EnVia Retail – Marketing Plan · organization EnVia based in Oaxaca, Mexico into the for-profit...

EnVia Retail – Marketing Plan

Christina Hayes | Derek Kaufman | Haley Ljunggren | Alyssa Luttrell | Kyle Parnell

5/21/2015

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Table of Contents Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................................... 2

General Market/Situation Analysis ............................................................................................................... 3

Client and Service Description ................................................................................................................. 3

Situation Analysis ..................................................................................................................................... 3

Market Research ....................................................................................................................................... 5

Marketing Management and Strategy ........................................................................................................... 8

Target Market Overview ........................................................................................................................... 8

Identity and Branding ............................................................................................................................... 9

Supply Chain and Timing ......................................................................................................................... 9

Retail Support ......................................................................................................................................... 11

“Closing the Loop” – Connecting Customers to the Artisans ................................................................. 14

Social Media and Outreach ..................................................................................................................... 15

Business Plan .......................................................................................................................................... 16

Financials .................................................................................................................................................... 18

Next Steps ................................................................................................................................................... 19

Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................. 20

References ................................................................................................................................................... 21

Appendix A - Marketing Intelligence Report ............................................................................................. 22

Appendix B - Focus Group ......................................................................................................................... 39

Transcription of Focus Group ................................................................................................................. 39

Focus Group Participant Handout ........................................................................................................... 46

Focus Group Participant A Written Responses ....................................................................................... 51

Focus Group Participant B Written Responses ....................................................................................... 55

Focus Group Participant Waiver Release Form ...................................................................................... 59

Appendix C - Survey .................................................................................................................................. 60

Images of Survey Created ....................................................................................................................... 60

Appendix D - Tacoma Entrepreneur Network Business Plan Competition 2015 ....................................... 64

EnVia Retail Business Plan Content ....................................................................................................... 64

Business Plan Feedback .......................................................................................................................... 78

Appendix E - Financial (Destinations of Sales Dollars) ............................................................................. 80

Appendix F – Survey Responses ................................................................................................................. 0

Appendix G - Expanded SWOT Analysis .................................................................................................... 3

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Executive Summary This report evaluates and prescribes some marketing strategies for moving the non-profit

organization EnVia based in Oaxaca, Mexico into the for-profit retail sector in the United States

by selling artisan goods from members of their network who have benefited from micro-finance

loans. In order to configure a target market and marketing strategies for this unique organization

and market, we conducted a focus group, survey, as well as competitor analysis for marketing

research. Our recommendations include creating social media presence on Facebook, Twitter,

and YouTube to increase visibility for the target market as well as to continue to import under

the EnVia name to promote consistency throughout the brand and organization mission.

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General Market/Situation Analysis

Client and Service Description

EnVia is an organization that is dedicated to supporting the community of Oaxaca

through three major programs: microfinance, responsible tourism, and education. What separates

EnVia from other non-profits that sell artisan goods from various places around the world is that

EnVia focuses on first and foremost educating and empowering these women. Through the

microfinance program, EnVia partners with women in the Oaxaca community by helping to

support their business ventures, some of which include creating handmade goods, such as purses,

wallets, and coin purses. It is important to note that EnVia does not just provide the financial

support for these women, but also provides educational components for the women. The courses

allow the women benefiting from EnVia’s programs to learn how to properly manage their

personal and business-related finances. The final element offered by EnVia is the responsible

tourism. These tours offer not only the opportunity to see where these women of Oaxaca produce

their goods, but also the tourists to buy the products and hear directly from the women that made

them. This current model is great for engaging Oaxacan visitors with the entire EnVia

organization and some of the beautiful artisan goods that are produced from these microfinance

loan options. However, the stories of the women in Oaxaca and the beautiful handmade goods

they create should be accessible to others that may not be able to go to Mexico. Our mission is to

expand EnVia into the U.S. retail marketplace by selling these artisan goods made by the women

that participate in EnVia’s program.

Situation Analysis

Following is an analysis of where EnVia stands in terms of internal strengths, internal

weakness, external opportunities, and external threats (SWOT). Also included are possible

strategies EnVia can incorporate into their organizations to overcome their challenges and take

advantages of their strengths.

Strengths:

A primary strength for EnVia is the founder and director Carlos Topete. Carlos worked in

corporate America for the company 3-M and has the experiences and education to operate an

exporting program for artisans of EnVia’s products to neighboring countries.

Next, nonprofit organizations are a continuing trend in the U.S. as millennials further

integrate going green and focusing on bettering mankind. Microfinance is a small sector of the

nonprofit industry and EnVia offers a unique experience for customers to not only purchase

handmade, organic products in Mexico, but to meet the person who made the product(s). A

relationship with TripAdvisor and the positive reviews from customers also help in spreading the

word of such a distinctive experience by posting Oaxaca and EnVia’s tours on their site.

A third strength for the organization is their geographic location on the map for a climate

that supports the natural resources artisans use to dye and create their products. Artisans are able

to grow natural materials and use coloring techniques passed down from their indigenous

ancestors to create final products that embrace Oaxaca’s rich culture, history, and natural

landscape.

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Weaknesses:

Although shipping to the U.S. is expensive, having EnVia sponsored sales at various

farmers markets around the country could cut administrative costs while selling products for a

higher price than they would be sold in Mexico. The opportunity to export products not only

benefits EnVia with increased profits, but the artisan can receive more business, and the

organization’s name will become better known.

As a nonprofit organization, EnVia faces financial challenges and limits for-profit firms

don’t have to consider. EnVia relies heavily on volunteers, donations, and tourists with as few

administrative costs as possible for paid employees. With these financial limitations, EnVia has

to be careful on who their loans are given to, the training programs, and operations that go into

keeping this organization running.

A final weakness for EnVia is awareness of the organization in the United States. All

firms choose how much they want to invest in advertising and EnVia primarily focuses on word

of mouth and is rated on TripAdvisor, but in the long run, if EnVia wants to expand, these alone

will not suffice.

Opportunities:

In relation to strengths from an external point of view are opportunities for EnVia, to not

only strengthen their current business model, but to expand their business and support base

outside of Mexico. Similar to the weakness of international knowledge is the opportunity for

EnVia to expand its loans outside of Oaxaca and to the United States. Part of this organization’s

success is staying close to its roots in Mexico, however expanding out to neighboring areas in

need as well as expanding marketing/advertising campaigns outside the country can only present

benefits for EnVia.

Marketing to schools to embed fundraising and traveling into a student’s education can

offer ways for students to further their understanding in nonprofit, and involvement in a different

community. EnVia can also reach out to various universities in the U.S. that offer non-profit

areas of study to collaborate with professors on student projects. Types of projects can include

selling artisan products at schools for an EnVia fundraisers, or raise money to visit Oaxaca for

spring break, similar to Pacific Lutheran University’s Living Water project that raises funds to

build wells in Nicaragua. A primary target market will include seasonal promotion to tourists.

Also, during the northern hemisphere’s winter, many snowbirds and retirees are seeking a warm,

new experience. Reaching out to this population can greatly benefit profit and word of mouth

advertising by continuing to bring new consumers to Oaxaca at times tourism is slow.

Threats:

From an external perspective there are numerous threats that can impact EnVia from

outside the organization. Even though Mexico is progressing economically, political unrest plays

a role in how the rest of the world views the country. There is a lot of negative attention to

Mexico in the news (drug cartels and shootings of tourists) causing views of unsafe travelling to

anywhere in Mexico instead of just where the problems are arising. Because of so much negative

media attention, corruption and other unrest will continue to play a role in tourist’s thoughts

when choosing where to travel. A similar threat that is out of EnVia’s control is a natural disaster

such as a flood, or drought. These types of events will drastically impact the production of

artisans and therefore decreasing potential for revenue and business.

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The ability to mass produce products can threaten the success of exporting to consumers.

Not being able to produce an identical product each time can turn consumers away and be seen

as less attractive. Pricing also plays a role in how often consumers will think to purchase

products from EnVia artisans via e-commerce. If pricing is too high, some consumers do not

connect pricing with shipping and quality of the product. The threat for this situation is cheap

Chinese labor. Many American, European, and Asian companies manufacture and mass produce

in China because it is so cheap and therefore making products less expensive for consumers. If

EnVia chooses to export goods, constantly emphasizing product quality (and being able to tell

customers where the materials come from) is a key factor in creating a demand for such unique,

expensive products.

Another important threat to EnVia as a nonprofit organization is competition between

other impoverished areas of Central America such as Honduras and Nicaragua. Many nonprofits

in the U.S. travel to Central America for volunteer work. EnVia must continue to position

Oaxaca as a “better” city to visit and support over established programs for other big cities. Both

the suppliers and the distributors are the artisan woman. Each artisan is supplied with a loan from

EnVia, but it is the women themselves that make and sell their products. To become a part of the

EnVia group, women have to have a business proposal, take education classes, and pay back

their loans before they can get approved for another one later down the road. EnVia can target a

fairly large market of people, but we would like to focus most of our efforts on the age range

between 25 and 50 year old females.

Market Research

Marketing Intelligence:

As stated, there are a number of different other organizations that are similar to EnVia,

but we chose to focus on one in particular called Serrv. Serrv is actively working in over 36

countries highlighting the work of their sponsored artisans. Both EnVia and Serrv offer an

emotional connection with each individual consumer considering an investment in products or

the organization all together. This is derived through their influential message. Serrv works with

a variety of different artisans from different countries all around the world and operates through

both online as well as brick and mortar stores to sell the products of the artisans they work with.

Serrv’s online store is clean, organized, informative, has a good design, and is user

friendly. Their online store is broken down in multiple sections making it easy to navigate the

site and find what exactly what you’re looking for; home decor, kitchen, food, women, apparel,

garden, gifts & collections, sales, and holiday. These major categories are then further broken

down into even smaller sections making Serrv’s website that much more organized and clean.

Within each product description the location and specific organization that made it is listed as

well as how it was made. Serrv’s online store not only highlights the products their artisans

produce, but also the artisans and the organizations they belong to. All of these different products

come from over 36 different countries from around the world; Bangladesh, Bosnia, Cambodia,

Cameroon, Chile, China, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatamala, Ghana, Haiti, India, Indonesia,

Israel, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mexico, Nepal, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines,

Rwanda, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Uganda, Vietnam, and the West Bank. Each of the

different countries has its own page within the website further detailing each of the organizations

and what they do within their community. Serrv’s own personal mission is also located on their

site as well as ways one can get involved either through volunteer work, donations, or working at

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one of their national locations. Aside from their online store, Serrv also has two physical

locations- one in Maryland and two in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin locations are open 7 days a

week and the store in Maryland is open Thursday through Saturday. Serrv products are also

located at other retail locations across the country.

From the logistical side of things, SERRV only ships to the U.S., its territories and

Canada. SERRV uses FedEx ground service as well as the U.S. Postal Service, and clearly states

that SERRV is not responsible for delivery delays on the carrier’s end. As SERRV markets

unique, artisan hand made products, they also struggle with backordering. SERRV attributes

their backorders due to extenuating circumstances such as floods, cyclones, power outages and

lack of raw materials, making it seem like SERRV never is at fault for a backorder. SERRV will

allow you to backorder for products over $10. SERRV’s return policy is quite extensive, and it

is clear that it is used often as each product order comes with a Returns Form. A product may be

returned within 30 days of receipt, but an exchange for the same item is only offered for a

different size. Damaged items are returnable for another product, a refund check or even a credit

on an account. On top of all of this, if a customer has a question they can call customer care at

SERRV or can send an email for help. Overall, the website is easy to use and their policies for

shipping and returns make it simple to get the one of a kind product a consumer is looking for.

Using Serrv’s international model we believe that EnVia could successfully branch out into the

U.S. market.

Focus Group:

We conducted a focus group in order to get a better grasp of what consumer’s in our

target market were looking for. From that hour we learned a couple different things, but one of

the most important things obviously for a non-profit is to be known for the good work that it

does. Through social media EnVia can not only spread awareness about their organization, but

by including specific stories of the women helped through their programs they will be able to

build on their brand image.

Our participants particularly like giving to organizations like EnVia, ones that give out

loans and education, as opposed to organizations that they perceive to give out “hand-outs.” The

different respondents stated that they were more attracted to these organization’s because they

felt like their money was actually contributing to the betterment of the recipients lives; “you can

give a man and feed him for a day or you can teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.”

When showed some examples of what types of products EnVia would be distributing we

got a gage on what kinds of locations the items should be sold at and at what prices. What we

gathered from the responses is that if say one of the pencil pouch type bags were to be sold in a

Target type store than they would not pay more than $5 or so for it. However if the location was

to be changed to either a venue like World Market or an auction, there could be a significant

price increase because of the perceived value.

Survey:

As a means to enhance the data and insights our group received from our focus group, we

developed a survey regarding EnVia Retail. The questions within the survey expanded upon some of the

same types of insights we looked for within our focus group as well as expanded into new categories.

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Some of the similar areas with the focus group included showing example items and asking about what

stores the participants would like to see this type of product in as well as how willing they would be to

purchase something of that type. Different areas of information that were embodied in our survey that

were not so in the focus group included demographic information about what year the participant was

born as well as what they preferred to see in a decision between two logos for EnVia Retail.

The survey was conducted online and received participants through how the survey was shared by

our marketing team’s membership online. In total, the survey was approximately ten questions long and

took less than five minutes for a participant to complete.

