The pro-poor product market is flush with powerful, low-cost, human-centered innovations that can have a transformative effect on the lives and livelihoods of the poor. Products such as clean-burning cook stoves, solar phone chargers, and safe water filters have proven health and economic benefits for poor consumers. But despite the powerful promise of these products, the vast majority remain market failures due to their inability to reach a critical mass of poor consumers.

Living Goods sees several reasons for this failure to scale. Most of these innovations come from organizations trying to build an entire distribution platform for just one or two products. This creates an incredibly inefficient silo. Consumer financing is also a considerable obstacle to uptake. Even a $10 retail price represents a capital purchase for a poor family, which leaves these products out of reach for the vast majority of the poor. To address these obstacles Living Goods brings a broad basket of high-impact products together creating an economy of assortment in which the marginal cost of distributing new innovations is near zero. To confront the prohibitive purchase price of these new technologies, Living Goods uses a range of consumer-financing strategies like installment payment plans and micro-consignment to further increase product penetration.

Living Goods’ networks of independent agents create thousands of sales points at the doorsteps of poor consumers. We are building the market for new innovations through in-home product demonstrations, community based education, and ongoing customer cultivation. Our model catalyzes demand and creates widespread access for products that fill the unmet needs of consumers at the base of the pyramid. In so doing, we help inspired ideas achieve massive impact.

> Learn more about the innovations we bring to market.