Policies for Brands selling on The Labour Movement

Policies for Brands selling on The Labour Movement 

This policy establishes our Terms of Use for any person or organization selling or wishing to sell products (hereafter “Brand”) through The Labour Movement . By applying, opening a shop and listing your products for sale here, you’re agreeing to abide by these policies.

i. Founding principles
The Labour Movement is a marketplace dedicated to fostering, growing, enabling and ensuring ethical commerce.

The basic requirement for selling on The Labour Movement is that you practice Fair Trade principles in your supply chain and seek to continually uphold and expand on your commitment to Fair Trade practices. 

While 100% application of Fair Trade principles throughout your entire supply chain is not always possible, we believe any brand actively applying fair trade principles, and working toward continual improvement, and thereby working to help create a fairer world, deserves support. 

Most of our brands and/or their manufacturing and supply chain partners are certified by reputable 3rd party Fair Trade organizations, however we do not, at this time, require that brands have or maintain a 3rd party Fair Trade certification to sell on The Labour Movement. We do accept other forms of documentation as evidence of a brand’s Fair Trade commitment. If you actively practice Fair Trade principles we want to hear from you, apply here.

Specifically, these principles form the basis of The Labour Movement’s concept of Fair Trade:

• Ensuring fair wages in the tiers of your supply chain where you have oversight, and actively working to improve wages in other tiers where possible
• No use of forced or exploitative labor in the parts of the supply chain you control or can reasonably influence, with mechanisms to identify and address any issues discovered
  
• Ensuring safe and healthy working conditions where you have oversight, and actively collaborating with partners to promote safe, equitable workplaces across the wider supply chain
• Protecting workers’ rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining where you have direct influence, and encouraging partners to uphold these rights
• Promoting non-discrimination in workplaces you oversee and encouraging similar practices among partners
• Maintaining transparency in your operations where possible and prioritizing partnerships with organizations committed to ethical practices and disclosure

Any brand selling on The Labour Movement must demonstrate and provide evidence of adherence to these principles in its actual business practices and must seek continual improvement upon its real-world application of these fair trade principles.

ii. Ethical claims, transparency, and accuracy
Brands must ensure that any claims they make about Fair Trade practices, labor conditions, environmental impact, or ethical sourcing are truthful, accurate, and capable of being substantiated upon request.

Brands may not use misleading terms such as “Fair Trade,” “ethical,” “sustainable,” or similar claims in a way that misrepresents their actual practices.

The Labour Movement reserves the right to request documentation, clarification, or independent verification of any ethical or Fair Trade claims made by a Brand, and to remove or modify listings that cannot be adequately supported.

iii. Our labor and supply chain standards
In accordance with the Fair Trade principles outlined above, all Brands selling on The Labour Movement commit to working to achieve and maintain the following standards throughout their supply chains:

• No forced labour: Brands must actively work to prevent forced and child labor
• Fair wages: Brands commit to working toward and supporting living wages for workers
• No harassment or abuse: Brands must work with their manufacturers and partners to prevent physical or mental abuse of workers
• Decent working conditions: Brands should prioritize safe, healthy, and equitable workplaces in their production and sourcing
• Freedom of association: Brands must recognize workers’ rights to collective bargaining and freedom of association
• Regulatory compliance: Brands must maintain oversight of their supply chain partners to ensure local laws and regulations are respected

Violations of these standards are grounds for immediate removal from The Labour Movement.

iv. Selling basics
Any item that is Fair Trade certified or made using Fair Trade practices is eligible for review and inclusion on The Labour Movement marketplace. All brands go through a review process and inclusion of each brand and product is at the sole discretion of The Labour Movement.

The major categories we are actively seeking products in, are:

1. Apparel and accessories
2. Home décor
3. Furniture
4. Jewelry
5. Toys
6. Pantry
7. Holiday
8. Self Care
9. Stationery
10. Electronics
    

But we are interested in anything and everything Fair Trade! If you think your products would be a good addition to the marketplace we want to hear from you, regardless of category.

v. Brand responsibilities and conduct on the marketplace
Brands selling on The Labour Movement are expected to act in good faith toward both customers and the marketplace. This includes:

• Responding to customer inquiries in a reasonable timeframe
• Fulfilling orders as listed and within stated shipping windows
• Keeping inventory reasonably accurate
• Clearly representing products, materials, and sourcing
• Honoring posted policies for shipping and returns
• Cooperating with The Labour Movement in resolving customer issues

Repeated failure to meet these responsibilities may result in suspension or removal from the platform.

vi. The Labour Movement responsibilities
The Labour Movement is a marketplace. We provide a platform where consumers can find and purchase Fair Trade products from Brands who produce and distribute them.

