Fair Trade Sports | sustainable eco soccer balls and more

Dear Scott James,

We are two Junior High students. I think Fair Trade Sports is a good green company. The more synthetic leather and rubber you use, the better for the environment. We are also glad that you are helping people around the world. Since there are so many sport balls of the world, and that most of them aren’t eco-friendly, it is good to have a company like yours.

If people before had known that your sport balls are so eco-friendly, then chances are, people would want to buy your balls. I suggest you should advertise your company more. You would have good advertising material because you have the first eco-certified company and all of you sport balls are 100% sustainable.

Are you competing with other companies? We have found information and lots of cool facts on your website. Do you have any blogs on any other websites? Do you have stores all over the country, or just one particular location?

This company would really help the environment. If there were stores around our county we would really want to buy your sport balls. Thank you for reading our letter. I hope you consider our suggestions, and answer our questions.

Sincerely,

Two Junior High Students

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Dear students,

Thank you for the encouraging words; I will pass them on to the rest of our team later today.

Your suggestion of advertising more is a good idea. Rather than spend lots of money on advertising, we rely on folks like yourselves to help us spread the word for us. This allows us to use that money to help other people, and gives our champions (like you two) the opportunity to help. We call those champions “Ambassadors of Respect” as they help us spread the word that we need to respect the people who stitched the sports balls with which we play, train, and compete.

To answer your questions:

1. Are we competing with other companies? Yes and no. Yes, we compete with other sporting goods brands like Nike, Adidas, and Puma. But the answer is also No (or rather, Not Yet), given that those companies have not yet begun to produce eco-certified nor Fair Trade certified sports balls. We hope to encourage them to do so by demonstrating that a small team of people can figure how to do it, and that the marketplace is responding.

2. Do we have other websites? Yes, although they are all tied to our primary blog at www.fairtradesports.com. When we post new content on our blog, it is automatically sent to our Facebook and Twitter accounts. There are several other sites that pick up our content to replicate on their websites as well.

3. Where are our stores? We have small, medium, and large retail stores that carry our product line all over North America, as well as numerous online retailers. We like supporting the Go Local movement by allowing a local retailer to be the “face” of Fair Trade Sports for their town. You can help us with this by visiting your local sporting goods stores and Fair Trade/Eco stores and asking them to carry our product line. Tell them to visit www.fairtradesports.com/wholesale to learn more.

Thanks again for your encouraging words, good suggestions, and thoughtful questions. Please tell your teacher we said hello from Seattle. And please thank her for continuing to be one of our Ambassadors of Respect!

- Scott James