WORLDSTOCK

Worldstock seeks to help improve economic sustainability in the underdeveloped world by providing local citizens with stable employment and expanding market access. There are many talented artisans across the globe who have trouble reaching buyers for their exquisite products due to poverty, lack of information, and the disadvantage of being small-lot producers in an age of advanced technology and mass distribution. They could improve their lives, health, education, and their children's futures if they had access to markets in the developed world. Worldstock opens the world to these talented craftspeople and small-business owners while maintaining a business model of sustainability, fairness, and transparency.

Worldstock works to develop long-term relationships with our partners through conscientious communication and respect. Our dedicated Worldstock team helps partners with exposure, technical assistance, and market research. These local producers use this information to sell more products, make more products, and expand their business.

By evaluating costs for labor and materials and then applying our knowledge of customer buying behavior to the equation, we help our partners understand the optimal price range that will increase product sales, allowing them to further grow their business. Worldstock prices its products inexpensively, allowing our model to spread to as many artisans as possible. We insist that Worldstock-contracted employers pay their employees a fair wage that meets or exceeds local standards. For informal workplaces, such as homes, we require our partners to ensure that income from goods sold is sufficient to cover basic needs of food, shelter, education, and health care. We provide payment to our partners within a reasonable, pre-determined timeframe.

Worldstock requires its partners to ensure that their products are made in safe, hygienic working conditions that meet local legal standards. Reasonable steps are required to prevent accidents and injuries to workers. If workers are housed, such housing must be clean and safe. Employees may not be treated harshly or inhumanely (such as physical abuse, coercion, unlawful discipline, sexual or other types of harassment, verbal abuse, or other forms of intimidation against any of its workers). All workers must have access to a fair dispute-grievance process. In formal workplaces, workers are not required to exceed the prevailing local work hours, except when such workers are compensated in addition to their regular pay. Employers must give workers one day off every seven days at a minimum.

Worldstock requires that employment be freely chosen and may not be forced, bonded, or involuntary prison labor. Workers must be free to leave their employment after reasonable notice. Workers are not required to turn over monetary deposits or identity papers as a condition of employment. Children shall not be employed to produce Worldstock products, except in the context of a child working in the family home or where such child has no other source of economic support. A child is defined as a person younger than the age of completing compulsory education under applicable local law.

Worldstock supports businesses that sustain, rather than exploit, people and cultures. We value the unique cultural identity of our artisans and the communities in which they live. We seek to provide cultural sustainability by buying the products of artisans working in traditional settings, which in turn supports regionally significant arts and crafts while lessening the cultural disruptions that often accompany development. To further preserve the cultural identity of our artisans, we provide our customers with our artisan's stories and information about Worldstock's mission.

Worldstock does not sell products made from endangered or protected materials, such as ivory, fur, and exotic animal skins; and we also insist that our partners comply with all applicable local environmental regulations. Moreover, we encourage the use of raw materials and production methods that do not damage the environment. Some Worldstock goods are comparable to mass-produced commercial goods, but are produced in nonindustrial ways.