By building a business around the concept of fair trade, cultural preservation, and community empowerment, Chivalry Silk is a true social business. Chivalry sources their silk material from rural weavers who are otherwise not connected to the global market. Chivalry’s fair trade sales model is leveraged through its e-commerce portal at www.chivalrysilk.com, as well as through other online bidding sites such as eBay.com. What differentiates Chivalry from other silk producers is that the money earned through sales is channeled back to the weavers themselves as opposed to traditional factory-based weavers that rarely see any significant fruits for their labors.
1.The New Idea
Thepparat, the woman behind the idea of Chivalry Silk, sees an opportunity stemming from a direct need to help preserve Thai culture while simultaneously providing traditional artisans with an economic opportunity. By using the power of connectivity and accessibility that the internet offers to both buyers and producers, Chivalry Silk aims to develop this new distribution channel in order to push forward their social mission.
2.The Problem
Traditional silk manufacturing is disappearing from the rural areas of Thailand because the price of traditional silk cannot compete with cheaper, industrialized silk. Due the lack of access to markets of people that are willing to pay a higher price for the silk, many of the rural artisans are forced to abandon their craft and leave their villages for the big cities in search for work. When migration to urban areas is added to the equation, it becomes clear that such cultural heritage is in danger of being lost.
3.The Strategy
Chivalry Silk sources their silk material from traditional weavers who are otherwise not connected to the global market. Their fair trade sales model is leveraged through an e-commerce portal as well as a their human networks that are made up of the youth within the communities as well as a significant Thai network living overseas. Chivalry Silk is able to sell the hand woven silk produced by the artisans at a slightly higher price than the industrialized silk by marketing directly to a socially conscious buyer who is willing to pay a slightly higher price considering the social value added to the product. Access to socially conscious markets allows Chivalry Silk to sell enough to ensure rural artisans have enough income to continue preserving Thailand’s traditional silk weaving culture without having to abandon it to move to the cities. The online strategy in parallel to the local and overseas network is a unique advantage of Chivalry.
Chivalry Silk trains weavers and incorporates design, packaging, styling and trend advice into their products while constructing a strong supply chain. Silk fabrics that are made into dresses and scarves for clothing, home decor and/or collection is currently being exported and sold through third-party online bidding sites, offline retail sites and www.Chivalrysilk.com.
Chivalry Silks seeks to generate US $100,000/year through international wholesale opportunities at trade fairs and US $100,000 through direct sales to Thai networks overseas. ChivalrySilk.com is currently dealing US $15,000 and US $35,000 through third-party bidding websites.
This effort will improve the standard of living for 30,000 people in the silk industry in northern Thailand by making their products more marketable, connecting them with customers and increasing their incomes significantly which allows them to remain self sufficient in their villages. By turning traditional silk weaving back into a reliable and sustainable source of income, Chivalry Silk fosters the preservation of a Thai valued cultural heritage.
4.The Person
A group of young, innovative and motivated students studying at Thailand’s Thammasat University, recognized the problems that the Thai silk industry was facing and felt compelled to do something about it. These students were witnessing more and more traditional weavers abandoning their craft and leaving for the big cities in order to make enough money to support themselves and their families. While studying at Thammasat University, these students gained experience by doing small-scale sales in order to develop their skills and eventually decided to move forward with their business ideas by launching Chivalry Silk in 2008.
Miss Thepparat Tantikalayaporn, a young Thai woman social entrepreneur that developed Chivalry Silk, dedicated time to learning the silk process, starting from growing the mulberry-like plants that feed the silk worms all the way to the final stages of hand weaving, with the hopes of better developing her understanding of the culture and tradition. Throughout her time in Chiang Mai, a silk village in northern Thailand, Thepparat took pictures of the various designs and processes and posted them on a variety of websites in order to gain more exposure. Her tactics were successful and she began getting orders from buyers all around the world via her eBay store before she was able to develop her own website. Through her focus on marketing and exposure, she was able to reach a broader market than she had been able to reach in the past, which eventually led to the success of ChivalrySilk.com.