For further information about the survey, please reference appendix C and F

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Marketing Management and Strategy

Target Market Overview

The primary target market for EnVia’s retail market in the United States will be

Millennials (born 1981-1997) and Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964). Between both segments,

younger consumers demonstrate more environmental consciousness and desire to help others

while Boomers are in the beginning states to retire out of the workforce with more discretionary

income. EnVia can primarily target Millennials in the U.S. market relying on the habits of the

younger generation including environmental consciousness, where products are made, how they

are made, supporting local communities, and desires to help others. Boomers hold power in the

market by having “more discretionary income than any other age group,” and “account for a

dramatic 40% of total consumer demand,” (Olenski, 2012) meaning EnVia can target this age

group for traveling to Oaxaca in addition to the retailing options in the U.S.

According to Roger J. Best’s book Market-Based Management millennials “exert

enormous influence over the global demand… [and] also influences younger and older age-based

segments,” (Best, 2013). With a world population of about 840 million and a tech-savvy global

focus, Millennials hold the power to grow the market for products like EnVia’s as well as

influence awareness of microfinance loans and non-profit causes. In a fast shifting world of

engineering new agriculture and farming products for consumption, many Americans have

grown weary of many food chain retailers. Trust is diminishing as many ingredients are

imported, genetically modified, or filled with high-fructose corn syrup. An alternative to

concerned consumers is shopping at local farmers markets. Mostly these markets comprise of

fresh, organic, and certified produce, dairy products such as eggs, seafood, and handcrafts. Since

these markets vary by size (based on the location) and bring a sense of community to locals and

tourists, stimulating the local economy and supporting local farmers and business.

EnVia will benefit from these types of markets as they are consistent, across the country

in large cities, and continue to fulfil needs with Millennials seeking to support local as well as

global initiatives to end issues such as poverty. With a growing amount of Baby Boomers, this

segment will continue to fulfill EnVia’s travel aspect as their awareness to travel and do

something different rises. As mentioned below, those born between 1946-1964, have the highest

means of wealth and therefore higher averages of discretionary income. Demographics are not as

efficient to describe the target market for Millennials as well as habits and moral/ethical

attributes. These include environmentally friendly products, organic, locally sourced foods,

purchasing from local stores instead of chains, contributing to awareness of global issues

(including poverty, hunger, disease), supporting transparent, straight forward organizations and

good causes. Boomers however control a majority of the nation’s wealth and can be more

defined for a market segment. Characteristics include a focus on healthy aging, increased

activity, retired, and moderate to high discretionary income levels. As stated on metlife.com in

reference to a culture boomers grew up in, “Their changing attitudes and their social activism

helped redefine the American cultural, economic, political, and social landscape,” (Metlife,

2015). This helps us to understand Boomers and Millennials are not as different as we think.

Both generations are mentally tuned into social change, advocating for cultural shifts, and

willingness to support others. By targeting these segments for EnVia products, Millennials will

spread the word of EnVia by technology (social media, word-of-mouth) while more Boomers

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will be informed about what EnVia offers in terms of travel to Oaxaca and how they can

continue to support the local economy and contribute to the cause of ending poverty in Mexico.

Initial education about EnVia and the products EnVia offers will be the biggest challenge

as few consumers will know about the organization and fewer will understand the concept of

microloans and financing. However the customer need created is a way to support a cause bigger

than the individual (EnVia/Oaxaca) while supporting their local community and economy (local

retailers) with understanding their product, the artisan’s story, and the opportunity to experience

how the consumer’s purchase will benefit EnVia’s vision.

Identity and Branding

EnVia’s retail market expansion should keep its organization’s name. Since the U.S.

market has a large Hispanic segment, it would be perfectly acceptable to market products in

English as well as Spanish. The biggest aspect of EnVia’s differentiation is the opportunity for

consumers to travel to Oaxaca, tour the area, and meet artisans that have been supported and

educated by EnVia. American consumerism has been taken over by low quality, mass quantity

goods from countries such as China and India. The opportunity to meet a woman that has created

and crafted a purchased product every step of the way is an experience of a life time that many

American consumers would not expect. If EnVia begins in one region of the United States then

expands across the country, using the same logos, color schemes, and images will begin to create

brand recognition. Chain stores such as Pier One Imports are one example of a retail outlet that

will bring the pieces together for consistency in the brand and organization across the nation.

Maintaining continuity in name and design schemes emphasizes “The importance of brand

reputation to many target customers enhances the companies’ positioning and differentiation

advantage,” (Best, 2013). Producers of EnVia products understand the quality of what they

create, however many consumers can be apprehensive when experiencing a product for the first

time. By selling EnVia’s products at farmers markets and co-ops, trust and confidence is already

associated with that local distributor leading the consumer to trust any brand that outlet caries.

When a customer sees an EnVia product, their first experiences will be sight and touch

and what the consumer associates with the specific product. If there is a positive association

(such as a pink pencil pouch that associates with a positive childhood memory), the consumer

will continue to observe the product. Having information about EnVia and the artisan on a tag or

shelf the product is placed on will capture the consumer and then determine whether or not to

make the purchase.

Supply Chain and Timing

While in Mexico the women sell their goods through their homes or little shops and even

through retailing in the U.S., a goal is to continue the personal connections made through these

products. EnVia will initially partner with national home goods stores such as Pier One Imports,

then contact large city farmers markets. These cities would include Seattle, San Francisco,

Miami, and New York. Consumers at small, local markets seek organic, pure products and shop

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with an established higher willingness to pay for products that advertise sustainable and organic

production.

The pricing strategy that would best fit EnVia for expanding into the retail marketing in

the United States would be value pricing. Value pricing based on the market instead of cost-

based pricing which risks overpricing and therefore lower profits. Within value pricing are five

strategies and the best strategy for EnVia would be performance-based pricing. According to

Roger J. Best’s Market-Based Management performance-based pricing refers to a “price is set on

the basis of customer preferences for different levels of price and performance and taking into

consideration how the company and competitors are positioned with respect to delivering both

price and performance,” (Best, 2013). The artisans supported by EnVia are producing quality

goods that will be sold at a premium price. Due to the organic, handwork, and time that goes into

each individual product, consumers will have a higher willingness to pay for product quality. The

relationship management between EnVia and the artisans also gives EnVia the opportunity to

include an experience with each product sold. Consumers are given details of products that are

rare to come by such as the artisan that made the product, that artisan’s story, and information to

visit EnVia’s webpage for further involvement.

Around the turn of the century, the consumer preference for local products increased and

the price premium followed with that demand (Adams & Salois, 2010). A study in 2009 showed

that “South Carolina consumers were willing to pay an average of 27% more for local produce

and 23% more for local animal products,” (Carpio & Isengildina-Massa, 2009) supporting that

communities that demand local supplies have a higher willingness to pay. This higher

willingness to pay will also increase as inflation continues and more information about negative

attributes of non-organic farmed products becomes more readily available to consumers.

Using a performance-based strategy consumers will heavily weigh price as a factor in

their decision making process to purchase the product. For products sold at public markets it will

be up to the seller to explain the story and purpose of EnVia and ensure the quality and standards

of the product. The initial sales process will be challenging as consumers do not currently

associate organic, handmade products with EnVia, but consumer experiencing the product will

instill more confidence in the consumer to buy the product. According to research conducted in

2006 on millennials, “The research demonstrates 83 percent of Millenials will place more trust in

organizations that are socially and environmentally responsible,” (Hoffman, 2009). With this

information, products and organizations that ethical and responsible have an increasing demand.

Consumers (population density varies by region) want to trust brands while knowing exactly

what they are buying and where it came from. EnVia offers a product that consumers can see,

feel, and experience the quality and sustainable process any purchased product went through.

Shipping products can also be done through EnVia so all products go from the artisan to

EnVia then to the consumer. This method would create a time opportunity cost, however EnVia

could better track what products are in demand, the most popular geographic location for

ordering, and base their shipping costs by customer location. EnVia can also set a fixed shipping

cost for products sold anywhere in the United States. By creating categories of small, medium,

and large products, each category can have a standard rate. Then, any difference in amount

charged and actual rate can be reinvested into EnVia. The differences in costs can also go toward

an account to make up for underestimated or unexpected charges.

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Shipping and handling costs are the major variable cost that EnVia would face with an

eventual online store. There are flat rate shipping options available with multiple mailing

organizations such as FedEx, however EnVia would need to determine whether their

organization or the consumer carries that cost burden. The average cost for a small item such as a

necklace will cost about $8 USD (120 pesos). An example of the price distribution could be if we

were to sell a handmade purse at $27, $2 (8%) would go to shipping and handling the product,

another $6 (24%) would go to administration and sales fees, $8.50 (34%) would go back to

EnVia, another $8.50 (34%) goes to the artisan who handmade the product and lastly the

remaining $3 (12%) would go back to reinvesting into the venture. This breakdown is for only

one product, but this model can apply to almost any item EnVia would want to retail in the U.S.

marketplace.

Timing for shipments will present its biggest challenges during the holiday months as

well as peak travel seasons for local markets. Extended research will need to be done to

understand the tourism fluctuations across the country throughout the year. For larger shipments

that will go to retail chains, orders will need to be placed three to six months in advance.

Established firms will need to report to EnVia their projections for peak seasons. Due to

international shipping costs, it will be most cost effective for EnVia to ship products in as big of

batches as possible, lowering the price per unit. Demand will expect to exceed supply during

holiday seasons, November-December, slow January-March, and increase through spring and

summer. The increase in spring and summer months will be attributed to school break trips,

travel season growth, and summer months when more consumers between the ages of 18-24

have summer jobs and thus higher discretionary income.

Retail Support

In order for the consumer to best understand the story of not only the product, but the

artisan women themselves, EnVia needs to help the consumer understand the richness of the

product past its appearance and applicability to their lives. Rather into the emotion that was put

into each and every woven string of naturally colored yarn.

Product Tags:

One of the possible aids to selling these handmade goods is the tags that are placed on the

products for sale. Many consumers use these tags to identify many things about products,

ranging from price to materials to backstory. These tags are incredibly useful, especially when

trying to convey the story of the artisans through the creation of a product. By having the story

of each artisan who created the product right on the tag attached to product this would be helpful

in educating consumers and selling these products. When a consumer can readily identify that

their purchase of a product goes to support the organization helping those in need, as well as

directly supporting the artisans, it would help them be more confident in their purchase, while

also increasing the chance of the consumer to buy the product. Also a picture of the artisan who

made the good would be helpful to the sale, when a consumer has a good idea of who is

supported through the sale of the product, they may be more inclined to purchase.

Another aspect that should be advertised on the tags would be the materials that went into

making this product. “Green” features of this product should be highlighted, such as the

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sustainable method of creating dyes, as well as the organic materials and the lack of synthetic

materials. EnVia must be careful; however, as too much emphasis on the sustainability of a

product may actually have an adverse effect on the consumer and possibly be seen as a form of

greenwashing. We believe that the materials that went into the creation of the product should be

included on the tags, as well as how to wash the items safely. This shows transparency within

the products as well as the caring for the length of the life of the product.

An additional aspect that could be used on the product tags would be to possibly print QR

codes on the tag. Once scanned, the QR code would send the customer to the EnVia website to

learn more about the organization as a whole. Then if the EnVia website also expands, there can

be specific links connected to QR codes that reflect information about the specific artisan that the

particular product originated from. The use of QR codes on the product tag can allow for more

knowledge about the entirety of the EnVia organization as well as the opportunity to learn more

about the particular artisan connected to the product.

Display Aids:

As mentioned previously, having a display of who made the product as well as where the

benefits go from the product would help a consumer make a decision to buy an artisan-made

product. Display aids can range from hanging signs to shelf displays to flyers in grocery bags.

These aids help consumers understand the product further than just the tags on the product. We

believe that small Point-of-Purchase displays within retail settings such as Pier One Imports or

World Market would help stimulate interest in these handmade goods. These Point-of-Purchase

displays would be very simple, things such as banners or ads in the front window of the store, or

possibly a flyer at the front door in baskets.

Another possible idea is to have a life-size cutout of an artisan woman holding her

product, with shelves for the product on the front side. This helps customers relate the purchase

of the product to directly supporting this woman and her family, as well as the organization who

made this support possible. These displays should show that the purchases of these products

directly support those in need, either through pictures or short video clips, to help build brand

recognition. Another possible option is to use hanging banners within these retailers, but each

store has its own set of rules and regulations as to where a brand can advertise so it would be

beneficial to check with the retailers to see if this is even a viable option.

Through use of these displays, consumers of these handmade goods would be more likely

to purchase and support than if there were no displays associated with the products. A balance

must be achieved by displaying just the right amount of information, while providing a way for

the consumer to do more research into the subject if they choose to do so.

Storylines:

When tasked with describing the story of the product our team has concluded that it is

important to highlight the perspectives of the buyer. This will instill the notion that they are

actually contributing to a larger movement, rather than highlighting the artisan women.

However, there must be a combination of the two. The artisan women deserve credit for their

work. They need to be highlighted more on the level of their name in efforts to create a sense of

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emotional connection with the buyer, but our research highlighted that more emphasis should be

on the entirety of the EnVia organization rather than the variety of individual stories.

