Craftsvilla.com is a marketplace to "Discover Unique Indian Products" including Handmade, Vintage, Ethnic, Organic and Natural products from India.
Here is an Interview from the founder of the company - Monica Gupta
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| Monica Gupta, Founder |
Craftsvilla is an online platform
where Indian artisans and craftsmen can directly with global consumers. It is
basically an online store for handmade, handcrafted, organic and natural
products.
The inspiration of
Craftsvilla started after founder Monica Gupta’s road trip where she found many
artisans and craftsmen who made wonderful creations yet were struggling to make
ends meet.
The problem was that
these artisans were selling their products to middlemen who paid them very low
for their creations. These third parties then themselves sold the items at
inflated rates in the market. Being from the rural areas, the artisans weren’t
educated enough nor had the resources to market their products. Many of them
were on the verge of quitting.
Monica believed that if
the same scenario continued, a time would come when many of our artisans would
have quit and we would have lost many of these ethnic crafts.
On returning from Kutch,
Monica sat down with her husband Manoj Gupta and discussed about a platform
where these artisans could directly with consumers. This was the genesis of
Craftsvilla where artisans can open their own shop and showcase their
creations.
2.
How you
and your Craftsvilla try to attract customers about your services?
We greatly rely on word
of mouth and repeat customers to spread the word. We believe that if you offer
customers has received good service the first around in terms of shipment and
product quality, he or she would not only be inclined to buy again but they
will also spread the word about us and this is one of the most important cogs
of our online marketing.
We also attract customers
through other social mediums such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc and
through paid ads and through SEO.
3.
Are
customers really satisfied with your services?
Customers are satisfied
with our services because we place a great emphasis on customer experience. We
also send a small surprise gift to our customers along with the orders and
generally when you receive something extra that you hadn’t ordered for, it doubles
your happiness.
Also unlike other
ecommerce sites, we aren’t competing with the brand phenomenon because we don’t
have those on our site. What we are selling are unique creations which are
tough to find either online or even offline. So we are offering customers
something different from the usual ecommerce space.
Customers who shop at
Craftsvilla end up invariably shopping 4-5 times a year with us.
4.
Tell me
some interesting feedback which you got from your customers? Any two.
There was one of these customers
of her from the US who had never heard of Warli Art but so enamored was she by
one of the Warli paintings, that she bought it. She says that if it wasn’t for
Craftsvilla, she wouldn’t have discovered such a beautiful art form. Making
more people aware of our rich culture is an extremely important part of our
business and we really believe that we managed to convert this customer into an
Indian art lover.
Also many of our
customers feel happy when they receive the handwritten note by the founder because
it really adds a real personal touch to the entire experience which we always
try to do.
5.
Craftsvilla
provide online payment or cash on delivery services ?
We do
have cash in advance and cash on delivery services. Customers can also pay
through their credit or debit card or via net banking. One can also pay for
their products through Paypal services. Most of our international customers opt
for this service.
6.
As you
know Cyber Crime is growing day by day, so how you protect Craftsvilla
from malicious hackers?
"We
use encryption and secure authentication protocols in protecting our database
and code. All our transactions are supported by sophisticated authentication
protocols which ensure no data theft while transaction data is moving between
our server and customer's PC. Also we use firewalls to protect from malicious
attacks like denial of service."
7. What is your target and vision regarding Craftsvilla?
Our
vision with Craftsvilla is to create a global brand for Indian arts and crafts.
For years now, India has been one of the biggest exporters of handicrafts but
are artisans live under pitiable conditions.
Ours is
a platform where we are making an effort to accommodate all kind of Indian
handicrafts under one roof and make them a global brand and we believe we would
be able to do so the way we are on course to do so.
 |
| Founder and Co-Founder - Mr. Manoj and Mrs Monica Gupta |
See what Tech Crunch says about Craftsvilla
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Posted By Sundeep aka SunTechie
Sundeep is a Founder of Youth Talent Auzzar, a passionate blogger, a programmer, a developer, CISE and these days he is pursuing his graduation in Engineering with Computer Science dept.
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