Looking for fair trade-certified products, but don’t know where to go and who to ask? Free Trade USA has launched its Fair Trade Finder app for smart phones as well as Facebook, allowing consumers to easily find fair trade-certified products and their purchase locations.
The app is crowdsourced, so users can upload any map to the tool and find fair trade-certified products for sale, be it chocolate or coffee, clothes or wine. Users can also add pictures and comments about the found products to the app, making Fair Trade Finder a social experience as well.
Apart from users, brands and retailers can also upload information about their fair trade-certified products.
Key Themes Behind This Trend
- Crowdsourced Product Locators
- There is an opportunity for businesses to develop and integrate crowdsourced product locators into their apps, making it easier for consumers to locate and purchase specific items.
- Social Product Reviews
- By incorporating the ability for users to upload pictures and reviews of the fair trade-certified products they have found, businesses can generate user-generated content and increase consumer engagement.
- Ethical Lifestyle Apps
- There is a growing need and demand for apps that help consumers make ethical choices and live sustainable lifestyles, creating a potential market for the development of more ethical lifestyle apps.
Where This Applies
- Retail
- Retail businesses can utilize crowdsourced product locators and social product reviews to increase consumer engagement and promote ethical products.
- Food and Beverage
- The food and beverage industry can benefit from the Fair Trade Finder app by promoting their fair trade-certified products and making them more readily available to consumers.
- Technology
- There is a growing market for ethical lifestyle apps, creating opportunities for tech companies to develop and market new apps that cater to this demand.
