Traidcraft, an organisation 'fighting poverty through traid' has launched a mobile version of its shop in a bid to increase sales over the Christmas period.

It went live in September and Paul Oliver, head of supporter development said it “was the natural next step for our multi-channel offering with which we would like to engage with existing customers through their smartphone”.

He added: “We are also looking to increase our customer acquisition.”

Oliver told civilsociety.co.uk that: “We are expecting a 10 per cent growth in sales (for the autumn period) including sales through the mobile site.”

Online sales for the 2011 autumn period amounted to “just under £3.5m” and the current balance between online and offline sales is “50:50” he added.

The site was developed in six weeks, by the charity’s existing web-developer, Maginus, meaning that it “is in effect an extension of our ecommerce site, sharing the same product and pricing information so we only ever have to update the data in one place”, according to Oliver.

Customers can also add items to the basket using the mobile site and then continue shopping and pay from computer.