EBay UK is getting on board the Fair Trade bus. The company just launched a portal that allows shoppers to easily find Fair Trade certified goods on the site. The interface is Flash-based, rather nifty and easy to use.

Browsing around, you can find information in the dozen or so Fair Trade sellers listed on the portal now (many of the UK's pioneering Fair Trade brands are there) as well as information about Fair Trade broken down by region. Each region highlights a Fair Trade artisan cooperative with its story and photographs. A couple of clicks in and your taken to the familiar eBay product listing where you'll be able to easily stay in the Fair Trade realm of eBay UK with quick links to all certified sellers as well as category links.

It's great to see one of the Internet's shopping giants embrace Fair Trade in this manner. It makes business sense that eBay is trying this out in the UK first as Fair Trade is much more established there than it is in the US. However, it would be nice to see this feature appear for US-based Fair Trade retailers. You can contact eBay (you can proceed as a 'Guest' at the Login prompt) telling them how much you'd like to see a similar portal for the US.