Most of us are quite familiar with Toms Shoes and their novel one-for-one promise. If you are not, Toms is a social enterprise that is widely recognized for their shared value approach of donating a pair of their shoes for every pair they sell. This approach certainly gives consumers incentive to buy a pair of Toms over the next brand, ultimately because they get the added bonus of feeling that philanthropic goodness.

Now, in an effort to help other social entrepreneurs achieve the same success, the company has truly taken shared values to a whole new world- a virtual world that is. Toms Marketplace, which just launched last Tuesday, is an online marketplace that hosts brands with common social purposes, and sells an array of different goods. Through different methods and allocations, all products sold on the site makes some kind of contribution in helping others. Just like how eBay is known for bidding and Etsy is known for vintage goods, Toms Marketplace has a created its own niche, providing an online platform known for- you guessed it- helping social causes. In the end, we buy Toms cause they look good and make us feel good about buying them, so can’t the same be done with everything else? I believe that’s the logic behind Toms Marketplace.

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