We take our responsibilities both to our Brands, and to the people who buy products here, seriously. 

At this time, the major responsibilities The Labour Movement has are:

• Verifying Brand’s Fair Trade claims
  
• Approving them to list products on The Labour Movement
  
• Working with Brands to ensure their product listings are accurate
  
• Bringing consumers to the marketplace to shop from our Brands
  
• Collecting payments from shoppers
  
• Ensuring Brands listed on the marketplace keep their promises to shoppers and deliver purchased products
  
• Releasing payments to Brands
  
• To create a reliable, trustworthy environment where shoppers know they can come to find Fair Trade goods

In upholding these responsibilities we reserve the right to limit, suspend, or remove any Brand or shopper’s access to and use of The Labour Movement with or without any explanation. 

vii. Disputes, fulfillment, and customer issues
The Labour Movement exists to create a trustworthy marketplace for both shoppers and Brands. To that end, we aim to handle customer issues in good faith and with fairness to all parties.

Brands are ultimately responsible for the products they sell and for shipping those products to customers as promised.

If a customer can reasonably demonstrate that an item did not arrive, arrived damaged, or was materially not as described, the order should be eligible for a refund in accordance with the Brand’s stated return policies and our minimum return standards.

In these situations, The Labour Movement may assist in communication, investigation, and resolution between the customer and the Brand. However, the Brand remains responsible for making things right with the customer, including issuing replacements or refunds where appropriate.

The Labour Movement reserves the right, at its discretion, to issue refunds to customers in the interest of maintaining trust in the marketplace and to recover those amounts from the responsible Brand where warranted.

viii. Suspension and removal
The Labour Movement reserves the right to limit, suspend, or remove any Brand from the marketplace at our sole discretion, with or without explanation.

Without limiting that discretion, examples of grounds for removal include:

• Violations of our Fair Trade or labor standards
• Misrepresentation of ethical or sourcing practices
• Repeated failure to fulfill orders
• Excessive customer complaints or unresolved disputes
• Deliberate manipulation of reviews
• Failure to provide requested documentation
• Non-responsiveness to customers or to The Labour Movement

ix. Applying to The Labour Movement
The application process is simple. When you apply you will fill out a form that takes approximately 15 minutes to complete. In it you will be asked about your brand’s purpose, how you work to ensure Fair Trade practices in your supply chain, any third party certifications and more. 

After you submit your application our team will review it and ask for supporting documentation necessary to verify the statements made. This could be a third party certificate, a list detailing supplier certifications, formal agreements with providers, founding documents of your company, photographs of visits with suppliers, etc.

It is expected that any applicant make every effort to present true and verifiable information in their application, and any deliberately false or misleading claims are subject to disapproval.

x. Getting set up to sell
Once you are accepted as a Brand on The Labour Movement you will be able to create your storefront and listings, and set your store up to receive payouts. 

If you already have a store on Shopify, our store sync feature allows you to easily import existing catalogues, and sync inventory, orders and returns between your storefront on The Labour Movement and your Shopify store, so you can manage most everything from your Shopify store.

Once your listings are complete they will undergo an internal review and then be published!

xi. Intellectual property and product images
Brands must have the legal right to use any images, logos, trademarks, or other intellectual property included in their storefront or product listings.

Brands are responsible for ensuring that their listings do not infringe on the intellectual property rights of others.

xii. Order processing
When an order is made through The Labour Movement you will be notified immediately in your own Shopify store through our store sync feature. You can simply fulfill that order as you would any other. 

You can also log into our seller’s platform and manage all of your orders from there.

xiii. Shipping
All inventory management, storage, handling, and shipping is the sole responsibility of you, the Brand. 

Please make sure to carefully list your average shipping times and return policies on your storefront listing and your product listings. This is an integral part of the shopping experience for customers.

