by Leah Bury
With the holidays fast approaching, this time of year is perhaps the time most centered around consumer purchases. Many of us are making lists of people we need to buy gifts for, and putting careful thought into just what each person would like. But what if we put that much thought into everything that happens before we make the purchase (and where the money goes after)?
I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Scott Jacobsen, co-founder of DoneGood, a tech-startup based in Boston that aims to help consumers “find brands that make the world a better place”. They rolled out a chrome extension last year that showed shoppers more ethical alternatives while they did their regular shopping on sites like Amazon. They just recently launched their website, which makes it a cinch for shoppers to find ethical and sustainable goods. On the site, shoppers can easily search by product or impact category, and can even get access to exclusive discounts.
Some articles I read on DoneGood deemed it the “Amazon of social good”- quite a bold label. I asked Scott if that label was fitting, and he responded that while being the Amazon of social good is the goal, right now, DoneGood is more the “Kayak of social good”. While they do make it super easy for consumers to find the goods that they want, while ensuring those goods are doing good in the world, DoneGood still sends shoppers to the partner website to actually complete the purchase, similar to the way that Kayak sends shoppers to the airline website to purchase the flight. Still, Scott says, being called the “Amazon of social good” is good press- it makes readers stop and think, “Wait, does Amazon even care about social good?” and that gets the ball rolling in terms of making consumers put some more thought into just how ethical their purchases are.
Beyond that, it provides some insight into what the team at DoneGood is trying to accomplish. Right now, we all think of Amazon as a one-stop-shop where we can order almost anything at the click of a button and have it in our hands within a few days. Ask anybody why they shop on Amazon over other stores, and most people would say “It is convenient, and so easy.” DoneGood wants to make it that easy for consumers to make purchases that are also doing good for the world.
Right now, it requires some effort to make an ethical purchase. While there are some extremely socially conscious people who put a lot of thought and deliberation into every purchase, the reality is that most people are not like that. Many of us simply do not have social impact at the top of mind when making purchasing decisions. And, as Scott says, that is okay. Scott and the team at DoneGood are steering away from a shame or guilt-driven approach to getting people to make ethical purchases. While some companies have tried to appeal to the consumer’s conscience by showing harrowing images of young factory workers making clothes to influence them to buy ethically-sourced clothing, DoneGood does not want to take that route.
As Scott shares, DoneGood is trying to reach the people who, when given the choice, would usually choose the ethical good. They hope to broaden the pool to reach people who have heard of ethical goods but have no idea where to start. Their website and chrome extension are tools that put the impact of goods into the minds of consumers, and make every purchase an opportunity to create positive change.
Do people need to be convinced to make ethical purchases? The answer is yes. But is being aware of the ethical nature of a product enough to make consumers opt to purchase it? Not always.
We’d like to believe that, for most consumers, they would always opt for the most ethical product, given the choice. But if that is the case, we’d simply need to make consumers aware of the ethical nature of one product as compared to similar products. The reality, however, is that for many consumers, the social impact that is attached to a specific product is not the tipping point, but rather the icing on the cake. At the end of the day, if a consumer does not like a product, and if it does not have the right price, the consumer will not purchase it.
This is why DoneGood is trying to focus not just on making ethical brands top of mind for consumers, but also on making it easier for these brands to deliver what the consumers ultimately want. As Scott says, these goods can’t be sold on social impact alone. That is why DoneGood hopes to promote these brands by leading with quality, coolness, and discoverability of brands that are “doing cool shit”. Furthermore, DoneGood offers exclusive discounts to make shopping for goods that have a positive social impact more accessible to consumers.
By doing this, DoneGood will be able to help consumers view the impact of their purchasing differently. Ideally, consumers as a whole experience an “economic paradigm shift”, where purchasing products that are not good for people and the planet no longer becomes an option, because the market is demanding something else. DoneGood wants to speed along that process by changing how people feel about purchasing- showing that consumerism does not have to be a dirty word, and that it can actually be easy for consumers to use their purchasing power to have a social impact.
This means that there will no longer just be consumers who want to do good– there will be consumers who have DoneGood.