Purchasing these products through a retail setting with proper story telling of the product,

organization, and artisan women, will allow the buyer to feel as though they are actually making

a difference in these communities. In order to frame the story of the product, it is best to illustrate

the track on which it came. By that I mean start by talking about the yarn with naturally made

dyes, going onto the creation of the product, all the way to the retailer. This is something that is

everyday common sense from the perspective of the artisan woman, but she is not the one selling

the product. The buyers need to understand where it came from, who made it, how it got to the

shelves, and most importantly who specifically is benefitting from their money spent of the

product itself. There is a much larger picture when looking past the finished product and by

illustrating the life of the product along with its creator the buyer will fully understand the cause

in which they are supporting.

Programming:

Selling artisan made goods via retail is a tricky task. Sure, selling the goods is the ultimate goal.

But nothing will attain success without proper launch of a new product line. There needs to be

notification after notification for buyers everywhere to feel drawn to the product because even if

external advertisement brings them to the store, distraction is imminent once they set foot inside

retail outlet locations.

One possible idea of marketing visuals that would be great is a free artisan-made bracelet

upon entry of the retail store. This is something that would only be logical as a limited time offer

because of the costs it would require in order to pay the artisan woman to make all of these. The

benefit would be an authentic connection between the buyer and the artisan woman without

being able to meet in person. This would be a low cost introduction to these products for a

consumer. If they are not interested, maybe someone will see them wearing the bracelet and

inquire about where they got it and will want to see for themselves.

Additionally, a variation on the previous example would be to provide the same type of

promotional item (such as the bracelet) as a free gift with a minimum EnVia purchase for a

limited time only. This creates greater value for the consumer and can help promote EnVia

further and introduce the consumer to possibly the larger range of product offerings from EnVia

retail.

Another marketing visual that will help with the launch of a new product line is a stand-

up display upon entry of the store. Ideally, there would be a life size poster or cardboard cutout

of an artisan woman assembling a product that is sold in store. A poster would be more powerful

because there would be able to be a background in which the artisan is living, this would cause

awareness on its own because of the depressed community. It is evocative. This poster has the

ability to generate sales from any consumer walking in the store because of the emotional

connection they will obtain.

With the launch of a new product line, if all else fails, putting a flyer in one grocery bag

of each customer at the retail store will be a last ditch effort of instilling awareness and creating

demand for their artisan made products. A simple amount of information would be featured on

14

here which would be similar to what we put on the tag of the products. This is a very wise

investment for EnVia because they can create a large amount of demand for a relatively small

price. Standard advertisement is very expensive and flyers would only be a fraction of the cost.

When the buyer brings their purchased goods home, their families will be exposed to EnVia as

well. All in all this has the ability to reach out to many people successfully.

“Closing the Loop” – Connecting Customers to the Artisans

While we conducted our focus group, it was apparent that these tours are a beneficial

cause for both EnVia and these artisan women. Meeting these artisan women first hand allows

the consumer to see directly where their money is going and who it is helping. Not allowing

tours of Oaxaca, Mexico would be a detriment to the organization. Although not every consumer

will be able to go on one of these tours, there is the potential of word of mouth spreading via

people who took these tours to consumers everywhere. This strengthens the views of those

already aware of the organization. Not allowing tours would yield a considerable drop in demand

for artisan made products because there would be far less emotional connection involved

amongst the consumers. Physically meeting these women instills a sense of empathy in these

tourists enabling them to consider investing in the microfinance loans or distribution of the

artisan made products themselves.

Our feedback via the focus group itself varied from good and bad viewpoints. When our

moderator asked if any of the participants would consider going on a tour of Oaxaca, Mexico

facilitated by EnVia, three of them appeared to be very interested (Appendix B). Participant three

said “I’d definitely go on one of the tours. It sounds interesting”, however when asked if he

would ever consider going on one of these tours to meet the artisan women and observe the

community in which they live, participant four said “I mean, if it was a place that I was planning

on going anyways then I suppose I’d probably do it. But if it was inconvenient or I wasn’t

planning on going there in the first place I probably wouldn’t even think about it”. These

comments display the two opposite ends of the spectrum in regards to the responses received

about these tours. As previously stated, majority did not hesitate at the thought of investing time

and money to go on one of these tours. When brainstorming why two did not seem all that

interested, it is clear that their focus was less on the cause in which they are supporting and more

about the destination in which they were going to be staying at.

Our research leads us to strongly believe there is an overwhelming majority of people

that would be more than willing to attend a tour if they can afford the plane trip, which brings us

to our next point. There needs to be a justification for the consumer. Their interest needs to be

stimulated enough to convince them to invest their time and money into traveling to this part of

the world and witnessing the underprivileged communities first hand.

This could be promoted by looking into partnering with travel companies and websites to

provide discounts on food and travel in the Oaxaca region. Even though they may not be saving

all that much money, physically holding a coupon while making a transaction makes the

consumer feel like they are getting a much better deal. Alongside these coupons, it would be

wise to partner with corporations interested in supporting EnVia’s cause. A logical deal would be

to offer free tours to their executives in return for financial investment. With executives

attending tours, this would make subordinates of their respective companies to be more inclined

15

to make the trip as an incentive to further themselves within their own industries. What better

way to differentiate yourself as an employee than to sit on a plane with an executive at your

company for several hours.

In the end, having the ability to actually meet the artisan woman is something that would

resonate greatly with the consumers who are in fact interested in attending this type of tour. The

empathy and compassion these people will feel when they see the life struggles first hand of this

community is more powerful than any advertisement could ever be.

Social Media and Outreach

Social media platforms are crucial for nonprofits such as EnVia to differentiate

themselves from their competitors. However most importantly, it provides an additional platform

form telling the stories of the artisan women and their products. Given the impact EnVia has in

these third-world communities, raising awareness in the popular industry of social media is

bound for success. On social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, the key

to raising awareness and ultimately demand is creating a story with the traits of to become viral

throughout society.

Our team suggests that EnVia creates a YouTube channel including videos highlighting

the quality of life these artisan women endure on a daily basis. The layout of the video series

should begin with a visual of the communities and living situations to hook the viewers because

of how foreign this is to middle-class America and the EnVia Retail logo consistently appearing

throughout the video in the corner. Immediately following that, an optical timeline of the artisan

made products beginning with the coloring of the yarn with naturally made dyes and leading to

the finished product being shipped to retail is ideal. The ending of the video should illustrate the

overall mission of EnVia with visuals of the community being benefited by the microfinance

loans they receive. This gives consumers an eye opening perspective upon the cause in which

EnVia strives to work which naturally will yield higher awareness. Naturally this will generate

business if all goes as planned.

The trick of course is getting this to go viral throughout the web. It is crucial that EnVia

creates both Facebook and Twitter accounts in order to promote the videos as well as to in

general cross-promote all social media efforts. One way to start additional recognition online is

by following very well-known celebrities and organizations that are already very well established

both foreign and domestically. From there begin posting on their pages to simply put EnVia’s

name out there and continuously post on both Facebook and Twitter on a daily basis about what

the organization is currently doing. This will gain consistent followers through the usage of

social proof. Once there is a solid follower/friend base, EnVia needs to re-post the video a few

times a day. This will make the video reappear at the top of each follower’s newsfeed every time.

In today’s world, any organization is capable of gaining millions of followers in merely a few

weeks. Although it is a long shot, such goals should be striven for because of course the ultimate

goal is maximum awareness and interest in buying artisan made goods.

The power of influence will assist EnVia in developing both awareness and demand for

their artisan products. Although social media is very beneficial, EnVia needs to hook the

audience to follow their profiles. This can be rather tricky. Due to the good spirited nature of the

16

organization, along with the target audience being people in the 20-30’s range, a celebrity

endorsement with someone such as Oprah Winfrey would be perfect to promote their product

merely through sponsorships. If celebrities were to be spotted having artisan-made goods

regularly, consumers would flock to the organization. EnVia can post pictures of Oprah Winfrey

holding an artisan made purse or wearing an artisan made coat. With this circulating on social

media, that alone will go viral, while their YouTube video of the cause EnVia is trying to

promote will then be immersed throughout the web.

In addition to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, Buzzfeed is another important online

platform that could be very beneficial to EnVia. Buzzfeed is an internet news media company

that releases numerous videos and articles to the public in the realm of numerous categories such

as entertainment, social news, conspiracy, as well as just about anything one could imagine. This

is a website many people in the target audience of 20-30 year olds commonly view from time to

time. Recently, Augusta Falletta of Buzzfeed posted an article about the “Wear Your Label”

organization in Canada that has created a clothing line prompting to increase the conversations

revolving around mental health. This article on Buzzfeed is an example of something that could

possibly be written about EnVia. “Wear Your Label” has seen much success from this post on

Buzzfeed through both the casual Buzzfeed reader’s shares to their personal social networking

websites in addition to eventual pick-up in formal U.S. press channels, including People

Magazine, MTV, and NBC’s “The Today Show”. Strengthening of brand identity is what is

going to catapult EnVia into the level of awareness and demand they are currently looking for,

which is something that could be done somewhat like “Wear Your Label” did through exposure

on Buzzfeed.

Selling goods out of retail is another valuable resource in efforts to utilize social media.

An example of a retail outlet that would be perfect for selling artisan made products is World

Market. The amount of people who shop here is extensive enough to ensure heightened

awareness even if the customers do not actually buy the product. It all comes down to in-store

advertisement. Starting with the products themselves, when they are on the shelves EnVia can

have a small tag of some sort attached. This should have price, small description, and the newly

created Twitter username. Another tactic would be to not show the price on the tag, rather only

show the description of the product and where it came from, with a small note stating “follow us

on Twitter/Facebook”. Not showing the price is viable because it should be marked on the

shelves in which the products are sitting on. Finally, the checkout stand should be utilized for

social media advertisement. At every checkout stand it would be wise to have similar flyers or

stickers offered that raise awareness of their social media accounts. The ultimate goal is to obtain

as many followers as possible because along with that will come more likes, shares, and posts

regarding EnVia and their artisan made products. This will in turn raise both awareness and

demand.

Business Plan

As a group, we participated in the Tacoma Entrepreneur Network Business Plan

Competition on Tuesday, April 14th

at the University of Puget presenting a business plan for

implementing EnVia Retail. Please reference Appendix D for content from our business plan

17

submitted for this competition. Additionally, judges from the competition provided our group

with feedback regarding our plan which can be seen in Appendix D.

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Financials There are many different products and each product is unique, thus we chose to describe

our plan through percentages of the price, as Appendix E and the following example illustrate.

If we were to sell a handmade purse at $27, $2 (8%) would go to shipping and handling

the product, another $6 (24%) would go to administration and sales fees, $8.50 (34%) would go

back to EnVia, another $8.50 (34%) goes to the artisan who handmade the product and lastly the

remaining $3 (12%) would go back to reinvesting into the venture. This breakdown is for only

one product, but this model can apply to almost any item EnVia would want to retail here in the

U.S.

To find the break-even point for recovery of investment capital, we used the formula

X=FC/(p-v), where FC are fixed costs, p is sales price per unit and v is variable cost per unit.

For these calculations, we used the pencil pouch figures to find the breakeven point, as pencil

pouches are in the middle of the price range of the artisan products. We calculated our fixed

costs to amount to $18,000 ($10,000 startup cost plus 8,000 annual fixed costs. Also the sale

price of a pencil pouch is $24 and the variable cost per unit was found to be $12. Using this

formula, we calculated our breakeven point is 1,500 units sold.

When we conducted our focus group, we also brought an array of items produced by the

women in Oaxaca, ranging from the smaller leather wallets and pencil pouches, to the more

midsized pouches and purses. We wanted to get a better understanding of what a consumer

might pay for handmade items such as these, and most of our participants noted that if we were

to retail this in the correct setting, such as a World Market or Pier One Imports, these items may

fetch anywhere from $15 to $30.

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Next Steps

Within the first month (Days #1-#30), EnVia should try to attain these benchmarks:

Connect and plan with artisans to schedule production of goods

Create Connections with fine-goods retailers (such as World Market and Pier One

Imports)

Launch social media marketing on the following platforms

o Facebook

o Twitter

o YouTube

Verify logistical connections to distribute products within the U.S.

Within the second month (Days #31-#60), EnVia should try to attain these benchmarks:

Start planning for peak seasons for merchandise with the artisans

Work with retailers to determine amount of products needed for first wave of production

Determine amount of traffic generated from social media marketing

o Metrics: click-through rate, number of shares from posts, any additional sharing

on non-social media sources (such as television, radio, and print press)

Within the third month (Days #61-#90), EnVia should try to attain these benchmarks:

Initiate second round of social media marketing campaign and making necessary changes

(in reflection from first round)

Distribute first wave of products for retailing

Consult with retailers to gage sales and plan for future production

Evaluate the components of the supply chain and fix any redundancies or bottlenecks in

the process

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Conclusion Through this plan, we hope that EnVia will be able to help not only itself to retail the

products their artisans make into the U.S. market, but to also enhance the work EnVia is

currently doing through the tourism aspect of the organization. Using the research that we have

conducted, EnVia can launch a retail program to help support themselves financially, as well as

helping the women that they serve. Handmade goods are a virtually untapped market segment,

and as such with the products that the artisans make, we believe that these goods would fetch a

very fair price at a specialty goods store.

