a consumer behaviour. Instead of merely looking at the price, consumers make decisions by heart and consciousness People don't want products that are produced by children or made from natural resources that are extracted under bad circumstances. All the marketing guru's in the world are well of this. I sincerely believe that within the next two decades, fair trade is widely accepted and consumers don't expect anything else but fair trade.

[Katrina Reynolds]

I think that you have a point about consumer behaviour changing but I think that your perspective at looking at the issue of fair trade is a bit too optimistic for the current situation. I think that fair trade products do not match other products on price just yet which will cause consumers to by other products other then fair trade, also I believe that the strength of the dominant companies on consumers as far as advertising and marketing go will stay cause consumers to buy products that are not far trade. Perhaps the contemporary force of globalisation can be to blame for this power but large companies, but globalisation can also be good for fair trade as it exposes developed countries to products from the developing countries or the third world.