Many shoppers today want to align their purchases with their ethical values, particularly by avoiding products from countries with poor labor or environmental standards. However, determining where products come from requires digging through fine print or manufacturer websites, creating unnecessary hassle for conscientious consumers.

How It Could Work

One approach could involve creating a browser extension that automatically filters products based on their country of origin. Users would select which countries they prefer to avoid, and the tool could then:

• Scan product pages for origin information using a mix of text recognition and retailer APIs
• Highlight or remove products from specified countries from search results
• Allow users to contribute data when origin information is missing

The system might combine machine learning with crowdsourced verification to handle cases where manufacturers obscure product origins or use complex supply chains.

Who Would Benefit

This type of tool could serve several groups:

• Ethical consumers trying to avoid supporting certain labor practices
• Activists participating in geopolitical boycotts
• Retailers wanting to showcase ethically-sourced products

The most engaged users would likely be those already willing to pay premium prices for products matching their values, suggesting potential for premium features or affiliate partnerships.

Getting Started

A basic version could begin by focusing on major retailers like Amazon, with simple keyword matching for country names. As accuracy improves, additional features might include:

1. User-submitted origin confirmations
2. Supply chain complexity indicators
3. Integration with existing ethical sourcing databases

The key challenge would be balancing comprehensive filtering with browsing performance, perhaps by limiting scans to product pages rather than every webpage.

Several ethical shopping tools exist, but none currently offer this specific combination of automatic filtering across multiple retailers based on customizable country preferences. The approach would be unique in reducing the research burden on values-driven shoppers.