About Salaaz
An ethical marketplace, built by people who don't want to lie to you.
Salaaz exists because most ethical-commerce promises are unverifiable, and most product pages bury what matters. We thought we could do better. This page is what we mean by that.
What we do
Salaaz is an open marketplace where independent vendors list goods and services they make, source, or distribute. Every vendor is vetted at three points: signup, listing, and any change to a variant. Vetting checks the disclosures the vendor provides against the evidence they can show: invoices, photographs of workshops, certifications, supplier names, and shipping records.
Where a stage of a product's supply chain is disclosed and verified, we say so. Where a stage isn't disclosed, the ethics score reflects that. The score on a product page is the product page's claim about itself; the underlying data is visible to any shopper who taps through.
Three things we commit to in writing
Search ranking cannot be bought.
No vendor pays for placement. The ranking algorithm uses ethics disclosure depth, vendor history on the platform, and product relevance to the query, and nothing else. We commit to this in writing because the temptation otherwise is constant.
No private vendor messaging.
Vendors can't direct-message shoppers; shoppers can't direct-message vendors. Salaaz handles customer service and dispute resolution centrally. Private channels would create a black market for ethics claims that undermines what the platform is for.
No urgency mechanics.
There are no urgency mechanics: no scarcity timers, no countdown clocks, no badges or streaks, and no push notifications by default. Buying things should be a considered act. The platform is designed for the person who comes back next week to think more.
By the numbers
- 3-stage
- Vetting per vendor, at signup, at listing, and at any variant change.
- /5
- Score scale for product ethics, with the supply-chain stages that produced the number visible.
- 2023
- Founded. Independent, no venture capital.
Who built this, and why
Salaaz was founded in 2023 by a small team that wanted to buy things and know where they came from, and got tired of guessing. The platform is funded by its own revenue: no venture capital, no external investors. This is a practical position more than an ideological one. Growth pressure from investors is the most common reason ethical-commerce platforms quietly drop their disclosure standards.
Independence means the spec for what counts as “ethical” is written by us and the vendors who agree to it.
We are not perfect. The catalog has gaps. Some vendors disclose more than others. Some categories (antique arms, certain rare materials) we haven't yet decided how to handle. The platform's Ethics page documents how scores are calculated, what's verified, and what's still in progress. Read it before you trust us.