We would like to extend a warm thank you to Carlos, as well as the entire EnVia team for

this excellent opportunity to apply our learning from our education at Pacific Lutheran

University to a very relevant, beneficial cause. It was incredibly helpful for us learning to take

on this project and to help reinforce all of the subjects we learned, not only in this marketing

management course, but to encompass concepts from our other business courses. It was a great

challenge to take these handmade goods from artisans in Oaxaca, to trying to identify a market to

sell these products to, to then trying to price said items where it remains profitable for everyone

including the artisan, EnVia, as well as the retailer selling the product in store. This challenge

helps us be further prepared for the working world once we graduate through real world

examples, with decisions impacting real people’s lives and families. We learned a great deal

about EnVia as an organization, we learned many things about marketing management as well as

things about ourselves, and we hope that EnVia can take this marketing plan, in combination

with the business plan, and create a program that will continuously provide support to itself and

the women that they empower.

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References Adams, D. C., & Salois, M. J. (2010). Local versus organic: A turn in consumer preferences and

willingness-to-pay. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 25(4), 331-341.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1742170510000219

Best, R. (2013). Market-Based Management: Strategies for Growing Customer Value and

Profitability (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson

Carpio, C. E., & Isengildina-Massa, O. (2009). Consumer willingness to pay for locally grown

products: The case of South Carolina. Agribusiness, 25(3), 412-426.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/agr.20210

Demographic Profile: America's Older Boomers. (2013). Retrieved May 15, 2015.

Hoffman, P. J. (2009). Making the change to sustainability: Building green builds a better

education. Techniques, 84(4), 16-20. Retrieved from

https://ezproxy.plu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/216142672?accoun

tid=2130

Long, J., Sounny-Slitine, M., Castles, K., Curran, J., Glaser, H., Hoyer, E., . . . Parafina, B.

(2013). Toward an applied methodology for price comparison studies of farmers' markets

and competing retailers at the local scale. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and

Community Development, 3(3), 95-119. Retrieved from

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ntid=2130

Olenski, S. (2012, June 25). Marketers And Advertisers, Are You Keeping An Eye On The Baby

Boomers? Forbes.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/agr.20210

https://ezproxy.plu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/216142672?accountid=2130




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Appendix A - Marketing Intelligence Report

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OVERVIEW

After careful analysis of the operations of both EnVia and Serrv, it is apparent that for

both the primary goal is to increase the greater good of society on a global scale. Serrv is a

competitor to EnVia who works in a similar market. Though it is difficult to claim the two as

true competitors because they are both merely stimulating economies by helping artisans,

farmers, and prospective students attain their business goals. However, they are comparable in

regards to what they are working to accomplish. Serrv is actively working in over 36 countries

highlighting the work of their sponsored artisans. These goods are sold at reasonable prices but

with premium quality. Due to the location of this organization (they have stores located in

Wisconsin and Maryland) we were unfortunately not able to physically visit them in person.

Dialogue with employees was conducted via email as well as telephone to get an accurate scope

of their response time, as well as overall helpfulness and knowledge of products and operations.

It is quite enticing to speak to the organizations this way from the perspective of college students

because their marketing tactics as well as business models are very educating to observe.

Portrayal of Serrv as well as EnVia on their websites is very accessible to the consumer

with several links to products or in EnVia’s case, tours. They both offer information about their

organization’s history as well as mission. Examples of website layout can be seen in the

appendices. Again due to the geographical location of their stores and our inability to visit them

in person, the virtual interaction was the key. A story of their products appeared to be told

through their mission statements as it accurately portrayed the goals and aspirations of their

entire product line or service.

After analyzing Serrv, reading the organizations intentions allows some insight into the

back story to each individual product as they were made by artisan women in most cases. Both

organizations offer an emotional connection with each individual consumer considering an

investment in products or the organization all together. This is derived through their influential

message. Operations of both EnVia and Serrv are beneficial to many parties and this analysis

proves it.

PLACE

Serrv

Serrv works with a variety of different artisans from different countries all around the

world and operates through both online as well as brick and mortar stores to sell the products of

the artisans they work with. Serrv’s online store is clean, organized, informative, has a good

design, and is user friendly. Their online store is broken down in multiple sections making it easy

to navigate the site and find what exactly what you’re looking for. The sections included on the

site are home decor, kitchen, food, women, apparel, garden, gifts & collections, sales, and

holiday. These major categories are then further broken down into even smaller sections making

Serrv’s website extremely organized and clean. Within each product description, the location and

specific organization that made it is listed as well as how it was made. Serrv’s online store not

only highlights the products their artisans produce, but also the artisans and the organizations

they belong to. All of these different products come from over 36 different countries from around

the world including Bangladesh, Bosnia, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile, China, Ecuador, El

Salvador, Guatamala, Ghana, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mexico,

Nepal, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland,

24

Uganda, Vietnam, and the West Bank. Each of the different countries has its own page within the

website further detailing each of the organizations (see Appendix #1) and what they do within

their community. Serrv’s own personal mission is also located on their site as well as ways one

can get involved either through volunteer work, donations, or working at one of their national

locations.

Aside from their online store, Serrv also has two geographical locations in the U.S., with

one in store New Winsdor, Maryland and two stores in Madison, Wisconsin. The Wisconsin

locations are open 7 days a week and the store in Maryland is open Thursday through Saturday

(see Appendix #2). Serrv products are also located at other retail locations across the country, the

closest to us being in Olympia called Traditions Fair Trade. (see Appendix #3). Additionally,

Serrv has an interactive online catalog as well as the option to request a print copy of their

catalog to be mailed to you for additional ways to interact and see their product offerings. Since

we were not able to actually visit any Serrv retail locations, the best methods for us to contact

representatives with Serrv were through e-mail and phone calls.

EnVia

EnVia is located in Oaxaca, Mexico and provides microfinance loans to women of that

area. The EnVia website is clean, organized, and helpful in understanding their mission and

intent as an organization.

PEOPLE

Serrv

In efforts to research Serrv undercover, dialogue over the telephone gave interesting

insight upon the organization as a whole. A phone call conversation was conducted on Friday,

February 20th

at 9:45am (PST). The staff member on the other line was a very helpful individual

who accurately portrayed the designated product and their organization as a whole. The product

inquired about was their artisan made scarves. The first question asked was simply to educate

briefly on the manufacturing of the scarves, and where this occurs. She proceeded to say they are

made by artisans “all over the world really” most notably offering names of countries such as

Mexico, Vietnam, and India. She was a very friendly individual who appeared to have a genuine

interest in speaking upon their organization without being asked. This is where the success of

their business is built upon, informing the consumer about their mission as well as value within

their product. The staff member proceeded to inform in regards to the nature in which the scarves

were made, as if knowledge about artisan work was not known on our part. If not an undercover

analysis call, being a potential consumer would make it easy to purchase from this organization.

Customer service was top quality from this outlet.

Serrv was also e-mailed with a number of questions in order to gauge how

knowledgeable their staff are about their products and their company (see Appendix #4). It took

them over 5 days to respond to email and they were not particularly helpful—the woman simply

copied links instead of directly answering questions.

25

EnVia

Inquiries for researching EnVia undercover began with an email sent to a general email

for the company found on their website on Friday February 20th

at 3:00pm. A reply was sent on

February 25th

at 8:45am. The initial impression of how this mission would be accomplished was

off to a positive start as finding contact information on the EnVia website was simple to find and

very clear the email would be sent to a general organization email. Although there was a five day

response lapse, two of those days were weekends and a very concise email with questions was

sent, and it was therefore expected to wait a couple days for a reply.

The primary focus of the email was to learn more about how EnVia monitors the artisans

as well as goals for the organization in terms of growth in marketing. The respondent “Kim”

gave a concise and professional response to not only all the questions asked but more about the

organization as well as how to be involved. She began with a brief introduction of who the

organization is and what they do, then clearly transitions to answering the questions asked

previously. EnVia hosts tours of Oaxaca weekly and makes this a clear point in the selling of

success of the organization. According to Kim, TripAdvisor lists an EnVia hosted tour as one of

the top things to do in Oaxaca. It was also mentioned EnVia was featured in the New York Times.

A question asked in the original email regarded the expansion of selling goods in markets

outside of Oaxaca. Appreciated, clear honesty went into the answer that,

We do not currently have a goal to set up a party or market for selling the products of the

women. We work with women who have many diferent types of businesses, from

artesans, to tortillas makers, bakers and farmers. Our goal is to provide the tools of

microfinance and education. We encourage the women through our educational program

to consider marketing strategies for their own businesses. (Kim, EnVia)

As an undercover potential client of this organization, honesty as well as adhering to part

of the organization’s mission, was the only way to respond to a random email full of detailed

questions about the organization’s operations and marketing. Especially in a non-profit sector, it

would question a firm’s ethical standard to not only express a mission and goal on the worldwide

web, but to prove on an individual level the importance to the organization and its workers the

meaning of the organization.

Overall this singular email to a “real person” (not a simple computerized response) has

furthered my positive opinion of this organization. To ask questions as if the respondent was

known personally and be given clear feedback and more about what I can do to be involved was

a great experience. It is important for organizations to give the perfect first impression without

being too pushy or too lazy to give answers as a first impression can only be given once.

PROCEDURES

Looking at Serrv’s website, it is very easy to use and straightforward. Navigating the site

is very simple, each product line is easy to find and Serrv also has many backstories and other

information about their company. Serrv markets products ranging from home decor to garden

furnishings to holiday items. Each product is well displayed through multiple pictures and

thorough description below the pictures, so customers know what they are getting. Along with

the description and pictures, lower down the page is a short paragraph about who exactly made

the product and where it was made, along with a link to read more about the group (see

26

Appendix #5). Many products are very clearly described as being unique and handmade with no

color choices, as each one made is unique.

From the logistical side of things, Serrv only ships to the U.S., its territories and

Canada. Serrv uses FedEx ground service as well as the U.S. Postal Service, and clearly states

that Serrv is not responsible for delivery delays on the carrier’s end. As Serrv markets unique,

artisan hand made products, they also struggle with backordering. Serrv attributes their

backorders due to extenuating circumstances such as floods, cyclones, power outages and lack of

raw materials, making it seem like SERRV never is at fault for a backorder. Serrv will allow you

to backorder for products over $10. Serrv’s return policy is quite extensive, and it is clear that it

is used often as each product order comes with a Returns Form. A product may be returned

within 30 days of receipt, but an exchange for the same item is only offered for a different

size. Damaged items are returnable for another product, a refund check or even a credit on an

account. On top of all of this, if a customer has a question they can call customer care at Serrv or

can send an email for help. Overall, the website is easy to use and their policies for shipping and

returns make it simple to get the one of a kind product a consumer is looking for.

PROMOTION

Serrv International as a competitor uses social media as its central avenue for promoting

their site. Serrv utilizes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest to promote their

products. Additionally, Serrv has a LinkedIn page which focuses more on the general purpose of

the organization rather than just their store (see Appendix #7).

With Serrv’s extensive social media presence, their reach is pretty extensive. They utilize

many different outlets which each reach different interests and types of consumers that check

those outlets. The use of Pinterest was interesting and very strategic since many users of

Pinterest use the site as a way to mark items that they would like to purchase as well as use it to

find gifts for friends and family (see Appendix #8). Additionally, Serrv’s content on their

YouTube channel is also very extensive. They have six different playlists with multiple videos

on each playlists. The different playlists include “Artisan & Impact Stories” (12 videos),

“SERRV Store Madison” (3 videos), “Fair Trade Favorites” (11 videos), “Creating Global

Crafts” (17 videos), “SERRV’s Handmade Products” (11 videos), and “Behind the Scenes at

SERRV” (9 videos). Even though Serrv has created this strong baseline in videos available on

their channel, they have unfortunately have not updated this page lately; all of their content is at

least one year old. While Serrv has created an extensive online presence through various social

media platforms, not all of the platforms have received the same attention and seen similar levels

of content generation.

In addition to the social media presence, Serrv also does use some paid advertisement on

Google to promote their site. They are not necessarily the first on the list when searching key

words such as “fair trade gifts” or “international artisan goods”, but they do appear in the search

pages on occasion. An illustration of this includes some of the first times searching “Serrv” on

Google, the first ad on the page was for another fair trade artisan good store while on later

searches, Serrv was then the featured ad on the page. Reference Appendix #6 for an illustration

of an example of the various paid advertisements featured.

27

Serrv does use some partnerships to further showcase their product offerings. In addition

to their retail outlets, direct mailings, and online site, their products are additionally featured in

some other stores that feature fair trade products and are promoted through religious

organizations. On the Serrv website it is described how they offer the opportunity to partake in

home sales and community sales, which can extend the reach of the Serrv brand and offerings.

The connections to religious organizations are typically seen through the community sales.

Through their website, Serrv is working to achieve an emotional connection based around

the idea that you are supporting handmade products from around the world and really

emphasizing the broad reach that their company has to companies around the world. The website

has a global perspective and draws upon the imagery of various places around the world and not

specifically drawing you into one area of the world.

CONCLUSION

To conclude this organizational analysis, it is worth highlighting some key takeaway

points that illustrate Serrv as a successful non-profit business. From the perspective of students,

much has been learned even in the early stages of research upon them. Contacting Serrv via

email and telephone offered valuable insight upon their organization. Serving as undercover

consumers, our team learned about the mission in which they operate by in addition to the

unnoticed details about the artisan creation of their products.

They operate in over 36 different countries around the world where artisans hand craft

premium quality products at a reasonable price. Revenue from these sales go straight into

helping finance these businesses because of the trouble artisans face to fully support their

families. There are some places in the world where this is the only opportunity these women

have to support their family. Serrv’s non-profit approach benefits them in a very ethical way. In a

logistical sense, Serrv only ships their products to the United States and their territories, also

Canada as well. This is the case because of the financial stability of this region of the world.

