Despite sustainability becoming increasingly important to retailers and consumers alike, Boll & Branch founder and CEO Scott Tannen believes the human element of sourcing is often forgotten.

“We’re trained as consumers; we don’t ever think about people when it comes to the things that we buy,” Tannen told Retail Brew. “We think about maybe the company, maybe the fact that there is a factory, but you don’t break it down as an individual to say, ‘There’s somebody just like me that sewed this.’”

So, one way that retailers, like the New Jersey-based bedding company, ensure their products are sourced ethically is through fair-trade organizations.

• It’s meant to ensure that workers have safe working conditions and can earn livable wages, among other set standards.
• Fair Trade USA (which is partnered with Boll & Branch), Fairtrade America, and Fairtrade International are a few organizations that oversee the certification of products and facilities.

Source calls: It’s been a difference maker for Boll & Branch, which has woven fair trade into its identity since 2014. The company says it now sources more than half—or 54%—of the fair-trade cotton made for the US.

• Last year, that amounted to ~500,000 units of fair-trade cotton.
• Compare that to the roughly 26 million tons produced annually by the global cotton industry.

“We found that the ethical story is a huge driver, and word-of-mouth drives 50% of our business,” Tannen said. “When a lot of companies are seeing challenges from a customer-acquisition standpoint, we have a reputation that is still our biggest driver, and I think fair-trade plays a small part in that.”

Click here to read more.—KM

Brands tend to hop on opportunities to celebrate diversity when events like Black History Month and Pride Month come around—but such campaigns are often met with backlash (like when McDonald’s flipped its logo for International Women’s Day), as consumers question brands’ motives.

Pick and choose: Nicole Penn, president of full-service agency EGC Group, told Marketing Brew’s Alyssa Meyers that brands don’t necessarily have to weigh in on every topic. They should keep mum on those that they’re not well-educated in or that don’t align with their brand.

• “If you’re a brand celebrating International Women’s Day and you don't have any women on your board, that’s something that’s going to get noticed and called out, and actually will end up being a negative versus a positive,” she said.

Down time: It could take awhile for consumers to see brands’ social-justice efforts as authentic—“and some of them may never see it that way,” Alyssa wrote. Recent research from Claire Tassin, Morning Consult’s managing director of retail and e-commerce analysis, found that retailers’ participation in the Fifteen Percent Pledge didn’t do much in terms of winning over Black American shoppers.

Brands likely won’t be able to gain favor with consumers until they’ve dedicated years of work to their social-justice efforts, including publicly holding themselves accountable to commitments, Tassin told Alyssa.

Click here to read the full story on Marketing Brew.—EC

Goodbye, maskne—hello, teeth whiteners. That’s at least one way the pandemic impacted the beauty industry. But we didn’t stop there. This month, Retail Brew has been doing a (more than skin) deep dive into the world of beauty. For example…

It’s the balm: Much of what’s sold in drugstores today isn’t all that different from when they still had soda fountains, their aisles stocked with brands that have been around for generations, like Vaseline (1870), Gillette (1900), L’Oréal Paris (1909), Nivea (1911), and Old Spice (1937).

• But there’s a new drugstore category that’s really growing and, fittingly, is about really growing: beard care.

In the eye of the deliverer: Shoppers don’t just want snacks delivered ASAP. They need shampoo and deodorant in a pinch, too. Enter: instant-delivery companies.

Beauty fits into what Adam Wacenske, US head of operations at Gorillas, calls an “Oh no, I’m out” situation. “You run out of shampoo or lotion or something—it’s not something you typically plan for,” he told us. “The ability to have these things delivered relatively quickly…it sort of sets up nicely for a lot of beauty products.”

Click here to go behind the beauty biz.

Today’s top retail reads.

Fly like an Eagle: American Eagle is pitching its supply-chain logistics platform—even to competitors. (CNBC)

A bit of a stretch? Body-positive shapewear may sound like a contradiction, since the premise seems to be that the body needs to be reshaped. But some new brands say otherwise. (Glossy)

Adjusted for inflation: Eat vegetables, read books, take cruises. How some Americans are sidestepping inflation by purchasing items least affected by it. (Quartz)

At the mall, it’s where band tees are the only tees. In Retail Brew, it’s where we invite readers to weigh in on a trending retail topic.

On Thursday, Amazon debuted “Buy with Prime,” which allows Prime members to shop with online retailers outside of the e-comm giant and still receive Prime benefits like free delivery and returns.

• It’s rolling out throughout 2022, starting with businesses using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) before expanding to non-FBA retailers.

Peter Larsen, Amazon’s VP of Buy with Prime, said in a release that the move was the company’s latest effort to help small and medium-sized businesses grow. “With shoppers purchasing directly from merchants’ online stores, Buy with Prime will allow merchants to build customer relationships and brand loyalty while offering conversion-driving benefits like fast, free shipping.”

You tell us: Are you more likely to buy from a retailer that has Buy with Prime? Cast your vote here.

Circling back: In line with Earth Day last week, we asked how much you care about retail companies’ campaigns for the holiday. The results were fairly split: 44.2% said not all, while 31.6% admitted they care a little bit, and 24.2% claimed they care a lot.

Catch up on the Retail Brew stories you may have missed.

• Harper Wilde shares what it learned from building its bra-recycling program
• Let’s get phygital: It’s a portmanteau listicle
• How one organization is working to place more women in the boardrooms of consumer companies