The artisans from under-developed countries such as India, Nepal, African countries sell their products through intermediary fair trade organizations like Ten Thousand Villages (TTV) or WorldofGood by eBay. TTV market the handcrafted products of more than 120 artisan groups from over 35 countries. This successful enterprise is an importer, a seller and retailer, with more than 100 stores in the US and Canada. Volunteers are the main working force: each volunteer has to do a minimum of two four-hour shifts per month for one year. Still, there are other administrative costs that appear: renting the space for the stores, paying the assistant managers and the managers of each individual store. Sales for a fiscal year total tens of million dollars. Part of this money is used for the above administrative costs, when it could be given to the artisans that produced the crafts. TTV is a stable system for the artisans, but they are dependent on it and are not actually in charge of their own crafts.
This V Unit project aims to provide an alternative to stores like TTV, in the following way. The goals is to implement a web service for under-developed countries. This web service would allow the artisans to directly sell their products to customers from the US. One of the reasons why TTV is successful is because the craftspeople are struggling to find markets for their products. They do not have marketing assistance and have few or no opportunities for employment. After this new service is available, they do not need to seek further for markets: it will open the doors to the US market.