Overall, Serrv is very compatible with the consumer. Their website is very user friendly

and staff members are always available for customer help via the telephone during their business

hours of 8:00am-5:00pm. This organization’s efforts to help communities and artisans across the

globe are truly remarkable. Their business strategy allows the consumer to feel like they are

actually helping make a positive difference in the lives of underprivileged people while receiving

quality handmade artisan products at the same time.

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References

About Us. (n.d.). Retrieved February 27, 2015, from https://www.serrv.org/category/about-us

Backorders/Returns. (n.d.). Retrieved March 4, 2015, from

https://www.serrv.org/category/backorders-returns.

Groves, K. (2015, February 28). EnVia Intelligence [E-mail interview].

SERRV's Channel. (2011, May 13). Retrieved April 7, 2015, from

https://www.youtube.com/user/SERRVTube?feature=watch

Serrv International. (n.d.). Retrieved April 7, 2015, from

https://www.linkedin.com/company/serrv-international

Serrv International (serrv). (n.d.). Retrieved April 7, 2015, from https://www.pinterest.com/serrv/

Swartzendruber, S. (2015, March 1). Serr Email [E-mail interview].

https://www.serrv.org/category/about-us

https://www.serrv.org/category/backorders-returns

https://www.youtube.com/user/SERRVTube?feature=watch

https://www.linkedin.com/company/serrv-international

https://www.pinterest.com/serrv/

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Appendix #1 – Serrv Artisan Stories from Around the World

This is an image of the “Artisan Stories” section of the Serrv site which lists the various

countries that are associated with Serrv products.

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Appendix #2 – Serrv Store Locations

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Appendix #3 – Serrv Map Indicating Locations of Retailers Selling Serrv Products

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Appendix #4 – E-mail to Serrv

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Appendix #5 – Example Serrv Product Offering

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Appendix #6 – Serrv Online Searches

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Appendix #7 – Serrv International on LinkedIn

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Appendix #8 – Serrv International on Pinterest

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Appendix #9 – Serrv on YouTube

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Appendix B - Focus Group

Transcription of Focus Group

Monday, April 6th

, 2015 @ 7:00pm

Moderator #1: This is a focus group and we’re going to try to get you out of here as soon as

possible. We can go ahead and turn to the first page. And we’ll just start with the first question

and go around in a circle with your responses. So the first one, what’s your general attitude

towards non-profits and why is that? And by general attitude, we mean, do you think it’s a smart

way to do business or if you think they actually make an impact or if they’re a waste of time or

whatever you think really.

Participant #4: I’ll generally go as long as the money’s not going to corrupt places.

Participant #3: Like I think I have a positive attitude towards them it just depends on, cause like

I know some non-profits pay their employees so then a lot of money than just goes to paying the

employees. I guess it just depends on how much actually goes to charity.

Participant #2: Due to often lack of transparency, they’re too likely to be corrupt for my liking.

And that they shouldn’t exist unless they’re willing to show exactly where they’re money is

going

Participant #1: Yeah I think the current regulations on non-profits are way too lenient and there

is a lot of room for corruption and they can be very good organizations.

Moderator #1: where would you guys say what the corruption would be. Are you thinking

where the money comes in goes to employees or…

Participant #1: Yes, that. Particularly executives.

Participant #5: I think they’re generally good as long as it’s for a good cause.

Moderator #1: Alright, now for the next question. Have you ever donated or volunteered with

or for a non-profit and which one? If not why do you think that is?

Participant #5: The Salvation Army, a place that I know that donates to a lot of charities and I

support them.

Moderator #1: Where did you hear of them?

Participant #5: They’re well known and seeing them out especially around holidays and when I

have cash on me, I try to give them a couple of bucks.

Participant #1: Umm… I suppose I’ve donated just in the boxes at grocery stores or fast food

joints. They generally seem like good causes. But I’ve never volunteered for one.

Participant #2: Basically the same as the other two as far as Salvation Army donations. I

haven’t joined to do anything for a non-profit.

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Participant #3: Umm… in high school I helped with the bell ringing for the Salvation Army and

I’ve donated to them too. And then every birthday and Christmas half my present from my

grandparents goes to charity so I get to choose a charity of my choice, either like the Share

House or the Humane Society or something like that.

Participant #4: I’d say I’m more like the first three. If there’s a donation box or something I go

ahead and do that, but otherwise I don’t really pay attention to it.

Moderator #1: Good, good. Alright now we’re going to move to number two. And the topic of

this is the perception of non-profit microfinance loans. If you know what that is or not we’ll get

to that. Start with the first one. In general do you perceive non-profits to be a successful way of

raising money and state why you believe your opinion.

Participant #4: Yeah, umm… definitely. I mean Wikipedia is like a perfect non-profit and they

generated $60 million in revenue.

Moderator #1: That’s a good one.

[Participant #3 nods.]

Participant #3: I think it’s effective because people want to feel like they’re doing something

important. So whenever there’s an opportunity to donate I feel like it’s effective. Works out.

Participant #2: I think a lot of it is effective. Not only in that it can attract those that are seeking

to help but it’s a convenient way for people who aren’t looking to basically feel like they’ve

done something. So they bring in that basically as extra rather than waiting for people to find

them.


Participant #1: Yeah, I think it’s an effective way. Because simply people perceive it as a

humanity-type organization.

Participant #5: Mostly the same as everyone else.

Moderator #1: Alright. Now to the next question. Do you know what a microfinance loan is?

Let’s just start with that. Does anyone here know what a microfinance loan is?

[Participant #3 shakes head no.]

Moderator #1: Okay, well it’s basically an interest-free loan to and we’ll get to how this is

relevant. For the specific company we’re doing this entire focus group for, they’re called EnVia.

And we’ll get to that too. But uh, they offer loans that range from $100 to $500 that are interest

free to people in poverty-stricken communities that need it for things like education or own

business like homemade food, tortillas, bread, or handmade bags or you know things like that. So

anyways, that’s what a microfinance loan is. It’s usually an interest-free loan. Do you think this

is an effective way to help those struggling in poverty, offering interest-free loans. What do you

think? Or would you believe it to be best for them to have interest, sort of like incentive for them

to pay it back?

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Participant #5: I think it depends if they’re actually going to use it for what they say they are. I

think if they stick to I, it is fine without the interest. But if they’re going to go off and use it for

something they’re not supposed to I think it should have interest. I think it’s a fine line of which

to use and which not to use.

Participant #1: Yeah, and if there is no interest payment you do need to have more oversight.

But I think that it’s a definite more effective for helping those people since there’s a lot of people

in poverty that get into those vicious interest circles and are just paying off interest over and over

and it ends up hurting them.

Participant #2: If interest rates are higher than an absolute minimum that they feel is absolutely

necessary then it essentially makes them a version of a loan shark and I don’t see how that would

change their situation since they were stuck that way anyways.

Participant #3: Umm.,. I think it’s risky not to have interest ‘cause if there’s no interest there’s

no motivation to pay it back so they could just not ever pay it back and end up dying before it

gets paid back. So I think it’s pretty risky not to have interest.

Participant #4: I think that it’s a good way to alleviate power and with these loans you also

partner it with regulation, rules. You know, not only give them the money but also educate them

about money.

Moderator #1: do you think it’d be smart to, for you say the company we’re working with,

EnVia, for them to partner with, say with a government or say make a legal contract that would

legally bind them to that agreement? Or do you think it’s just worth honor code, offering the loan

interest-free? ‘Cause that’s where it is right now

Participant #4: I think they should have to sign some sort of contract.

[Participants #2 and #3 both nod yes.]

Moderator #1: On to the next one. Alright. Doing pretty good on time. We have a scenario here.

I’ll go ahead and read it. Imagine you were living in Oaxaca, Mexico creating homemade

tortillas in your backyard. Depending on the revenue from these own sales to provide for your

own family’s survival. All of a sudden, there’s been a famine and you have lost the ability to

purchase the amount of corn you need to make the tortillas necessary to provide for your family

so you can’t get enough corn to make the amount you need to sell. If you were in this situation,

would you seek out financial assistance via a bank loan or just a loan from a friend or something,

or how would you react in this situation. If you were in this poverty-stricken area.

Participant #4: I suppose I’d try to seek out financial assistance. If there’s no way I can make

up the money myself, it’s gonna have to come from somewhere.

Participant #3: Yeah I agree with that and I’d definitely seek out a bank loan.

Participant #2: I’d temporarily try to change professions. Because a loan that you don’t know

that you can’t pay back is a dangerous thing.

Participant #1: Yeah, yeah. I would certainly seek out a loan that first if I had friends that could

help me out that would be great. If not, I’d go to a bank.

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Participant #5: I would try to find a different job and get the money myself or I’d talk to family

and see if they’d help and if those two don’t work, then I’d go to a bank.

Moderator #1: Umm… how likely would you be to seek out a non-profit for help? Assuming

you know about as much about non-profits as you do right now in America. Would you guys

reach out?

Participant #5: I would, yeah. I think they would be more helpful in helping me try to get back

on my feet and where I needed to be.

Participant #1: yeah I think in general I think I would trust a non-profit more than a regular

bank loan to provide lower interest rate loans.

Participant #2: I’d have to be pretty desperate before I sought out help from any organization.

Participant #3: yeah I would trust a non-profit more than a bank because I feel like they’d be

more compassionate towards the people they are trying to help

Participant #4: I’d suppose I’d agree with him [points to Participant #3].

Moderator #1: So we have a variation of that first scenario. I’ll go ahead and read it again. The

first paragraph there is exactly what I just read so I’ll go ahead and skip it. So we’re in the exact

same situation but we’re just going to tack this next part on. So then imagine that you receive

notification that a non-profit has reached out to your community and is willing to offer you an

interest-free loan worth enough to pay for all the corn you need in addition to increasing the

quality of your equipment to make the food that you need to make. So you’re only other options

are to take out a loan with the government and in Mexico would be roughly 150% interest or

starve. So the first question is, would you feel compelled to pay the loan back as soon as you can

because of their generosity?

Participant #5: I would, yeah. Just because they would help me out so much that I’d feel like I’d

want to pay them back just so they’d help someone else. Like pay it forward.

Participant #1: Yeah I guess I would pay it back as soon as I possibly could cause I wouldn’t

try to live on zero money the entire time. But I certainly wouldn’t let it ride forever. As long as I

was on my feet and felt somewhat comfortable with my situation then I’d pay it back as soon as

possible.

Participant #2: Yeah as soon as it’s, you can remotely be able to pay off the debt because it’s

not good to keep any debt lying around.

Participant #3: Yeah I’d agree. I’d pay it off as soon as I can.

Participant #4: I would also pay it off as soon as I can.

Moderator #1: Alright so the next question. How likely would you be to spread the word about

this non-profit, that again in this situation, reached out to your community?

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Moderator #4: Uhh… I mean it depends on my experience with them. Very lovely to not very

lovely. Because then not very at all. But if I had a positive experience and I saw someone in a

similar scenario I’d probably tell them about it.


Participant #3: yeah pretty much the same thing. If I’d ever had a good experience with them

I’d definitely tell other people in the same situation.

Participant #2: Same as the other two.

Participant #1: [nodding] Same.

Participant #5: Same, yeah.

Moderator #1: So now we’re gonna get into the actual organization that we’re working with.

EnVia, they actually give out interest-free loans up to $500USD and they go to support artisan

women in need of financial assistance for both school/education and business operations. They

fund this, they get their funds through the tours of the local Oaxaca, community from tours,

obviously. And then of course donations; people investing in their company. So first off, have

any of you heard of EnVia before?

[all participants shaking heads no.]

Participant #4: No, but I think I remember hearing of a similar company that might have

converted this into a similar model.

Moderator #1: Would you guys consider going on one of their tours and if you knew 100% of

the money that you paid to go on this tour, 5 days/4 nights their tours. If you knew 100% of the

money spent through them went to their microfinance loans and there was no sort of corruption.

Start with you [Moderator in reference to Participant #5].

Participant #5: Yeah I would. Just cause I know it’s going towards a good cause to help them

out.

Moderator #1: Would you be willing to pay more than what you think you could just fly down

there and stay at a hotel for 4 nights yourself and if you knew that it was all going to a good

cause?

Participant #5: If it was all going to be a very good tour I could see it being that possibly yeah

instead of just trying to be touristy by myself I could see myself doing that

Participant #1: Yeah if it was more expensive than a regular ticket, than no. I’d really have to

just have some extra money to spend. Certainly not in my current situation I wouldn’t do that.

But I’d consider it if I had extra money lying around.

Participant #2: Yeah to add, it not to be too difficult to but my reason not to would be the

restriction of my own funds

Participant #3: Yeah I’d definitely go on one of the tours. It sounds interesting

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Participant #4: I mean, if was a place that I was planning on going anyways then I suppose I’d

probably do it. But if it was inconvenient or I wasn’t planning on going there in the first place I

probably wouldn’t even think about it.

Moderator #1: Alright, do any of you have questions for us? Or about anything that we

discussed? Or something that you didn’t understand?

[Pause.]

Moderator #2: Okay before you all take off, these are some of the products the artisans make

outside of Oaxaca. I would just be curious to look at some of these products and tell me what you

think this might fetch in a retail setting. So maybe a TJ Maxx, possibly maybe Khols, what just.

Maybe we’ll start with the blue purse that participant 3 is holding right there. I mean, and keep in

mind that these are all handmade one-of-a-kind items, the artisans can’t make the same one twice

honestly. And they’re all sustainably made, without using any artificial dyes or products. So

what do you think a bag like that would fetch?

