Promoting Indian handicraft is a game of patience: Neha Abhinav Bansal
Promoting Indian handicraft is a game of patience: Neha Abhinav Bansal

India offers an enormous range of handicrafts from each of the states.  The handicraft market in India is growing at a steady pace. It is almost doubling every five years. In handmade products, India enjoys 2 per cent of share at global level. The total export of handicrafts is expected to nearly double to US$ 2.7 billion in FY 2015-16 and further increase to US$ 3.8 billion by FY 2020-21.
Exploring the right path to preserving the Indian handicraft industry, Neha Abhinav Bansal came up with Divinehaat.com. This startup aims at empowering skilled individuals by offering them a vast platform to reach urban customers. The founders of this startup believe in the promotion of traditional artifacts.Retailer Media caught up with Neha Abhinav Bansal, one of the co-founders of Divinehaat.com to explore more about her venture.

What potential do you see in the handicraft industry? How can ecommerce uplift it to a new level?
Handicraft reflects the culture and skill of local population and hence, the country. India is one of the most sought after destinations for handicraft due to variation in culture and people who produce varied kinds of handicraft. The Indian handicrafts industry is fragmented, with more than 7 million regional artisans and more than 67,000 exporters/export houses promoting regional art and craftsmanship in the domestic and global markets, mostly women and people from weaker sections of the society get job in this industry.
The onset of e-commerce revolution is also changing the game. E-Commerce has waived off things such as high rentals, costs of fit outs, lock-in periods and added logistics to cost. Consumers are able to purchase many, popular ethnic product & Handicrafts from the comfort of their homes. With many physical stores going online, customers who do not have access to physical stores can purchase the products online. In the online space, divinehaat.com is already showcasing more than 2,000+ products from almost 7 different states.

How do you select artists and products on your platform?
Development Commissioner (Handicrafts) & Export Promotion Council of Handicrafts (EPCH) provides lots of information about the Handicraft clusters located at various locations across the country. But, the real on-boarding of artisans is done only after travelling to destination. Both the mompreneurs, me and Cheenu Gupta, travel to different locations to unearth these hidden artists and forgotten cultural treasures.

What are the top selling categories on your portal?
Marble artifacts of Jaipur, wooden & wrought iron artifacts of Jodhpur and art-metal ware of Moradabad have maintained their acme among best sellers.

How do you manage logistics operation? What is the total run-time for delivery through your portal?
While e-commerce offers online retailers a world of opportunity, success is defined by how well they service and retain their customers, which is a function of logistics. Logistics’ decision for e-retailers is the need to rein in shipping costs. The return process can also offer challenges for e-retailers because customers cannot simply bring a damaged or incorrect item back to a store. Divinehaat.com has tied up with some the best logistic companies across India like Fedex, BlueDart, DHL, Delhivery and other logistics aggregators like ShipRocket etc which help in management of a delivery of order from next-day to 3-5 working days from the date of dispatch.

How have the consumers from tier II and tier III cities responded to your products?
A number of tier II and III cities like Chandigarh, Nagpur, Bhopal, Coimbatore, Ludhiana, Mangalore, Indore and Kochi, have come into reckoning as the growth drivers of the future. As tier I markets have reached saturation or are more attracted towards imported items, we never neglected the Tier II and Tier III markets. Tier II / III consumers have higher potential for buying attractive handicrafts and they still have respect & love towards Indian Tradition, Culture & Heritage.

Consumers from Tier II & III are very much attracted towards our collection and we got tremendous response to our ‘Authentic Indian Handicraft Gifting Range’ while Exhibiting in GiftExpo 2016, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. As a result we are able to finalise our five Distributors & Dealers in Delhi, Haryana & Chandigarh. We are in talking terms with few others for West & South of India. The handicrafts market in India is highly unorganised and products are not available easily, so, the option of providing these Handicrafts via Online & Offline model is really working well.

Share details about your Pan India presence and future expansion plans.
DivineHaat.com is expanding at a rapid pace with ventures and different retail chains like Vishal MegaMart, Spencers Retail, Max HyperMarket etc and also is appointing dealers & distributors to capture every nook & corner of India. We will soon be adding fabric, artificial jewelry & famous food items of India in our bouquet of offerings.

How was the idea of your Start-up conceptualised? What is the need you are addressing in the market?
It began with an idea to develop a retail concept to bring all the traditional artifacts & famous products of the country, fusing with current trends and designs onto one single platform in the modern retail environment. As of now this range can be seen once every year at the International Trade Fair from 14th – 27th Nov every year in New Delhi. We found this concept as an untapped business opportunity and we started a mix blend of online & offline platform for these products and made them available 24 x 7 to everyone on domestic & global level. There was no other major player operating in this space with such a wide offering dedicated to Indian tradition and specialties.
Promoting Indian Handicrafts is a game of patience and time, in this fast paced world. Everyone is running and earning only to pay Hospital Bills and live a stressful life. While living this artificial life, we have moved away from our Culture. We at DivineHaat are trying to bridge the gap between Old India & New India, a Desi Indian & a Corporate Indian. We are trying to make available all Indian Handicrafts – Art & Utilities and other Specialties (coming soon) at a single ecommerce platform www.divinehaat.com dedicated to these items only. The Indian gifting market is 10 times bigger in size if compared to total export of Indian Handicrafts to the world. We are trying to capture at least 10 per cent of this gifting market and replacing imported items in this segment with Indian Handmade products, which in turn gives boost to Indian Economy also.

What has been your A-ha Moment in the business? (The high point)
All market places like Flipkart, Paytm, Amazon are focused only on online model, whereas we focus on both online as well as offline. The demand on the offline and online space is equally increasing where some consumers still prefer to touch and look at the product. As our tagline clearly states “Feel the Human Touch”. The best A-ha Moment is yet to come, but the day we signed up with our First Retail Chain as Handicraft Gift Supplier and Gt presence in 150+ stores across India was the best breakthrough.

What have been the major challenges in scaling up so far?
Raising this platform was not a cake walk for Cheenu & me. We had to face a lot of challenges to make the two extreme ends meet. Lack of awareness amongst people, building a relationship with artisans and getting the craftsman their value are few hardships which we had to face.
A lot of artisans themselves are not aware about the art they have mastered, the value of the products/artifacts designed by them. They have no idea about the amount of effort that goes into creating just one piece by hand neither do they know the process behind such creations. We conduct small discussions with them where we share market information and trends.

At a personal level, we work closely with artisans for financial, technical, design and personal aids. We invest in technology that helps the artisans increase sales, create awareness among masses for Handicrafts, Create new designs, and at the same time, reduce wastage.
The hardship doesn’t end here. It still continues in the form of delivery timelines. Following a delivery timeline becomes a real challenge as the artisans generally work out of their homes in small villages where basic amenities like electricity, water etc are still a problem. It is not uncommon for them to go on breaks for over a week for festivals, which happen quite frequently.
It is at times a challenge to explain to customers the effort that goes behind creating these artifacts. Most of the times, the value of these product categories are measured by the 'billing' factor, and not by the time and effort that goes into creating them.

What is the turnover and target for the coming fiscal?
The gross merchandise value (GMV) sold through our offline & online market platform in a year is about 1.1 crore with profitability of minimum 20 per cent. This year our target is Rs 2.5 crore with total investment so far around Rs 0.35 crore. For further expansion in online domain, we are looking for investment and talks have just been initiated with a couple of PE funds.

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