The Gift Economy is Online at Homesteaders Co-op

in #steem5 years ago

Last week I updated Homesteaders Co-op with the ability for our vendors to specify products as gifts in our marketplace. You can read about it here.

Today I've made a new update to our website that has completely separated Shopping from Gifting.

  • Our Shop section now includes all products that are denominated in some amount.
  • The new Gifts section shows all of the gifts that are available at no cost (except shipping).



gifts.png

The significance of this re-organizing

I prefer to keep products for sale separate from the Gifts. I don't want gifts to detract from the products that are for sale. And yet I want the gifts to have their own prominence. I prefer that gifts are making a statement.

Why?

Because we are operating different than other marketplaces that prioritize profit over people. We are putting people in front of profit. A marketplace that wants to squeeze as much profit as possible out of their vendors and their customers would never encourage gifts unless they were sure it would mean more money for them.

The Gift Economy

In our case, by looking past profit, our marketplace has the unique ability to explore more than one form of exchange.

Suppose you ask me this: Why would someone provide a gift on this marketplace rather than asking to be paid for a product?

I believe there is opportunity to feel rewarded in gifting to our fellow humans. The reward of giving can be very satisfying and has the potential to be equal or greater in value than the monetary value that is placed on a physical object.

Perhaps our relationships can become deeper if we look past the physical level and deeper into our spiritual connections with each other.

Interchange

I give credit to @wwf for coming up with this observation. Because we are not seeking profit, and because we are seeking fair exchange of value (shoppers and vendors alike) - we are not dealing in commerce (whose rules are set by captains of industry). We are interchanging with each other as we seek to exchange our goods and services for an equivalent value; not value plus profit.

My first gift exchange

My Seeds of Abundance store is already offering several varieties of seeds as gifts to our Steem friends that for one reason or another we decided not to sell but have enough amounts that we want to share.

This weekend we just received our first order that included a gift request from @nateonsteemit. He ordered a packet of seeds from us and also requested some seeds we are gifting. I am really glad to see that he already used this feature and am excited to be able to share some surplus with him!

More gifts available

@quochuy has generously shared his e-books for worm composting/farming and composting with black soldier flies as gifts in Homesteaders Co-op.

Now that these new features are available I will be letting our vendors know that they can offer gifts if they so desire.

What do the gifts mean to the Vendors?

I won't encourage any vendor to offer gifts in our co-op unless they have an interest in it. I completely understand the importance of earning money. It will be completely up to the vendor whether they operate completely financially, completely in the gift economy or any combination. They are also not obligated to fulfill a gift request.

Thanks so much for reading. There is so much more planned and if you like what we are doing I encourage you to stay tuned. Lots of fun updates will be coming!

@sagescrub


This is an update to our fundition project: Free Community Marketplace for Handmade Goods in STEEM/SBD




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We provide a FREE marketplace for you to transact in STEEM, SBD and USD. Our vendors are committed to sustainability, ethics and quality in their lives and work.

Unlike other marketplaces our vendors are not charged listing fees, subscription fees or transaction fees. This service is 100% free.

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I love watching this marketplace grow.
Thank you for undertaking this.

Thank you very much :)

This post has been included in the latest edition of SoS Daily News - a digest of all you need to know about the State of Steem.

As always @sagescrub, you have the most giving heart! 💝

You're right about my heart being giving. The hard work is getting past my walls of defensiveness, fear and selfishness so that I can give more fully :)

Seems to me where we had a conversation about my problem with selling before and that I end up giving things away more often than selling.... lol!

There is certainly time and place for both :) The good thing is selling is you can earn enough to support others when you need something in return.

Hey there #homesteadercoop and team!

Absolutely love the look, feel and vibes of your marketplace!

It looks like our projects can benefit from each other. Hope you have a few minutes to check out on steemit, Holistic Sustainability Reporting Tools for Products and Meals.

We focus on being a sustainability rating system and research tool - not a multi-vendor sales hosting site. Like you, we don't make ANY money off ANY vendors.

Businesses do not sell through our site and are not charged anything at all. We operate solely on donations and founder's funding.

Our posts explain our minimum sustainability requirements to get listed. You can see an example listing below - reminder that the 'buy now' button would link directly to homesteaderscoop.com and we make no commissions.

Thank you for your time!

https://www.eco-locals.com/listings/artisinal-kombucha

Hello, nice to hear from you :) Your website and rating system is very cool. We certainly do have some similar inspiration and motivation for the work we are doing. I appreciate there is a need and importance for what you are doing. I hope that you have success in your new project! Thanks for the suggestion of including our vendors in your website. While most of our vendors are operating online with their products and services, perhaps there are some that also have local services as well. We are not all food related, but certainly there are some.

Thanks yet again #sagescrub,

Eco-locals.com is perfect for food and products that are sold both online or in store as long as they meet our minimum requirements.

Think of us as the database for researching and comparing all the 'boring' sustainability info. We don't handle money for vendors or process transactions.

We hope to support and strengthen vendors on sites like yours - This way you can keep the look and feel of your site, while vendors have a chance to demonstrate how they comply with holistic and standardized sustainability reporting.

If they're available at 10 different farmer's markets and online, our interactive map and tools make them easy to find for tourists or locals alike!

Thanks again for your feedback and time!

Thank you for explaining that. I am sorry I didn't understand it is not only local. I guess it was an assumption I made based on the name eco-locals. That is very kind of you to offer your website service to our vendors. Are you on discord yet? I'd like to invite you to our community chat room. https://discord.gg/t2faQnD

'locals' means ingredients are >50% extracted and manufactured within 1000km from where the product is manufactured.

This puts pressure on makers to get things from nearby - I have chatted with many 'local green' businesses who get their glass jars or other pieces from China just because no one asked or thought it was important...

So! Someone in Canada could use eco-locals.com to find coffee in Columbia - if it met the requirements in Columbia.

The hope is that people would use the service to find a local tea as a coffee replacement instead of doing this - but even if they must have coffee (like me) it is a step in the right direction.

It's all a lot clearer when you have a google MyMap in front of you to see where everything comes from like we provide on our listings pages.

:D Thanks again we are on discord and will join soon.

Thanks for the explanation. This all makes sense now! I like this project even more now :)

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