Moderator #3: I think it depends where you’re going to sell it at. Because like if I saw this in a

typical Target or something like that I’d probably not pay more than $5 for it but if I was going

to a gallery where they sold or auctioned off products, like I know my grandparents are willing to

go and auction off Indian Tribal stuff that people make and they’d probably be willing to pay a

lot more for it. I don’t know. $25 or $30.

Moderator #2: Yeah, sure. So if we were to retail this we would most likely have a tag on there

that would have a little story or something that says this bag was handmade by so-and-so artisan

from OX, Mexico. So it’s not the China $5 bag where’s there’s a million of them out there and

walk down the street and find someone else with it. That’s not gonna happen with that bag. So

knowing that it’s unique bag, I guess I’m just looking for your guy’s thoughts. Not all of us are

doing that kind of bag shopping, especially us guys, which we have four of right here. So p3

threw the number 25-30 as possibly on the higher end, maybe if you didn’t know what it was

made of you’d pay $5. So is that pretty much a consensus?

[All participants nodding heads ‘yes’.]

Moderator #2: Does anyone think anything different? Please speak up.

Participant #2: I really think the marketing makes the price. Cause convenient information is

much more likely to be learned than something you’d have to figure out yourself. Especially if

you run into it at some giant retailer like Target or something. Everything is presumed to be

cheap crap out of China.

Moderator #2: Anybody else? Care to chime in?

Participant #1: I would say no more than $30

Participant #4: I would lower it. $10-$15. If you marketed it well, maybe $20.

Moderator #1: One more thing, do you think you’d be more inclined to pay more if you say you

were in Mexico and some lady at a stand on the side of the street and it’s obvious that she made

this or would you pay $20 for that there as opposed to if it sitting in Target, marked at $20 but

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they would have the description. Do you think the placement in terms of corporate store or a

street stand in Mexico would make an impact.

[All participants saying ‘yes’ and are nodding.]

Moderator #2: In your opinions in what kinds of places. And I know you’re all not going to go

out and buy that bag. Where would you go to buy that bag for someone that might need it?

Where…what kind of store would you buy that from? And what kinds of stores would you not

buy that from?

Participant#2: The first places I’d probably look would be…I mean I guess.

Moderator #2: There’s no right or wrong answer man. There’s no right or wrong answer.

Participant #2: basically the less I know about the store the more likely I think I’d find

something like this. Cause the bigger it goes, the more it can be ordered in bulk and that’s not

something that you get in handcrafted goods.

Participant #1: Yeah I really wouldn’t know where to go. Besides Someplace that’s known for

imports like WorldMarket, some place like that.

[Participant #2 nods ‘yes’.]

Moderator #2: I guess I was just going for big names that you wouldn’t go for, like the obvious

one, Wal-Mart.

[All participants laugh and smile.]

Participant #1: Yeah.

Moderator #2: Yeah, I guess, just yeah. Generally what kind of store would this be best sold in?

Participant #3: Like I said earlier, I think it’d be best in auctions and people also like being able

to show off how much they are able to spend. And in an environment like that, like if they held

an auction a few times a year for these handmade products and crafts I think they’d make a lot

more because people like being able to show off how much money they can spend.

Participant #1: Good point.

Participant #2: To combine that maybe with a small business model maybe. That way they can

consistently sell and then have periods during the year where they do the auction kind of thing

and that gives more of a stream of profits

[Participant #3 nodding ‘yes’.]

Moderator #2: Maybe during holidays or something?

[Participants #2 and #3 nodding ‘yes’.]

Moderator #2: We’re all about wrapped up. Thank you for your time.

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Focus Group Participant Handout

Handouts

Please do not open or review until instructed

47

1 General Attitude towards Non-Profits

What is your general attitude towards non-profits? Why?

(please answer with one brief sentence)

Have you ever donated or volunteered for a non-profit? Which? If not, why?


2 Perception of Non-Profit Microfinance loans

In general, do you perceive non-profits to be a successful way of raising money? Why?


Do you know what a microfinance loan is? If so, why do you think this is an effective way of helping those struggling in poverty?

(please answer with in complete sentences)

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3aPoverty: A Scenario

Imagine you were living in Oaxaca, Mexico, creating homemade tortillas in your backyard, depending on revenue from these sales to provide for your family. All of the sudden, there is a famine in your hometown. You have lost the ability to purchase the amount of corn needed to make enough tortillas necessary to provide for your family.

Would you seek out financial assistance via bank loans?


How likely would you be to seek out a non-profit for help?


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3b A Second Chance: A Scenario

Imagine you were living in Oaxaca, Mexico, creating homemade tortillas in your backyard, depending on revenue from these sales to provide for your family. All of the sudden, there is a famine in your hometown. You have lost the ability to purchase the amount of corn needed to make enough tortillas necessary to provide for your family.

Then, imagine you received notification that a non-profit is willing to offer you an interest free loan worth enough to pay for all the corn you need in addition to increasing the quality of your equipment. Your only other options are to take out a loan with the government with 150% interest, or starve.

Would you feel compelled to pay the loan back in full as soon as you can?


How likely would you be to spread the word about this nonprofit?


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4 EnVia in Action

EnVia offers interest free loans ranging up to 500 US dollars to artisan

women in need of financial assistance for both school and business operations. They fund this via tours and donations.

Have you ever heard of EnVia?


Would you consider attending one of their tours if you knew 100% of your monetary investment was going to helping these artisan women?


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Focus Group Participant A Written Responses

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53

54

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Focus Group Participant B Written Responses

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57

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Note: Not all the questions received written responses from this participant, thus questions with no

written answer were omitted from this report.

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Focus Group Participant Waiver Release Form

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Appendix C - Survey

Images of Survey Created

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Appendix D - Tacoma Entrepreneur Network Business Plan

Competition 2015

EnVia Retail Business Plan Content

Executive Summary

EnVia is an organization that is dedicated to supporting the community of Oaxaca,

Mexico through three major programs: microfinance, responsible tourism, and education.

Through the microfinance program, EnVia partners with women in the Oaxaca community in

helping support their business ventures, some of which include creating artisan goods, such as

purses, wallets, coin purses, and jewelry. It is important to note that EnVia does not just provide

the financial support for these women. The organization also includes educational components

for the women receiving loans from EnVia helping manage personal and business-related

finances. The final component offered by EnVia is the responsible tourism. EnVia provides tours

for visitors to Oaxaca to see the work of women entrepreneurs. These tours also offer the

opportunity for the visitors to visit the stores that these women created and be able to purchase

artisan goods. This current model is great for engaging Oaxacan visitors with the entire EnVia

organization and some of the beautiful crafted and sustainably made artisan goods that are

produced from microfinance. However, the stories of the women in Oaxaca and the beautiful,

environmentally friendly artisan goods they create should be accessible to others that may not be

able to visit Oaxaca. Therefore, we seek to expand EnVia into the U.S. retail marketplace by

selling artisan goods made by the women participants of the EnVia microfinance program.

Bringing the artisan goods created from the women that have the connection to EnVia is

unique in comparison to other similar non-profit organizations. What really separates EnVia

from other nonprofits that sell artisan goods from various places around the world is that EnVia

focuses on educating and empowering these women. Further, EnVia offers the ability for anyone

to be able to go on a tour in Oaxaca and meet the women that created the artisan good purchased

in a retail store.

This is a start-up organization that is working in conjunction with EnVia’s current

operations to bring a portion of this non-profit into the for-profit market of retail artisan goods.

While doing this, we will be supporting the base of the EnVia’s operations as bringing microfinance

to the community of Oaxaca, Mexico.

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Product/Service Description

It is important to note that the core of EnVia’s operations is steered towards helping

people out of poverty. Their primary service is to offer microfinance loans for education as well

as support for artisan women in the Oaxaca region. They are centralized in Oaxaca, Mexico

where they also offer tours. These tours are one of the highest sources of revenue for EnVia. In

fact, TripAdvisor lists an EnVia hosted tour as one of the top tourist attractions in the city of

Oaxaca. Their organization describes their tours as “a special glimpse into Oaxacan life, and an

incredible, authentic cultural experience” (Appendices 4). Duration is roughly five days and four

nights of influence on the native culture. Lasting connections are often built between the artisan

women and the tourists as they can see the power of microfinance. All funds from these non-

profit tours are used to help assist artisan women with loans.

EnVia was derived by the idea that microfinance can provide interest free loans to artisan

women seeking a path away from poverty on a daily basis. These loans give borrowers the

ability develop effective, long lasting businesses. One primary issue these artisan women face is

an increasingly difficult ability to access fair credit. Interest rates in Mexico average around 70%

for standard microfinance loans, which is nearly impossible for borrowers to pay back. EnVia

has taken initiative and offered interest free loans which are virtually unheard of in these parts of

the world. It is worth noting that they offer these loans to artisan women worldwide. EnVia

essentially offers hope for a better future for these women and their families as they are merely

trying to put food on the table for their loved ones and this work is the only way they can do so.

EnVia works with over 250 women who provide goods such as handicrafts, bread, cheese,

vegetables, tortillas within their local communities in addition to artisans, farmers and much

more. Supporting these women stimulates the local community.

What makes this business idea unique is its innate ability to impact numerous lives. Since

2008, they have given over 1,500 interest free loans to over 400 women in the Oaxaca region.

EnVia could easily require interest of a mere 5 percent and profit exponentially however their

vision is not solely in the realm of profits, rather generating business and a sustained healthy

lifestyle for these women and their communities. The benefits of the customer are thriving

business and an ability to provide for their families when they would normally not be able to

without this generous assistance.

When relating the operations of EnVia to their competition, their service is superior

largely because they are actually offering financial assistance to these artisan women. One of

their largest competitors, Serrv, focuses on the distribution and selling numbers of the artisan

made goods in well-established economies such as the United States. Serrv does give these

women the profits of their sales, however EnVia is at an advantage because without them, not

nearly the volume of production could possibly be attained. EnVia essentially stimulates the

local economies of these artisan women as opposed to simply selling some of their goods for

them. It is worth noting some environmental concerns that require assessment. All of the

materials used are fully natural. Some problems that come with that include possible drought,

resulting in scarcity of materials used to produce yarn as well as the dyes made from flowers.

Another problem is the risk of artisan women not being fully capable of paying back their loans.

When we spoke with the founder of EnVia via Skype, he said that they fully understand the risks

involved with offering these interest free loans. However they actually do not have a very

significant problem with this occurring because the people receiving these loans are so thankful

for the assistance that they feel obligated to pay back whenever they are able to. It is a very rare

occurrence for someone to not repay their loans.

66

The microfinance loans in addition to the Oaxacan tours are very developed. EnVia

currently has set dates for their next two tours this calendar year with an exact blueprint as to

where and what the tourists are going to experience. It is clearly stated that 100 percent of

income from these tours goes directly into the microfinance loans, so people fully understand

where their money is going. When it comes to the loans themselves, it is a fairly straight forward

concept. The recipient of the loan is in full communication with EnVia and they are not expected

to pay back the loan until they are capable of doing so. This is a very efficient, and and simple

way of operating business which has led to very positive results over past years.

After extensive research in this industry, the best way for EnVia to distribute their

services is to contract with retail chains such as World Market, Pier One Imports, and farmers

markets in larger cities across the country. EnVia needs to reach out to these retailers in each

region of the country; more on this will be explained in the market analysis section.

In order to sell these artisan products, EnVia cannot expect artisan women to reach out to

them because they are not a very large organization when it comes to brand recognition.

Therefore it is up to them to get their name out there. Strategies to expand revenue opportunities

will also be discussed in our market analysis. As EnVia contracts with retailers, one of the first

steps is to create a new brand logo that is easily recognizable (Appendix #1) as opposed to the

existing logo which appears to look somewhat like the recycling logo here in the United States.

Creation of a new logo will help revenue across retail locations in the United States. Ideally, the

new EnVia logo can tell consumers that it is a handmade product rather than a cheap article of

clothing made in a factory. This is why we do not advise EnVia to sell artisan goods through

corporate retailers such as Walmart. A high standard on their brand is crucial to successful

revenue.

When it comes to their tours, they need to advertise extensively to the general public in

well-established economies in order to fully grasp the potential income they could possibly

receive. All of which will go directly into their microfinance loans.

67

Market Analysis

EnVia is a two-fold industry; microfinance and the creation of naturally made artisan

products. The microfinance portion allows the women to start up their own businesses. The

actual products are handmade and produced from organic, natural materials from the Oaxaca

region of Mexico. Cultural awareness, global awareness, consciousness of the environment, and

tourism are all things that drive the selling of these products. Innovation and independence are

what are important to the actual production of the products.

The two major segments of EnVia’s market are Baby Boomers and Millennials. Baby

boomers have a higher discretionary income and can afford to buy higher quality items.

Millennials are more environmentally aware and tend to seek organic, local products to support

local communities and sustainable living. Having useful products available from local retailers

can also help satisfy the desire to support non-profit organizations with meaning. have really

helped invest and push the green movement. These generations are becoming more aware of

where their items come from and want to make a positive impact with their purchases and buy

from reputable producers.

One of the biggest competitors would be a company called SERVV, that is an

overarching company that houses multiple non-profit organizations like EnVia. SERVV offers a

variety of products from all around the world. They offer products online and in two retail

locations in the United States, and in the villages that SERVV supports. Local competitors for

EnVia would be any of the other tourist attractions in that area and other small business around

the village that produce the same types of products.

