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Bill Bass has such strong faith in a multichannel strategy he's positively agnostic about where sales come from.

The CEO of fair-trade clothing marketer Fair Indigo says that when the company debuted in fall 2006 he considered it crucial to start up the catalog, Web site and a retail store at the same time so that no one channel would become the ignored “orphan.”

Fair Indigo, which launched on a $15 million investment, targets socially conscious men and women ages 35 to 55. About 80% of the products are for women, taking into account that they typically buy more clothing than men. A competitor in this space, American Apparel, goes after a younger demographic.

Seventy percent of sales are generated by the Web site, 25% by catalog and 5% in the retail store. The channels are heavily integrated. Bass told an audience at the recent Annual Conference for Catalog and Multichannel Merchants in Orlando, FL that in the retail store consumers can scan an item's barcode and see online user reviews, and learn about where the garment was made.

Initially Bass said he saw Fair Indigo's catalog as a way to drive people online. The first issue was filled with large photos and not a lot of product. Bass said he showed the book to a friend at Victoria's Secret and the reaction was “not enough product density.”

Bass said he laughed and told his friend he was wrong, because this was the wave of the future. The result? “Not enough product density,” he said, adding that while catalogs eventually will change in the way they're presented to consumers, traditional rules still apply.

He didn't think PDF versions of catalogs made sense at first, but came around when he realized it was a great way to get the book into customers' hands before they received their copy in the mail: You had a chance to hit them twice. He also pointed out that catalogs are easier to browse than Web sites when shoppers don't know exactly what they want. A PDF provides that experience.

The industry has to change its perspective on fair-trade and environmental issues, said Bass, the former senior vice president of Lands' End and vice president/general manager of Sears Direct. Companies shouldn't be doing things like using recycled paper and paying a fair wage because they'll ultimately lead to cost savings, but because it's the right thing to do.

For its part, Fair Indigo prints on paper with 30% post-consumer content. A chart on the back of the catalog notes that this choice saved 980 trees and 337,184 gallons of water. The company generally pays workers about twice their country's minimum wage. Online, Fair Indigo uses photos and video to help tell the stories of the people who make its clothes.

How much more will folks pay for fair-trade goods, particularly in challenging economic times? Bass said his company has kept prices in line with marketers like Garnet Hill that manufacture similar clothing styles. But, he added, research shows consumers often feel they should be paying a little more — maybe 10% or so higher — for fair-trade items since the workers are getting paid a better wage.