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Saturday, January 7, 2012

Crafty and unconvincing

Crafty and unconvincing - Indian Express

Whenever I read such news, I feel a sense of satisfaction in starting my virtual store of handmade crafts. The biggest advantage, as is evident is of 24 hours availability of the store. All thanks to Tim Berners Lee, that today the World Wide Web is widely used to create virtual stores for selling practically everything, any time of the year, season, week or day. Second comes the reach. Though, the real World craft fairs are hugely popular, but the reach to far fetch places is just beyond them.On the other hand, online stores could be restricted to few geographies initially, but their success and word-of-mouth publicity leads them to become a part of each and every individual in every part of the World. Thirdly, and most importantly, it saves a lot of capital for all. The craftsmen/sellers; the buyers as well as the organizers of the fair save on the cost of the location that eats up the major chunk of the revenue. Using the website as a location saves the huge display costs involved in showcasing the products. The displayed pictures, information as well as the sellers' details available online help in regulating the trade smoothly with minimal troughs.






Wish the IGNCA at least had invested in a web store, then probably NGOs like Dastkar and its craftsmen would have had a little hope. On the hindsight, I am proud and delighted to share that one of the craftsmen on my site is an educated man from a village in Madhya Pradesh who makes a living by creating handmade fabric with motifs and caricatures hand-printed on them. The art is locally called the "Baig art"

Each metre of fabric hardly costs 5$, and can be shipped worldwide.
The beauty of the handmade art is evident in the pictures of the collection. Please follow the link to view the same.



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