A threat that EnVia experiences is cheaply made products that look similar to the high

quality items that the women of EnVia produce. Sometimes the price distracts from the actual

product and people prefer the cheaper alternative of something. Microfinance isn’t a huge

industry in the type of setting that EnVia is yet so there is a ton of potential for growth there.

EnVia could increase the number of locations they service, educating and providing opportunity

for women in a variety of areas outside of Oaxaca.

Handmade and natural products are an attractive and growing industry with many

different people trying to get into it. With a growing market of consumers that care about where

their products come from and where and who their money is going to again, indicating a large

growth potential.

To find out more about how these handmade products would sell in the U.S., we

conducted a focus group consisting of consumers ages 20-23. Our initial assumptions were that

a consumer would pay more for a product if it was handmade and unique, a consumer would also

pay more for a handmade good depending on where the products were sold, and the consumer

would be further motivated to buy these products if the consumer knew exactly how the product

was made and how the purchase of the product would benefit the artisan.

The focus group confirmed our assumptions about the positioning of the product as well

as the pricing. One consumer mentioned that if the product was sold at Target or Wal-Mart that

the consumer would not pay as much for the product if it were found at a handmade good store

such as a World Market or Pier One Imports. Also the general consensus was that having the

story of the product alongside the product during sale would help a consumer want to buy the

product more than not having any backstory. Although we received valuable information from

our focus group, we think it would be beneficial to conduct more focus groups to gain more

insight into consumers’ thought processes when purchasing goods.

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Expanded SWOT Analysis

The following pages analyze where EnVia stands in terms of internal strengths, internal

weakness, external opportunities, and external threats (SWOT). Also included are possible

strategies EnVia can incorporate into their organizations to overcome challenges and take

advantages of strengths.

Strengths: A primary strength for EnVia is the founder and director Carlos Topete.

Carlos worked in corporate America for the company 3-M and has the experiences and education

to operate an exporting program for artisans of EnVia’s products to neighboring countries.

Next, nonprofit organizations are a continuing trend in the U.S. as millennials further

integrate going green and focusing on bettering mankind. Microfinance is a small sector of the

nonprofit industry and EnVia offers a unique experience for customers to not only purchase

handmade, organic products in Mexico, but to meet the person who made the product(s). A

relationship with TripAdvisor and the positive reviews from customers also help in spreading the

word of such a distinctive experience by posting Oaxaca and EnVia’s tours on their site.

A third strength for the organization is their geographic location on the map for a climate

that supports the natural resources artisans use to dye and create their products. Artisans are able

to grow natural materials and use coloring techniques passed down from their indigenous

ancestors to create final products that embrace Oaxaca’s rich culture, history, and natural

landscape.

Weaknesses: Although shipping to the U.S. is expensive, having EnVia sponsored sales

at various farmers markets around the country could cut administrative costs while selling

products for a higher price than they would be sold in Mexico. The opportunity to export

products not only benefits EnVia with increased profits, but the artisan can receive more

business, and the organization’s name will become better known.

As a nonprofit organization, EnVia faces financial challenges and limits for-profit firms

don’t have to consider. EnVia relies heavily on volunteers, donations, and tourists with as few

administrative costs as possible for paid employees. With these financial limitations, EnVia has

to be careful on who their loans are given to, the training programs, and operations that go into

keeping this organization running.

A final weakness for EnVia is awareness of the organization in the United States. All

firms choose how much they want to invest in advertising and EnVia primarily focuses on word

of mouth and is rated on TripAdvisor, but in the long run, if EnVia wants to expand, these alone

will not suffice.

Opportunities: In relation to strengths from an external point of view are opportunities

for EnVia, to not only strengthen their current business model, but to expand their business and

support base outside of Mexico. Similar to the weakness of international knowledge is the

opportunity for EnVia to expand its loans outside of Oaxaca and to the United States. Part of this

organization’s success is staying close to its roots in Mexico, however expanding out to

neighboring areas in need as well as expanding marketing/advertising campaigns outside the

country can only present benefits for EnVia.

Marketing to schools to embed fundraising and traveling into a student’s education can

offer ways for students to further their understanding in nonprofit, and involvement in a different

community. EnVia can also reach out to various universities in the U.S. that offer non-profit

areas of study to collaborate with professors on student projects. Types of projects can include

selling artisan products at schools for an EnVia fundraisers, or raise money to visit Oaxaca for

spring break, similar to Pacific Lutheran University’s Living Water project that raises funds to

69

build wells in Nicaragua. A primary target market will include seasonal promotion to tourists.

Also, during the northern hemisphere’s winter, many snowbirds and retirees are seeking a warm,

new experience. Reaching out to this population can greatly benefit profit and word of mouth

advertising by continuing to bring new consumers to Oaxaca at times tourism is slow.

Threats: From an external perspective there are numerous threats that can impact EnVia

from outside the organization. Even though Mexico is progressing economically, political unrest

plays a role in how the rest of the world views the country. There is a lot of negative attention to

Mexico in the news (drug cartels and shootings of tourists) causing views of unsafe travelling to

anywhere in Mexico instead of just where the problems are arising. Because of so much negative

media attention, corruption and other unrest will continue to play a role in tourist’s thoughts

when choosing where to travel. A similar threat that is out of EnVia’s control is a natural disaster

such as a flood, or drought. These types of events will drastically impact the production of

artisans and therefore decreasing potential for revenue and business.

The ability to mass produce products can threaten the success of exporting to consumers.

Not being able to produce an identical product each time can turn consumers away and be seen

as less attractive. Pricing also plays a role in how often consumers will think to purchase

products from EnVia artisans via e-commerce. If pricing is too high, some consumers do not

connect pricing with shipping and quality of the product. The threat for this situation is cheap

Chinese labor. Many American, European, and Asian companies manufacture and mass produce

in China because it is so cheap and therefore making products less expensive for consumers. If

EnVia chooses to export goods, constantly emphasizing product quality (and being able to tell

customers where the materials come from) is a key factor in creating a demand for such unique,

expensive products.

Another important threat to EnVia as a nonprofit organization is competition between

other impoverished areas of Central America such as Honduras and Nicaragua. Many nonprofits

in the U.S. travel to Central America for volunteer work. EnVia must continue to position

Oaxaca as a “better” city to visit and support over established programs for other big cities. Both

the suppliers and the distributors are the artisan woman. Each artisan is supplied with a loan from

EnVia, but it is the women themselves that make and sell their products. To become a part of the

EnVia group, women have to have a business proposal, take education classes, and pay back

their loans before they can get approved for another one later down the road. EnVia can target a

fairly large market of people, but we would like to focus most of our efforts on the age range

between 25 and 50 year old females.

Our job is to help develop a way in which EnVia can reach customers on an international

scale. They are a microfinance group that encourages women of Oaxaca, Mexico to be

entrepreneurs. Purchasers of products made by these women are usually interested in natural,

handmade products. It seems that the biggest target market would be women between the ages of

25 and say 50, however we think that EnVia’s market could extend further. Men of the same age

could also be customers, although there is a smaller selection of options for men specifically,

they could still be interested in other products for the women in their lives. Children of both

genders are also possible consumers, but it is the adults that are the primary focus.

70

Marketing and Sales Plan

Our goal is to build revenue and increase the amount of microfinance loans available to

the women of Oaxaca. Giving them a product that they know is all natural and handmade and

they have the option to actually meet the artisan that constructed their item and see just how

much their dollars were put to work. Our current goal is to reach customers in the United States

and plan to do so through an online store. But first would like to test a market, possibly with U.S.

partner in order to generate experience and double check demand. Because of the uniqueness of

each item this is going to be a little difficult, however the plan is to give a general description of

the type of product they would be purchasing while emphasizing that no two purchases would be

the same. EnVia currently does a lot of promotion through word of mouth, but since we’re trying

to expand with an online store we discussed pushing social media campaigns to spread

awareness and generate traffic.

Products will continue to be sold locally in Oaxaca, Mexico and also online throughout the

United States. While in Mexico the women sell their goods through their homes or little shops

and want to continue that personal connection. EnVia will initially partner with national home

goods stores such as Pier One Imports, then contact large city farmers markets. These cities

would include Seattle, San Francisco, Miami, and New York. Consumers at small, local markets

seek organic, pure products and shop with an established higher willingness to pay for products

that advertise sustainable and organic production.

The prices for our products would be more expensive than similar items because of their

high quality and individuality. The Oaxacan artisans determine the prices of the products they

make in order to support their families and pay back their loans. Since orders can take weeks or

months for the artisans to fulfil, EnVia will contract a 50% down payment for each order to make

sure artisans can recover for supplies (crops, dye materials, etc). For smaller items (key chain or

jewelry),we can estimate a price range of $5-10. From there EnVia will add shipping costs for

the retailer's price as well as a fee of 5% of order cost to cover organization fees. We will

recommend a 200-250% markup for an MSRP, however final retail prices will be determined by

each retailer.

EnVia produces such a wide array of different products ranging from purses to pastries so

the cost to produce really varies from woman to woman. Costs to produce will vary by artisan.

Newer producers have an initial higher cost and higher risk compared to more experienced

artisans that have invested in their own assets and have already paid back loans. Since products

are made from natural resources costs are based on local economic prices set by farmers of each

community. All prices will be advertised in USD to be easier for the consumer to understand.

Prices will slowly increase based on the current rate of inflation as well as increasing

demand. The supply of products by producers will increase at a steady rate as more artisans can

be financed and afford more machines to increase production, therefore as exports increase,

demand increases at a higher rate than supply giving the opportunity to increase prices. We

expect sales in exporting for retail to grow 10-15% annually compounded. Growth will steadily

increase as locations will expand.

Shipping and handling costs are the major variable cost that EnVia would face with an

online store. There are flat rate shipping options available with multiple mailing organizations

such as FedEx or UPS. EnVia will include shipping costs in the total price for retailer's orders.

Products would not come with a conditional warranty for customers should a defective product

arrive or break. EnVia will offer a one for one trade in option for customers to ship their broken

or defective product back in exchange for a new one within the first six months of the order

71

placement. Envia will incur the shipping cost for the exchange. This will be a short-term expense

as the product will be returned to the artisan to fix and resell. By simply modifying the product, a

new product would not have to be made and there would be no additional monetary costs, only

opportunity cost for time spent to make a new product.

72

Management Team

The mission of EnVia is to “support the growth and creation of income-generating

businesses, and encourage personal development through participatory programs that promote

the empowerment of women, the well-being of their families, and the strengthening of

community,” (http://www.EnVia.org/about.html). This mission drives the management

philosophy that we plan to further incorporate as we move the artisan goods that are made

through the opportunities provided through EnVia’s microfinance programs. Key components to

EnVia’s vision and mission include learning and empowerment. Therefore, the corporate culture

we desire with the transition into the retail settings includes furthering the learning and

empowering aspects to a larger market of EnVia stakeholders.

The founding team for EnVia includes the following: Carlos Hernandez Topete, EnVia’s

Founder and Director; Emily Berens, Co-Founder; Samantha Wattson, Managing Director;

Yanet Bazan, Administrative Coordinator; and Kim Groves, Responsible Tourism Program

Manager. Carlos Hernandez Topete, the founder of EnVia, is a native of Oaxaca, Mexico where

there are many artisan women currently working. Being the founder, his knowledge of EnVia is

second to none. Our team had the privilege of Skyping with Carlos during a class session where

we obtained a grasp on the logistics of the company. This was a mixture of operational and

financial information which ended up being very helpful for our research. He made it apparent

for us to feel free to contact him via email if we formulated any important questions that needed

answering. Emily Berens, co-founder of EnVia, worked for ten years fighting human rights in

the United States before moving to Oaxaca to partner up with Carlos Topete and create the

organization. She is an expert in management and recruitment. Samantha Watson, the managing

director of EnVia, She developed a complex marketing strategy of a startup company in Seattle

where she brought them international recognition. Yanet Bazan, Administrative Coordinator of

EnVia, was actually a former borrower of EnVia’s microfinance loan program. She needed her

loan to help pay for an education where she graduated with a degree in accounting. Her goal is to

help provide women in her community the same opportunity she had. Yanet is a positive

advocate for EnVia. Next is Kim Groves, the tourism program manager. Kim is a native of

Australia who “has a strong passion for seeing women participate in their own empowerment”.

The management team of EnVia is well qualified with a diverse mix of backgrounds (See

Appendix #3).

Additionally, all of the women that EnVia works with provide the foundation for the

organization and the creation of the businesses that create the artisan goods that we hope to bring

to the U.S. markets. EnVia also has a handful of other supporters and volunteers that help with

the operations of this organization.

EnVia being a non-profit organization has an important reliance on the donations

supporters and volunteers provide. Our group presenting this business plan falls into the category

of supporters/volunteers. We are interested in furthering the mission of EnVia and helping create

and develop retail markets in the United States for the beautiful artisan goods that are created in

Oaxaca, Mexico and share the stories of the artists to a greater market. Knowing about the stories

of the women that create these artisan goods and the great work that EnVia does, we want to

share those stories with others and expand the mission of EnVia to a larger market which we

hope will in turn help the primary base of microfinance within the EnVia organization.

http://www.envia.org/about.html

73

Advisory Board

In efforts to create a successful business plan for EnVia, there have been a number of

people who have given us advice in addition to their educated opinions of matter deemed

relevant to our research. This list comprises our advisory board. As a team, common consensus

derived the fact that our research has been done properly; credibility is apparent. We have

consulted only people whose opinions we respect because of either their experience in the field,

expertise on the given topic, or a distinguished educational background and occupation.

