Business: Cadeaux du Monde
Type of Business: Sellers of traditional folk art made in developing nations
Location: 140 Bellevue Ave., Newport
Owners: Katherine J. Dyer, Bill Perkins, Jane Perkins
Number of employees: three business partners
Established: 1987
Annual Sales: $100,000
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER, Jane Perkins, right, and Katie Dyer, two of the three owners of Cadeaux du Monde with one of their Afrian pieces.
Seifert Systems Invests in Energy Efficiency to Strengthen Operations
For manufacturers, energy is more than just another operating expense. It plays a critical role…
Learn More
Cadeaux du Monde assaults the senses.
Step inside and observe the “father drum,” three-and-a-half-feet tall, made from cow skin and hallowed Cameroon hardwood – right next to the dolls from Ecuador perched on a bamboo table from Vietnam. Just above the nearby display case, jute basket hangers, which the people of Bangladesh use to hold their possessions during flood season, droop down from the ceiling.
A bright-yellow lion’s mask peers at visitors from the wall opposite the baskets. Pick through the narrow, cramped Newport store and you pass: a massive Indian dowry chest, some 150 years old; a crèche that shows the interpretations of artisans from Latin America; a “Bedford truck” made from raffia bamboo in Ghana; rugs made in Pakistan; jewelry made in Kenya.
Tropical plants cohabit the space along with these folk art pieces. Driving Cuban music sounds from speakers mounted to the walls. A row of ceiling fans spins overhead.
The mood is something owners Bill Perkins, his wife Jane, and Jane’s daughter, Katie Dyer, have created by traveling to developing nations to buy folk art pieces made by cooperatives of artisans. They then sell the pieces to collectors in the United States, people who dedicate rooms of their houses to art from a certain country, or people who simply want to wear jewelry and clothes made by artisans in Africa, Latin America, the South Pacific, the Caribbean, or Asia.
What makes Cadeaux du Monde (it means Gifts of the World)different, however, is its business model. As an “alternative trader,” Cadeaux buys directly from village cooperatives – groups of artisans that have banded together to buy raw materials in bulk – and eliminates the middlemen in the transaction process. By doing so, the company can afford to pay “fair” prices. It can also screen purchases. For example, when Dyer and her mother visit cooperatives in, say, Africa, they check the working conditions in which the products are made. They do no business with groups that use bonded child labor, the practice of selling children into service. If children work, they should be in an environment in which they can still play and go to school.
Producers should also have appropriate safety measures in place, at least relative to the country in which they operate. Even with these heightened standards, however, the company must still sell the goods at a competitive price. Buying directly from the artisans allows it do that.
”By cutting out all these middlemen we hope we can be competitive and not impoverish people on the other end,” Dyer said. She added that if a product meets the company’s quality standards, Cadeaux will pay the artisan’s price. “They’re setting the wage standard; we’re not.”
Paying better prices makes it possible for artisans to choose to produce art over working in a factory, Dyer said. Their work is also better if they are not forced to produce high volumes of products just to survive, she said.
Once Dyer and Perkins find a cooperative whose work they like, they attempt to establish a trade link that will allow them to order products from the cooperative in the future. Cadeaux now has more than 100 trade links in countries worldwide, allowing it to get product without having to go leave the country. Still, Dyer and Perkins travel at least once a year in search of new products, and new trade links.
For collectors in the United States, that means a choice of hundreds of eclectic art pieces. And with the economy flourishing, people have the money to buy them.
”The home decorating market is really booming right now,” Dyer said. At one time, she added, people decorated around the holidays only. “Now, people decorate all the time.”
So what kinds of people are in the market for an Ecuador-made balsa-wood parrot painted in gleaming red, blue, green, and yellow colors? Or a chess set whose board was made in Kenya and whose pieces – which depict members of the Bantu peoples, who live in Southern and Central Africa – were made in Cameroon?
They’re people of all economic strata. While some may be in the market for the Indian dowry chest at $5,000, others come for smaller items, such as hand-woven belts from Guatemala, that can be had for under $10. People with limited incomes will save their money for a special art piece, they said. They note that, just like any other business, countries sell brands as much as they sell products. That’s why Persian rugs and Botswana baskets sell at a premium, they said.
People on budgets compromise a bit. “Maybe they don’t buy the Botswana basket (but) they buy the Zimbabwe basket,” Jane Perkins said.
To a degree, customers will pay a higher price for Cadeaux goods because they’re made by producers who do not exploit workers or the environment, Dyer said. Because the company screens its purchases, and because of Cadeaux’s commitment to business practices that help deal with problems such as sweatshops, child labor, and the environment, the company in 1997 earned a spot on the National Green Pages. The National Green Pages are a listing of 2,000 companies that have been deemed “socially responsible” by Co-op America, the Washington, D.C. publisher of the book.
Before accepting Cadeaux, however, Co-op sent a team of investigators to review the business. When scrutinizing companies, the teams look for a commitment to building relationships with producers, investing in the producers’ community, and sharing profits with the suppliers, said Chris O’Brien, managing director of Co-op America’s Business Network in Washington.
Cadeaux met the standards. But while this is attractive to customers, they will only pay so much – about 5 percent more – for these specially screened products, Dyer said. “They want to feel good without hurting (their) pocketbook,” she said.
Wanting to feel good about what she was doing is what drove Dyer, along with her mother, Jane, and her husband Bill, to found Cadeaux in 1987. Dyer had finished a tour in Africa with the Peace Corps. Perkins had raised her children, and was ready for a new endeavor. Cadeaux du Monde was born.
”We wanted to marry our vocation (with our) avocation,” Dyer said.
Now, they want to marry those two ideals with improved sales. They now sell via mail order and over the Internet, in addition to sales from their storefront. They hope their Internet business will swell from about 7 percent to 20 to 30 percent of their total sales. And maybe they’ll sell the $5,000 dowry chest.
”It’s a amazing what you do sell,” Dyer said.