We have only two shipping policies we expect Brands to uphold, they are:

1. All orders should be processed and out for shipping within 3 business days.
2. We strongly recommend orders shipped from the US to the US include free shipping.
   
   This is not something we recommend lightly, and has been a major point of consideration for us.
   
   Allow us to take a moment to explain why this is so important:
   
   As a marketplace we bring together many brands, but from a shopper’s perspective this is not immediately obvious. If they get to the end of the checkout process with several products in their cart, each with a different shipping fee that they did not expect, that could very likely prevent the sale and lose the customer.
   
   Survey data shows more than 8 in 10 online shoppers cited free shipping (81.34%) as their top priority when it comes to delivering their orders. (source)
   
   It is a bad experience for the shopper not to provide this service. While free shipping presents a hurdle for you as a brand, not providing it affects the trust of the consumer and ultimately could lose their business and their referral. In the long run it is worse for all of us not to include free shipping.
   
   This said, there are two strategies you can employ to make this work for you:
   
   • Build it into the price—you are free to raise the prices of your products on The Labour Movement to account for all or part of the additional expense of providing shipping
   
   • Sell in bundles—if you are selling small, low-margin products, consider selling them in bundles of 3, 5, or whatever makes sense to cover the costs of the product.
   
   We are actively researching potential logistics solutions for our sellers that will greatly help offset these costs and this is a developing aspect of The Labour Movement Marketplace.

If you feel you cannot offer free shipping, you can configure shipping to match your current rates.

Please contact us with any questions: brands@thelabourmovement.com

xiv. Returns
We require a minimum of a 30-day return policy.

Each Brand is free to set their own return policies on return shipping, restocking fees, etc. The Labour Movement will facilitate customer refunds less any fees you decide to charge. 

Please ensure your policies are clearly listed on your product pages.

xv. Payouts
The Labour Movement will collect and remit payments for each order on behalf of each seller.

This is the sequence of how we handle money collected:

1. The full amount is collected from the shopper
   
2. Payment processing fees are paid
   
3. Taxes collected are reserved for payment
   
4. Shipping fees are paid to the shipper
   
5. The Labour Movement reserves its payment transaction fee
   
6. The remainder is paid out to the Brand

Payouts are processed after the return window has closed, which is shipping time plus 30 days.

xvi. Taxes
Brands are responsible for their own income taxes, business taxes, and any other tax obligations arising from their sales on The Labour Movement.

Where required by law, The Labour Movement will collect and remit applicable sales tax on transactions made through the marketplace when statutory thresholds are met.

xvii. Data and customer information
Brands may only use customer information obtained through The Labour Movement for the purpose of fulfilling orders placed on the marketplace, and managing communication regarding, and returns of, items purchased through The Labour Movement.

Brands may not add customers to marketing lists, send promotional emails, or otherwise use customer data for advertising without explicit customer consent obtained independently of The Labour Movement.

xviii. Reviews
Our reviews system allows users who purchased a product to leave a review for the product or brand that they purchased it from.

Only verified purchasers can leave reviews on any given product.

This is a good faith system that is intended to make a better shopping experience for everyone using the site and we expect that no Brand will attempt to game this system. Doing so is grounds for removal from The Labour Movement.

xix. Leaving the marketplace
A Brand may choose to leave The Labour Movement at any time by emailing brands@thelabourmovement.com 

Brands can deactivate their listed products in their profile on The Labour Movement to prevent further sales immediately. In addition, we will make reasonable effort to disable further sales within 7 business days of receiving notice.

If a Brand exits the marketplace, they must fulfill all outstanding orders and continue to honor return windows for any goods already sold through The Labour Movement.

xx. Disclaimer
The Labour Movement reserves the right to allow or disallow any brand on its platform and such decisions are made at the sole discretion of The Labour Movement.

The Labour Movement reserves the right to make changes to these terms at any time, with or without notification, but will never change or alloy its mission to achieve a Fair Trade world.

Nothing in these terms should be construed as providing any right, claim, or ownership to or of The Labour Movement or any of its web or physical properties, intellectual rights, or any other stake or interest.

Nothing in these terms should be construed as grounds for legal action against The Labour Movement in the event of perceived failure to uphold one or more aspects of The Labour Movement’s responsibilities or assurances. 

By applying as a brand and/or selling on The Labour Movement you are agreeing to these terms and conditions.