Fair-labor assurances boost sales in retail experiment

A recent article in Slate discusses an intriguing experiment that suggests businesses can increase profits by offering products labeled as having been produced in a socially conscious manner.

More testing is needed, since the trial took place in a New York City store with a progressive reputation and customers who tend to be wealthier than average. But the proposition that there is a quantifiable unmet consumer demand for fairly made products is exciting.

My minor but nagging question—were the items the researchers labeled as fair-labor in the experiment actually produced under fair and safe conditions?—gets an affirmative answer in the research paper itself (pdf). Also notable there is the list of retailers that declined to participate in the experiment for fear of drawing attention to the issue of labor standards: Abercrombie and Fitch, Adidas, American Eagle, Eastern Mountain Sports, Free People, Gap, the Harvard / MIT Coop, J. Crew, Marshall’s, Nike, Patagonia, Target, Timberland, Urban Outfitters, and Wal-Mart.