Brandon’s Ten Thousand Villages staying open

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/01/2020 (1545 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Earlier this week it was announced that the bulk of the Ten Thousand Villages stores in Canada would be closing.

However, eight locations, including those in Brandon and Steinbach, are staying open due to their having a different ownership structure.

While most Ten Thousand Villages were owned and run by the Mennonite Central Committee, Brandon store manager Meeghan Gavin told the Sun that her store is locally owned and organized, like all those staying open.

Gavin said that firm plans have yet to be made, but the remaining stores are discussing how they can help each other stay afloat. She is the only paid employee at the Brandon store. The rest of the people helping out at the non-profit are volunteers.

She added that while the Brandon store is in OK shape, she’s hoping that the community can assist them in staying in business. The store’s biggest immediate priority is making sure locals know that they still open for business. She is also hoping that people will help spread the importance of the store’s goal of promoting and selling fair trade goods from developing countries.

Artisans who sell to Ten Thousand Villages receive a wage for their goods as well as a fair trade premium they can use for development projects.

“In terms of a long-term picture, if we don’t see an increase in support and an increase in sales, it will be very difficult for us to remain viable in the current retail market,” Gavin said.

The local store still has a licensing agreement to use the Ten Thousand Villages name and branding, and that agreement is being extended in the wake of the closures.

The Mennonite Central Committee says the fair trade movement’s roots were planted in 1946 when Edna Ruth Byler started selling handicrafts made by artisans she met overseas out of her Pennsylvania home. In 1965, Byler’s work expanded from the U.S. to marketing in Canada when the Canadian Overseas Needlework and Crafts Project launched in Saskatchewan.

In 1972, the first Ten Thousand Villages store opened in Altona, though it was then known as SELFHELP Crafts of the World. The Altona store closed last year.

Mennonite Central Committee Canada executive director Rick Cober Bauman told the Sun via phone from Ontario that the corporate-run stores’ closures were a result of their failing to meet financial goals.

He said that the committee recently set out a three-year sustainability plan for the chain, and that if Ten Thousand Villages failed to meet a certain financial threshold in any of those three years they would have to be shuttered.

In the first year, the target was met, but just barely. Last year — the second year of the plan — the chain’s financials fell well short and the plug was pulled.

In March 2016, total sales for the organization over the previous 12-month span — including artisan work along with coffee and other gifts — reached approximately $12.34 million. By March 2019, that figure had dropped to just over $9.02 million, representing a decrease in sales of more than 26 per cent. In Manitoba, in-store sales have dropped by roughly 25 per cent since 2015.

According to Cober Bauman, Ten Thousand Villages has not been profitable in 12 years and profits have continued to decline year after year.

“We tried everything we could from online sales to making wholesale contracts with other sellers where we would put our product into their stores. … That made a difference, that helped … but none of it was quite enough.

“One of my main message here is one of gratitude. … We feel quite grateful for the incredible impact that Ten Thousand Villages has had in 74 years of business.”

He also thanked all the volunteers, staff and customers who have helped the business survive so for many years.

“Even though there’s lots of gratitude for the good impact, the reality is retail has changed dramatically,” he said. “There is more competition. Many people are buying online. Many people aren’t buying as much stuff as others once did. All of that taken together has made Villages corporate operations, which we own at MCC, to keep functioning.”

Ten Thousand Villages’ Canadian online store will cease operations on May 29, but the American branch’s store will begin selling to Canada to fill the void.

Roughly 100 full- and part-time employees are being affected by the closures.

» cslark@brandonsun.com, with files from the Winnipeg Free Press

» Twitter: @ColinSlark