The most influential member of our advisory board is professor Mark Mulder, PhD, of

Pacific Lutheran University. He meets all of the qualifications in being a credible resource

because his life studies are geared in the marketing realm. He is an expert in the field, in addition

to the fact he is our professor in the highest ranked marketing course offered for undergraduate

students. His guidance has been a valuable asset for this marketing project.

While creating this business plan for EnVia, we consulted with VSG. They are a group of

marketers focused towards assisting innovative marketing for numerous companies. While

meeting with a large group of their employees, two that were the most helpful for us was the

president of the company, Doug Burton, and the graphic designer, Jules Ruckle. Doug gave us

valuable insight as to how to further benefit our team’s presentation techniques, and offered us

insight as to how we should focus our business plan in a less narrow approach. Originally, our

target market was very small and specific. Doug gave us the real-world knowledge he has gained

through experience in the field. With that information, our target market grew to a more

reasonable size with different demographics in mind. VSG graphic designer Jules Ruckle

physically created our logo prototypes (Reference Appendix #2) after we pitched our thoughts

and idea to the VSG team. These prototypes are exactly what we envisioned.

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Organization Plan

EnVia has been in business for a handful of years already, but we believe there are strides

the organization can take in their marketing techniques to improve retail growth. The vision of

EnVia is as follows: “We support the growth and creation of income-generating businesses, and

encourage personal development through participatory programs that promote the empowerment

of women, the well-being of their families, and the strengthening of their community”. The

overall strategy is to generate significant revenue through selling artisan goods in the United

States retail market. These funds will provide both higher capital to continue the support of

EnVia’s microfinance loan system, and to expand the artisan products into more retail chains. In

terms of company size, EnVia will not need to expand their number of employees significantly

because they will be outsourcing all operations involving shipping and product sales in retail.

One position they will need to hire into their core group of executives is a director of retail

operations and supply chain management. The duties of this employee would be to assure that all

shipments go smoothly and the transfer of artisan made products from EnVia to the retail

locations are all managed properly.

Their organization is comprised of a dedicated group of individuals from all over the

globe. Tied along with the company vision, each member of EnVia is dedicated to supporting

these poverty stricken communities. By expanding operations into retail, they should be able to

significantly increase overall effectiveness of their company vision.

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Operation and Control Plan

EnVia has been a microfinance company supporting women’s entrepreneurship for years

and now we would like to see these artisan quality products retailed here in the United

States. The startup of the retail side would further benefit EnVia as a company as well as

benefiting the artisans who created these fine products. As most of these products that we will

be retailing are apparel items, there may be on hand inventory

The first order of business for EnVia retail is to develop a reliable and efficient supply

chain for transporting these products from the place of creation in Mexico to our holding sites

here in the U.S. This is key to the survival and prosperity of the retail side of EnVia. This

includes the creation of the product by the artisan in Mexico, the placement of an order from a

retailer in the U.S., then delivery via ground logistics to a local warehouse near the retailers or

directly to the retailer.

The budget will be monitored closely through EnVia’s finance department as well as the

team responsible for shipping and retailing these products in the retail market. All costs of

inventory will be incurred by the EnVia retail team and shipping costs will be incurred by the

retailer.

76

Financial Plan

There are many different products and each product is unique, thus we chose to describe

our plan through percentages of the price, as Appendix 3 and the example show. If we were to

sell a handmade purse at $25, $2 (8%) would go to shipping and handling the product, another

$6 (24%) would go to administration and sales fees, $8.50 (34%) would go back to EnVia,

another $8.50 (34%) goes to the artisan who handmade the product and lastly the remaining $3

(12%) would go back to reinvesting into the venture. This breakdown is for only one product,

but this model can apply to almost any item EnVia would want to retail here in the U.S.

(Reference Appendix 3 for cost allocation).

To find the break-even point, we used the formula X=FC/(p-v), where FC are fixed costs,

p is sales price per unit and v is variable cost per unit. For these calculations, we used the pencil

pouch figures to find the breakeven point, as pencil pouches are in the middle of the price range

of the artisan products (Appendix #6). We calculated our fixed costs to amount to $18,000

($10,000 start-up cost plus $8,000 annual fixed costs. Also the sale price of a pencil pouch is

$24 and the variable cost per unit was found to be $12. Using this formula, we calculated our

breakeven point is 1,500 units sold. We anticipate the break-even point to be after our second

year of sales, as the price of logistics to get the products to their retailers is quite costly.

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Launch and Growth

The intent of retail side of EnVia is that these sales will continually give back to the non-

profit as well as the artisans and families that EnVia supports. The longevity of the retail side

depends on its success, but the intention is to have this retailing to provide significant support to

EnVia. The start-up funds ($10,000) will either be acquired through help of EnVia through a

kick start campaign or through various family members and friends. These funds would be paid

off within the next year.

The next step to move forward was to further analyze the market value of the various

products using a focus group of consumers. This focus group was conducted on April 6th, 2015,

and the results are discussed in the market research section. This was useful to help determine

what the various products coming in from Mexico may fetch at a retail store as the prices in

Oaxaca may be less than the product’s actual worth and costs are incurred as well when shipping

products.

The growth of our business depends on the amount of retailers that would carry

handmade goods and the demand of consumers spending at such retailers. Some potential

partners who would carry these products may include World Market, Pier One Imports, and local

farmers markets. Using this model that we have displayed, EnVia may continue to develop more

retail connections and sell their artisans’ goods not only here locally in the Pacific Northwest, but

throughout the West Coast and further.

April 2015 - Business Plan Completed

- Conduct Focus Group Analysis

May 2015 - Conduct further focus group analyses on different target markets (i.e. 30-50, 50 and up age

brackets)

- Construct payment system for handling sales and inventory to retailers

- Distribute test set of products to various retailers

July-August 2015 - Receive test set of products to be retailed in the Pacific Northwest Test Market

- Test Markets include Pier One Imports, World Market, and County level Fairs such as

Snohomish, King, Thurston and Pierce Counties.

September 2015 - Analyze test markets

- Place order to Artisans for holiday season from retailers

December 2015 - Receive products for holiday season

- Distribute products throughout the states

2016 - Strive to attain 15% increase in sales of handmade goods across the U.S. compared to

2015 sales

2017 - Work to attain an additional 10% in sales

2018 - Once more, try to increase sales by 15%

78

Business Plan Feedback

Judge A:

“I enjoyed reading the plan and find your social mission inspiring. I also appreciate how much

effort went into market study and the associated appendix’s. The financial component of the plan

felt lacking. I would hope to see a more detailed business model demonstrating the costs of

product development and operations as you scale the business. With the detail included, it’s hard

to tell if the organization truly can scale.”

Judge B:

Significant strengths:

- Established mission and model with a clear story and purpose - Significant relationships and operations

in Oaxaca already - Dedicated to truth and transparency - Life-changing and socially-driven business

model - Learning as much as they can from SERVV, who currently leads this space

Areas for improvement:

Suggestion/Criticism/Concern: Please make the relationship clearer from the beginning. Was this

written for Envia, or do you plan on starting a business capitalizing on Envia's current programs

leveraging them as a partner and brand voice?

Suggestion/Criticism/Concern: Be wary of confusing a logo with a brand. Having a new logo

doesn't mean/cause/do anything. The logo is the icing on the cake to a deep and rich understanding of the

values, ethos, and purpose underlying everything that a company aims to live for and do. You clearly

have a mission-driven vision for why this needs to happen, so avoid sentences like "Creation of a new

logo will help revenue across retail locations in the United States." Think more about the vast well of

emotion you are drawing from. A legacy rich with a purpose of empowering women artisans to lift

themselves out of poverty. Sure, people want to buy handmade goods, but they will feel compelled to

purchase purpose, empowerment, and beauty in a multi-faceted form. The story, purpose, and values are

what will turn customers into brand evangelists. Not a logo. (Though, I do prefer Logo Prototype #1 to #2

;) ) Question: What's the roadmap out of Oaxaca?

Suggestion/Criticism/Concern: Go back and do a more robust set of financial considerations and

projections. I think they are a little underdeveloped and could be more ambitious.

Judge C:

“This plan is a fabulous idea to support microfinance in Oaxaca, Mexico. Great idea to give back

to EnVia, the women, and invest in venture. The pie chart in Appendix 6 would benefit from

having the %s included. I see where you are going with this plan but it would have been very

helpful to have the financials you presented flowed into a spreadsheet. How you planned to scale

up wasn't clear. I see how you would like sales to increase each year, but what would it take to

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happen? Also, if I were a potential investor, I would need a quantitative analysis of what the

$10,000 in start up funds would be going towards. If I understand the plan correctly, you would

be a for-profit subsidiary of EnVia, EnVia in Motion. Not sure if your logo is clear about that.

What will be the organizational structure for EnVia in Motion? # of employees? I assume the

new position at EnVia would be the interface with your company? While I have lots of questions,

I think your plan is feasible and a great idea. It would be helpful to have your bios included.

Work needs to be done on financials. I wish you luck!”

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Appendix E - Financial (Destinations of Sales Dollars)

Appendix F – Survey Responses Participan

t Number

Which

form of

social

media do

you use

most

often?

Are you

willing

to pay

more for

a one of

a kind

product

?

(on a

scale of

1 = not

very

likely

5 = very

likely)

Do natural

or

sustainabl

e

ingredient

s in a

product

affect your

purchase

decisions?

(on a scale

of 1 =

never 5

= always)

In the past

12 months,

how many

times have

you donated

to a non-

profit

organization

?

If you made

a donation

to a non-

profit

organizatio

n in the past

12 months,

how

confident

were you

that the

funds you

donated

were going

to make a

real

difference?

(options of

not

confident;

confident;

very

confident,

N/A)

Of the

two

logos

below,

which

do you

prefer

?

If a

product

was

proven to

not only

help the

artisan

who

made the

unique

product,

but to

help

other

artisans

and

businesse

s to

thrive,

would

this make

a

difference

in your

purchase

decisions

?

(on a

scale of 1

= not at

all 5 =

definitely)

If the

product

mentione

d above

was

priced

higher

than a

mass

produced

item of

the same

nature,

would you

still

purchase

the

unique

product if

you knew

where the

money

you were

spending

was

going?

(on a scale

of 1 = not

at all 5

=

definitely)

What is

your

gender

?

In

what

year

were

you

born

?

Age

in

201

5

1 Facebook 5 2 0 N/A Design 5 5 Male 1993 22

81

1

B

2 Facebook 4 4 0 N/A Design

B

4 3 Female 1994 21

3 Facebook 3 4 1 Confident Design

A

4 3 Female 1991 24


A

4 2 Female 1994 21

5 Instagra

m

4 3 0 N/A Design

A

3 4 Female 1995 20


B

3 4 Female 1993 22


B

5 5 Male 1992 23


B

4 5 Female 1994 21

9 Facebook 4 4 2 Very

Confident

Design

B

5 3 Female 1995 20

10 Tumblr 2 3 - N/A Design

B

4 4 Female 1993 22


B

4 2 Male 1990 25


B

5 5 Female 1993 22

13 Instagra

m

5 4 0 N/A Design

B

5 5 Female 1992 23


Confident

Design

B

2 3 Female 1992 23

15 Twitter 4 4 3 N/A Design

B

4 5 Male 1993 22


Confident

Design

B

2 2 Female 1992 23

82

2

What stores would you like to see this product sold at?

Store Number of Responses

World Market 2

Target 2

Local Markets 1

Partnerships with Clothing Stores 1

Whole Foods 1

Some kind of specialty retailer 1

Fireworks Gallery 1

Journeys 1

Fuego 1

Garfield Bookstore 1

Michaels 1

Local Business 1

Bookstore 1

Nordstrom 1

Small Boutiques 1

Design A =

Design B =

83

3

Appendix G - Expanded SWOT Analysis

Internal Strengths (S)

- Carlos has a strong business

background o Knowledge about exporting

- Green products - Unique industry/market

- Availability of natural resources

Internal Weaknesses (W)

- Never exported - Limited funding - No ability to mass product

- Awareness internationally

- Number of employees vs. volunteers

External Threats (T) - Political unrest

- Geographical - Developing country - Competition nationally

- Cheaper alternatives

INTERNAL

FACTORS

(IFAS)

EXTERNAL

FACTORS

(EFAS)

S/O Based Strategies Generate strategies here that use strengths

to take advantage of opportunities

- Seasonal tours

- Exportation

- Giving more money to a wider area

W/O Based Strategies Generate strategies here that take advantage

of opportunities by overcoming weaknesses

- Use Carlos’s product management

experience for exportation

- Social media donation campaigns - Joint forces with other non-profits to

expand funds and workers

S/T Based Strategies Generate strategies here that use strengths

to avoid threats

- Carlos background to create a

strategy for a competitive advantage

- Natural resources to advocate against

cheaper alternatives - Knowledge about exporting

counterattacks against developing

country

External Opportunities (O) - International expansion

- Exportation - Social media

- Tourism

- Growth in non-profit

W/T Based Strategies Generate strategies here that minimize

weaknesses and avoid threats

- Highlight uniqueness of product

experience

- Emphasizes community culture and

involvement - Short-term campaign with medium to

large scale U.S. firm to donate time or

money for 3 month project—

awareness project

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