About Craftsvilla:
Craftsvilla an online platform where Indian artisans can display their creativity and sell their products. You can find everything ethnic here from apparels to food. The artisans bring out the true Indian colors of our culture which has attracted the consumers and they fall in love with the old traditional ideas. Here there is range of hand made products. Craftsvilla has given a platform to many for their living and bring out the culture which might have died had the Founder not found out their problems.
Monica Gupta the founder of Craftsvilla was on a road trip in Kutch (Gujarat). When she saw these people selling very beautiful tradition colorful products. It came to her mind that they really must be doing well in life but to her disappointment she understood that they were actually struggling to make the two ends meet and were on the verge of closing their small hand work products. The creativity was going to die because the middlemen would buy their products at very low price and in turn they sold the same item at a very good price. Realizing the situation she thought of helping them and to keep the tradition alive by giving them an online platform where these craftsmen and designers could sell their own products directly to consumers so they could make their living.
The sellers were a little skeptical about going online as they were little learned and did not understand the concept of online. Slowly they understood that this was a shop for them to showcase their products and make it available to the consumers.
In 2011 Craftsvilla was born with the help of her husband Manoj Gupta and now it has online sellers all over India where the people sitting at home have got work and specially women. They are now satisfied online sellers selling to millions of customers.
Business Objectives:
To start of the business the company needed to advertisement so they relied on word of mouth from customers, from one customer to the other. For this it was necessary for the company to build trust with both the sellers and consumers. They were careful about picking up their sellers and giving good services to the customers at the same time. Their commitment with the sellers and the consumers and creating a good balance between them.
Approach adopted by Craftsvilla:
- Finding good artisans, helping them and giving them total online support for selling their products through making sure that the products are good in quality and keeping the price at a balance.
- Smart and quick deliveries.
- Keeping the demand supply on priority so there is no space for discounts at the same time keeping low cost so consumers are attracted.
- They built a strong, young motivated hard working team for the benefit of the company.
Big stars like Vidhya Balan and Kareena Kapoor are their brand ambassador for the promotion of their company. - Face book with millions of followers, twitter also having thousands of followers and many such Medias have helped in the growth of Craftsvilla. Moreover they have received media appreciation on occasions.
- In 2015 Craftsvilla Miss Ethnic was organized and it was a great success. The entries of 50,000 itself proves its popularity.
- Craftsvilla is shipping their products to more than 100 countries.
Results Achieved:
It a short span of time just four years Craftsvilla has grown very fast with its Indian ethnic products for which the company has taken pains looking out for the resources and making it available to the customers. With almost two million ethnic products on line and 12000 craftsmen, designers and artisans it is the biggest online platform globally.
A transaction of 100000 per month but aspiring to grow 10 times more with 20 million products in future on this platform.
Learnings:
Seeing the inception and dedication of Craftsvilla, it does give the learning of how anyone can set up a business in today’s time if you have the right and needed concept. With the support of digital media marketing, you can promote your business and make it successful. What Craftsvilla’s approach was a very good. Getting celebrity to promote their, conduct online events for people to participate and most importantly keeping the balance of quality and price.
Image credits: Craftsvilla
