E-commerce for artisans, weavers: E-commerce company Amazon India has listed more than 2 lakh unique handmade products across 470 different craft types, impacting 16 lakh local Indian artisans under its Amazon Karigar programme in the past six years, Gaurav Bhatnagar, Head of Seller Acquisition and Development at Amazon India told FE Aspire on Monday.
“In 2017, Amazon introduced the Karigar program with the aim of supporting small businesses and micro-entrepreneurs, such as weavers, artisans, and craftsmen, to leverage e-commerce for their growth. This initiative is driven by the intent to encourage digital inclusion, empowering the artisan and weaver community, and offering them economic opportunities by enabling them to become sellers on the Amazon marketplace.”
The Karigar initiative helps bring artisans on board the e-commerce marketplace to expand online. The programme provides an extra window for products by local artisans and weavers, to sell their products.
Sharing about the collaboration with the government, Gaurav said, “We have collaborated with 30 Government Emporiums and 5 Government bodies to showcase authentic crafts to craft lovers and increase market connectivity. Today, Karigar showcases unique arts and crafts products from over 27 states and union territories, and provides Indian handicraft and artisan communities enhanced visibility by enabling them to sell their products to a large customer base.”
Recently, the Karigar initiative signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Rajasthan Grameen Aajeevika Vikas Parishad (RGAVP), an autonomous society under the Rajasthan government, to support the growth of women artisans and the Self-Help Groups (SHGs) across the state.
The platform provides the artisans with the facility to access their accounts in nine regional languages, including Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, Telugu, and Tamil. During the interaction, Gaurav stated that more than 50 per cent of the karigars on the platform hail from Tier-2 and smaller towns.
Having completed its 10 years in June this year, Amazon India currently has more than 12 lakh sellers and has digitized over 40 lakh small businesses, most of which are SMEs. Amazon India plans to digitise 10 million MSMEs by 2025.