Amazon India has partnered with the handloom division of the Union Ministry of Textiles under which it plans to educate, train and enable cooperative groups and individual handloom weavers to directly sell their products on the ecommerce portal, PTI reported. The partnership will be extended for weavers and groups in areas like Kota in Rajasthan, Nadia in West Bengal, Bargarh in Odisha and Bijoynagar in Assam.
Amazon India claims to have already deployed a team in the four states and conducted workshops in Kota and Bargarh, to train weavers on online selling and other seller services offered by the company. All products manufactured by weavers for Amazon will carry two government certification marks—’India Handloom Brand’ and ‘Handloom Mark’. The products will also be made available to online shoppers from across the globe.
In addition, Amazon India has a separate online store named “Crafted in India”, which was launched recently. The store currently lists handicraft and handloom products made though tie ups with domestic handloom weavers/textile manufacturers in rural areas.
Telangana state handicrafts tie up
In March, The Telangana State Handicrafts Development Corporation (TSHDC) tied up with Amazon India to sell their local hand-made ‘Golkonda’ handicraft products on the e-commerce portal. Through the partnership, local handicrafts including ‘Dokra’, ‘Bidri’ crafts, ‘Nirmal’ artworks, Cheriyal paintings, pearls and brassware will be included on Amazon’s online platform for sale.
However, Amazon India does not mention how many such products are listed through these tie ups, or the gross value of sale of such handicraft/handloom products till date. MediaNama has written to Amazon India for these numbers and will update story once we hear from them.
Similar developments
-Last week, the Government of India tied up with NDTV’s Indianroots to launch Indianroots Fashion Accelerator (IFA). A three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Ministry of Textiles and NDTV’s e-commerce business was also signed to popularize Indian Handloom textiles.
-In March, the Ministry of Women and Child Development had launched an online marketing portal for women entrepreneurs called Mahila e-haat, allowing women to list and showcase their products online without any extra costs.
-In July 2015, IndianRoots partnered with Banka Silk, a handloom brand from Bihar to sell products made by local artisans of Banka district in Bihar on its platform. It also partnered with Fabindia to sell the latter’s Indian ethnic wear and merchandise.
-In August 2015, IndianRoots also tied up exclusively with Government of Bihar’s Upendra Maharathi Shilp Sansthan (UMSAS) to showcase the artisanship of Bihar’s handicraft makers on the platform
-In March 2015, Paytm opened a branded store called “Garvi Gurjari” which showcases products from the Gujarat State Handloom and Handicrafts Development Corporation.
-In February 2015, Flipkart signed an MoU with the CSC e-governance India Limited to work out a mechanism to help Common Service Centers (CSCs) pan India to leverage Flipkart’s e-commerce platform.
-, In January 2015, Snapdeal.com had signed an MOU with the Footwear Design and Development Institute (FDDI) and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, for training design students
Image Credit: Flickr user Aditya Mopur
