Tepla Gora Eco Market
A community-driven marketplace that connects small organic and handcraft producers from Carpathians, wider Ukraine (and soon beyond) with international buyers.
The idea comes from Tepla Gora Eco Centre, based in Carpathian mountains, Ukraine. We are a natural retreat, ecovillage, volunteering and permaculture centre. Our website is teplagora.org.
The online marketplace for local organic products has been part of Tepla Gora’s vision from early on. But it was due to the war that some internally displaced people (IDP) that stayed at the eco centre have joined the team and together we started looking at ways to build more resilience in these uncertain times. The eco marketplace seemed like a great opportunity to do that in a way that would be a win-win-win: by diversifying our organisation, supporting IDP team members and scaling our impact by supporting local ecopreneurs and the broader community in Ukraine and soon abroad.
Team
Andriy Grushetsky, Iryna Kotsar
Reporting Officer: Andriy Grushetsky
Area
Prototyping, Emergent festival, Next Steps project, Diversity, participation and engagement
Objectives
To buy example products for trial and/or order professional photography services.
OUTCOMEs
Project Update October 2023
A market stall at Tepla Gora cafe has been set-up and we have been selling local hand-made products to the eco centre visitors. There have been circa 40 sales with a 6 euros average purchase for total of 300 euros.
We have researched and put in place systems for card payments processing (both for offline and online), cash register, accounting and stock management.
Branded packaging and stickers were designed and produced for Tepla Gora branded products.
We promoted the ecomarket during our events and through social media.
The online store language has been changed to Ukrainian to accommodate the interest from our community in Ukraine and to get some online traction quicker.
We have also polished the store design, navigation, texts and have been adding the products descriptions and photos. We added the payment method and integrated delivery service provider functionality.
We are planning to promote the online store in Ukraine first (Q1, Q2 of 2024), and then to add the English version and promote it abroad (Q3, Q4 2024). At the same time we will continue engaging with small craft producers and permaculture farms to add their products to the marketplace and expand the products range.
resources created
