The Little Market is a nonprofit organization, founded by Hannah Skvarla and Lauren Conrad, and a fair trade shop that focuses on empowering women by creating economic opportunities for artisan and producer groups in underserved communities all around the world. The Little Market’s products are handmade by these artisans, typically with traditional techniques that are passed down from generation to generation. 

The Little Market currently supports over 65 artisan and producer groups across more than 25 countries and sovereign states. The organization prides itself on offering products that are made sustainably, ensuring that artisans are paid fair wages, and setting a standard for an industry where workers are frequently undercut. The artisans are also provided safe, healthy working environments that are free of harassment, discrimination, and forced labor. The Little Market takes philanthropy even a step further, going as far as paying the artisan and producer groups upfront to help support them and create sustainable income for them, rather than waiting to see what products sold and how much inventory remains. 

Supporting a variety of artisan and producer groups allows The Little Market to sell a wide assortment of products, from home goods and accessories to food items. The Little Market supports many causes, and visitors can even shop by a specific beneficiary, including indigenous peoples, people living with disabilities, or people experiencing and rising above homelessness, just to name a few. Most of The Little Market’s shoppers are environmentally conscious people, who work to live sustainably in their daily lives. The Little Market’s co-founders note, “Sustainability and recycling has always been a part of life — with every cent we spend, we want to make sure we are doing sustainability for people and the planet.”

Sustainability is a huge part of their ethos and is reflected all throughout the company. The Little Market is constantly working on incorporating sustainability into different aspects of their organization and across the customer experience. The brand is dedicated to continuously learning how to reduce their impact in other ways outside of the inherent sustainability of the company.  

The Little Market Boosts Sustainability Efforts with EcoCart

After receiving an email from the EcoCart team, The Little Market explored an integration with EcoCart because they had already been talking about sustainability efforts, looking to build upon their established eco-friendly packages. Melissa Portillo, e-commerce director for The Little Market, said, “We were looking at other companies that do climate credits and started looking into how to incorporate that into the store. After we got in touch with EcoCart, we quickly realized the solution made the most sense for us after our conversations with other offset providers and brokers.” 

Since installing EcoCart, The Little Market has seen a 9% boost in cart conversions, with 17% of their orders being shipped carbon neutral. 

“EcoCart was very responsive and helpful in getting us up and running with the plugin quickly and efficiently,” explained Melissa. “We recently switched store themes and the EcoCart team was waiting in the wings to make adjustments right away. EcoCart is easy for our customers to use and because of that, we’ve seen an increase in the number of them opting for the carbon neutral ordering option at checkout. 

To date, The Little Market has been able to offset 1,339,000 lbs of carbon emissions with the help of their Earth-conscious customers and the EcoCart plugin. Their customers have been loving the added option, and The Little Market has even received reviews mentioning how much shoppers liked the carbon neutral option. 

“EcoCart was an important part of ensuring we continue to push sustainability efforts. We focus on having a holistic environmentally friendly approach, so integrating sustainability into our shipping only made sense,” said Melissa.