Ethically Me Newsletter 001

ethically me Newsletter 001:

Welcome - Here are the results of the ethically me questionnaire and newsletter.

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Index
1. Intro
2. The Questionnaire Results
3. ethically me News
4. Interesting Articles / Information
5. List Management

Introduction
We have had the most phenomenal response to the questionnaire! Thank you for taking the time to let us know what you think. We have decided to pick up the gauntlet and start by creating a small stylish women's range for Spring/Summer 2003.

The Results
The results have been exciting and very informative and we would like to share them with you.

More than 1000 of you participated in the survey (from an initial mailing of 270 – viral marketing is alive and well!).
The key theme that emerged is that 81.2% of respondents were interested in purchasing ethical clothing.
We had responses from a very diverse group in terms of age, location (just over a quarter of the respondents were outside the UK) and jobs.
Additionally, our proposed offering - a range of ethical clothing that is similar in style, quality and price to the high street was exactly what appealed to the majority of the respondents (60%, 55% and 56% respectively).
The most widely read book (from our selection) was Naomi Klein’s ‘No Logo’ and had been read by 21% of the respondents.
More than half the respondents already demonstrate ethical behaviour: 52% of respondents buy Fair Trade products, 58.4% have specifically bought products for political, social or economic reasons while 46.9% have boycotted product for the same reasons.

If you would like any further information or use the results in any manner, please contact manisha

Note from Meagan and Manisha:
While we were overwhelmed and excited by the results, we are aware that our data may have a slight bias given the initial population did know us. We realise that many of us would like to shop with a conscience – but it needs to be easy, and even enjoyable to do (and the products need to be stylish and of similar quality to the high street). That will be one of the challenges for ethically me – making putting money where our sentiments are, both easy and worth while!

ethically me News
The team has expanded! We have been joined by Elizabeth Edwards, a versatile and creative designer and Emma Finneron, a production specialist who has expertise in quality control procedures. We have support and insight from both our Fashion manager, David Jones who is a specialist at launching new fashion businesses and Chris Alexandre our e-commerce and e-retail specialist. We are also fortunate to have access to a number of inspiring ethical auditors and policy advisors on a regular basis.

We are working extremely hard translating Elizabeth's beautiful designs into real clothes and checking how we achieve production in the fairest, ethical manner possible. We will bring you the range in Spring 2003 and keep you informed with our adventures in the meantime.

So please watch the space and share in the birth of ethically me!

Interesting Articles / Information
It is incredibly exciting to create a new company and policy. We are on a huge learning curve, which we will share with you. We hope you will share information and your thoughts with us too and keep teaching us new things too!

In the same month as we ran our questionnaire ICM ran a similar questionnaire with Retail Weekly. They questioned a random sample of 1000 consumers aged 18-plus by phone and found that:

58% of respondents said they have ethical issues in mind, to some degree, when shopping.
66% would be willing to pay more for goods where they were sure that the producer had been paid a fair price.

Please see the ICM website for the results in detail.

One of our first steps has been looking at sizing, do we use the high street average sizes or more realistic sizes? ( We think this will be an area of continuing development) and it was interesting to read that Anita Roddick had experimented with what it would be like to be fat, and old, and homeless.

There were also a number of articles in the Evening Standard including an expose of sweatshops here in London. We are working very carefully to set up and build our ethical policies but we don’t think we will ever have the perfect solution. It is good to know there are active reporters, and campaigns like No Sweat to help us monitor and refine our policies and raise awareness in the public eye - ok good and scary!

Thank you for your support

meagan and manisha
Founders - ethically me

ethically me would like to thank Digital Nation for their help and assistance in sending out this newsletter and for running the survey.
For more information on Digital Nations products and services visit http://www.digitalnation.co.uk/

End of ethicallyme newsletter, issue 1.