Textiles ministry ropes in Flipkart to boost handloom marketing

The union ministry of textiles today announced a unique partnership with e-commerce major Flipkart to provide online marketing platform to handloom textiles across the country.

Under the exclusive agreement, Flipkart will provide weavers in India online marketing platform, infrastructural support in data analytics and customer acquisition to help them get remunerative prices for their products and scale up business.

Through this arrangement, the textile ministry hopes to bridge the missing linkages of market intelligence, market access and logistics and help the Indian weavers in getting remunerative prices for their products while also eliminating the middlemen.

Flipkart will provide online marketplace for sale of the products of the weavers as advised by development commissioner for handlooms. Towards this end, they will go to the doorsteps of weavers. Flipkart or their business partners will also have collection centers to collect their products.

The weavers will sell their products under their own brand name and evolve as an entrepreneur selling his products directly to buyers across the country without stepping out of their workplace.

Flipkart, with its access to the largest customer base in the country, aims to help weavers make optimal use of the available data to guide entrepreneurs and artisans on areas such as deciding on the right selling price, payment automation, proper packaging, transportation, brand building etc.

The data analytics and market intelligence provided by Flipkart will help the weavers focus only on producing better saleable product ranges. This in turn will help them plan their production and inventory and expand their business, thus revolutionizing manufacturing in rural India and encourage entrepreneurship, according to the textile ministry.

This partnership will connect the artisans directly to the buyer and the hand holding by Flipkart in guiding, packaging, collecting and delivering to the buyer will motivate the artisans in rural India.

Textile minister Santosh Gangwar, who was present on the occasion, emphasised that the focus of the association should be to help weavers and weaver entrepreneurs to produce products in tune with the buyer requirements and grow them significantly so that they may become manufacturers not only at a local but also at a national level.

He cited the example of North East where skilled weavers with their rich traditional motifs and designs are unable to exploit market potential due to lack of market linkages. Similarly, Paithani and Himroo weaves from Maharashtra have tremendous value but are now a dying art.

Flipkart's `Abhiyaan Flipkart - Kaarigar ke dwar' will connect the weavers to the buyers across the country thereby helping to arrest this dying art and change the face of rural India.

This initiative will help rural weavers earn suitable remuneration for their products without having to step out of their homes. Thus the children of these weavers will be motivated to learn and continue the art and stay back in the rural areas instead of migrating to the urban areas for jobs, thereby keeping alive the rich tradition of Indian art, according to the ministry.