About The East Utopia Trading Company
Who We Are
The East Utopia Trading Company specializes in modern gear and apparel for beatniks and bohemians, reformers and radicals. For those that live a life engaged in art and politics, we're here for you.
Our politics are never in fashion, but always in style. We emphasize a history of activism and the people who got stuff done. We're not interested in the fads and slogans of the moment. Our taste in music, arts, and literature is timeless but engaged in the issues of the day.
Our Impact
East Utopia Trading Company is built on the belief that commerce and conscience belong together. That’s why we donate 5% of every sale — roughly 20% of our profits — to organizations advancing civil rights, labor rights, and social justice.
Through our partnership with ShoppingGives, every contribution is processed transparently at checkout and directed to vetted nonprofit partners including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Jobs With Justice, Pro Publica, The ACLU, PEN America, and Planned Parenthood. ShoppingGives let us provide opportunities to give to six organization and we've tried to pick tried and true, impactful groups working toward equality, dignity, and democracy that a broad swath of our customer base can take pride in. Further, for specific designs, we link to other groups that work on issues related to the theme of the product and encourage our customers to make their own donations on top of what will be contributed at check out. People who specialize in online retail think we are crazy for encouraging our customers to click on links that take them away from our store and invest their money elsewhere. So be it. That's how we roll.
Each purchase you make helps sustain the movements that shaped our past — and those still shaping our future.
How We Work
We are a "print-on-demand" company, which means that when you order something from our store, it is printed just for you and shipped to your door. That allows us to offer a very wide variety of products to bear our designs but it means we have to be extra careful about who we partner with to fulfill your orders. We've put in a lot of time and effort into making sure that we deal with reputable printers known for high quality work.
We source our apparel from CustomCat because of their DIGISOFT technology which delivers next-level high-quality prints on cloth. As we expand out to more products and continents, we will source from similarly high quality providers.
We do a lot with historical photos and images that we've lovingly restored and sometimes updated so that they are a fresh to you as they were for our ancestors. Take a look around. We hope you'll find something you love that you can't get anywhere else.