Despite the fact that contemporary art is being actively promoted at various levels of life, for most people it still remains an unknown phenomenon due to unavailability of the artists’ masterpieces in urban areas. Several artists in India earn their livelihood with art, the skill of which passes on with generations. Though, the craftsmanship and precision can amaze anyone but what is more surprising is how ignored these artists are.
To make the livelihood easier for these unknown artists, India’s marketplace, ShopClues, is bringing the rich heritage of traditional crafts of Indian minorities into the limelight with IndiMarket. From royal Rajasthani furnishings to Lucknowi chikan work and dokra craft, the marketplace offers consumers a deeply engaging experience of the traditional Indian bazaar. By promoting the ‘Make in India’ vision, IndiMarket has included a large variety of items from fashion, footwear, home and kitchen, accessories, sports and other categories from different states of the country with over 500 merchants on board.
To make this initiative a success, ShopClues has been working closely with government bodies and associations which are working with SMEs and indigenous artisans and are promoting rural entrepreneurship. Along with NIFT, National Institute of Design and Indian Institute of Packaging, ShopClues has been working relentlessly on training and enabling artisans under the USTAAD banner to sell their products on its highly popular marketplace.
On this concept of IndiMarket, Radhika Aggarwal, Co-Founder & Chief Business Officer, ShopClues, said, “With IndiMarket, we are providing a platform for traditional craftsmen of different states to display their products on a larger medium. We have been seeing tremendous traction for this unique retail concept and expect IndiMarket to stand for 15% of our total revenue in the next five years. The association with government bodies is empowering small and medium businesses, local manufacturers, traders and craftsmen to participate in India's e-commerce revolution without the interference of middlemen.”
For CCI, ShopClues has made live SKUs which would be approximately catering to 300+ merchants and artisans. From NMDFC alone, almost 125 merchants have been added to the IndiMarket portfolio. As of now IndiMarket is active for 8 states and 21 cities and plans are in works to scale up operations across all 29 states by the end of the year.
Since a lot of merchants on the platform are first-time sellers on e-commerce, the initial trust issues or concerns with registration and selling are continuously resolved by the account management experts. Merchants are enthusiastic on selling more products via e-commerce platform and increase their business manifold.
ShopClues is India's e-commerce platform with more than 190 million monthly visitors on its website and was founded in July 2011 in Silicon Valley by Sandeep Aggarwal.
The company is run by co-founders Sanjay Sethi & Radhika Aggarwal and a team of over 1000 + people.
