Social Entrepreneur Gets Creative To Manage Crippling Shipping Costs

Woven Worldwide works with intergenerational artisans in Ghana to weave beautiful baskets. Woven Worldwide
Imagine you are a small business owner and overnight your shipping costs increase by 436%. What would you do? This is the challenge faced by Viola Labi and her company Woven Worldwide. Woven Worldwide is a socially-conscious home decor brand renowned for its range of high-quality, eco-credentialed, handcrafted baskets produced by intergenerational artisans in Ghana.

When small businesses are just starting out, they often rely on inefficient shipping methods to deliver their products to customers, especially when the products are manufactured on a different continent than where they are sold. When a business is not yet at the scale where it can fill a shipping container, it has to rely on companies like DHL and FedEx. In the beginning, while not ideal, it was working for Woven Worldwide. Then DHL increased its prices. Labi tried to make it work as long as she could, borrowing money from friends and family and subsidizing shipping out of her profits.

The last four years have been a rollercoaster for businesses, especially those that sell physical goods. In an economy where everything seems to get more expensive every month, shipping prices were especially volatile. According to the International Monetary Fund, by October 2021, shipping costs had increased 500% from pre-pandemic levels. They started to come down only to surge by up to 30% again in 2024 due to disruptions in the Panama and Suez canals per the Wall Street Journal. Air Freight is not immune from this trend. The expansion of e-commerce companies has increased demand for air freight capacity leading to shortages and price hikes. In Woven Worldwide’s case, the issue was a policy change meant to help DHL deal with increased demand. Instead of pricing by weight, the company started to charge by volume. Picture a large woven basket and you can see the problem.

There came a point where Woven Worldwide had two choices; shut down the business or change its supply chain strategy. For Labi, shutting down was not really an option. “Today our business model provides functional employment to 36 disenfranchised artisan families and smallholder farmers. Grandmothers, mothers, aunts, and daughters, foster and guarantee food security, access to healthcare, and a sense of well-being to their dependents,” wrote Labi. And even more than employment, Woven Worldwide is a celebration of the artisans’ Ghanaian culture. “Behind each woven basket is a symbol of continuity, a timeless craft passed down through generations of artisans who are more than Makers, they are Keepers of Legacy, carrying the profound story of the harvest. Our work is dedicated to preserving tradition, bridging continents with handcrafted baskets that are as rich in impact as they are in design,” reads Woven Worldwide’s website.

To deal with the price increases in shipping her products, Labi designed a new supply chain strategy that involves sea freight and warehousing in Toronto. “Sea freight, despite its longer transit times, offers the advantage of more stable pricing, enabling our e-commerce customers and trade clients to pre-order/maintain our products without incurring the crippling expenses associated with air freight’s new volumetric pricing model,” said Labi. It also has a lower carbon footprint, especially important because people like the farmers who supply Woven Worldwide with the grasses to weave their baskets are among the hardest hit by the effects of climate change.

Designing a new supply chain wasn’t the end of Woven Worldwide’s challenges. The improvements require significant upfront investment. Over the past year almost all of the company’s free cash flow (and then some) was used to subsidize air freight making it impossible for Woven Worldwide to invest from its own balance sheet. Labi had never even taken a short-term loan for her company so she had no credit history to enable a bank to provide the capital. As a Black woman, Labi is not alone in having trouble accessing bank financing. A 2021 report by the Canadian Black Chamber of Commerce revealed that nearly 75% of Black business owners relied on personal savings or community funding to start their businesses, indicating challenges in accessing traditional bank financing.

Fortunately, Labi has the support of organizations in Canada. “I launch her, The BBPA, and The Canada Black Chamber of Commerce have been such a huge support for Woven Worldwide. They’ve connected me with educational resources, mentorship, and networking opportunities specifically for Black-owned businesses,” said Labi. Through one of these programs she got the idea to launch a gofundme campaign to raise the necessary funds.

Woven Worldwide’s handmade products have gained popularity with interior designers.Woven Worldwide
Demand for Woven Worldwide’s baskets has never been higher. Not only are top interior designers sourcing its work for luxury homes, museum shops are stocking the most intricate woven creations and big box stores are hoping to sell the company’s more price-accesible pieces. If Woven Worldwide can raise the funds needed for its new supply chain strategy, it will see massive growth in 2025. For mission-driven entrepreneurs like Labi, there is no choice but to succeed. It’s not just about profits. As Labi shared, “I started Woven Worldwide because I believe in the transformative power of craftsmanship—not just as a skill, but as a living testament to culture, heritage, and keeping legacies alive.” Her gofundme campaign is giving the company a shot at doing just that.

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