Fair Trade toys and xmas

For regular customers you have probably noticed an increase in the amount of goods we have to place on back order. Previously we have usually managed to ship out 100% of orders with all items requested. However this year with the introduction of fair trade ranges we have struggled a bit keeping up with deliveries

The reason is quite simple although (as per normal) the solution is a bit more complicated. As a soft toy wholesaler there are many differences between dealing with factories and working with a fair trade workers co-operative and most of them are concerned with stock

When you deal with a factory it is quite straight forward. You place an order and you are then given a ship date. The actual ship date of the stock can vary by as much as 2 weeks but mostly the goods are delivered very close to the date stated at the time of order. The only variable which we can't predict is HM Customs

However working with fair trade workers co-operatives is completely different. You place an order with a requested delivery date but you cannot guarantee that the stock will arrive when you want it to

The reason for this is quite simple.  Unlike a factory the fair trade co-operatives work from a variety of rural locations. All the centres are set up to provide flexible, fairly paid work to rural workers. This is brilliant in terms of the communities they live in as the women do not have to leave to work in cities and the money they earn stays in the rural economy. However if you offer flexible working around childcare and other commitments then you cannot guarantee how many people will turn up to work everyday. If you don't have a controlled environment where workers have to turn up at set times each day its not easy to predict out put in the same way a factory can.

When a factory gets new orders they can make the workers do longer hours or sub contract the order to another factory (very dodgy!)

The Pebble fair trade crochet toys are hand made. It is a skilled job to make them and if demand increases workers have to be trained up to make the toys. It is a much longer term arrangement than simply handing the owrk over to another factory

As a company Best Years have only been working with fair trade toys for a year but in that time we have had to learn a whole new way of working. What we haven't managed to do yet is keep our fair trade toys in stock!

If you are a retailer who stocks our fair trade toys then please please please do not wait until you have run out of stock before contacting us. If you let us know your requirements in advance we will not keep you to the order, but we will ring fence the stock for you as and when it comes in. We can then contact you as and when the stock arrives to see if you still want it. If you don't want it we can release it to other retailers. No obligation and significantly higher chance of getting the stock you need when you want it