From India to the world: How Flipkart helps India’s artisans showcase their creations

28-year-old Rajia Majumdar based in the small town of Phulia in Bengal’s Nadia district has a simple vision - to carry forward his father’s saree business and expand it into an empire. After completing his higher secondary education, Rajia decided to devote his attention to their family-run firm ‘Angoshobha’, whose sarees are priced above average due to their quality. Angoshobha’s best-selling products are Jamdani, linen, and Matka silk sarees.

Like Rajia, any local artisan and entrepreneur can showcase their products online through Flipkart and have access to millions of customers. The platform helps them reach a wider audience and enables them to truly express their art to the world.

Carrying on a family legacy forward

While Angoshobha was launched as a small firm, the brothers worked together to scale it up to what it is today. Rajia manages the web business, while his elder brother Saheb manages and runs the offline firm. The journey was not easy. “The distribution of our items was handled by larger corporations before the lockdown, but after COVID, sales fell, and we realized that taking the business digital was the only way forward,” said Rajia. Since the past nine months, the team has been working with Flipkart to sell their products online.

“I learned a lot about the web ecosystem and its nuances, and it has been incredibly beneficial in advancing our firm. The orders we receive have greatly increased in addition to expanding our reach. We are happy to say that the business has had a 20 percent growth in the last nine months,” he revealed.

Enabling the growth of tribal communities

Hyderabad’s 25-year-old Abdul Quddus ventured into e-commerce to help improve the financial conditions of the tribal families of India. He did this by sourcing handmade products from them and marketing it on their behalf on platforms like Flipkart. Like many others, he is a part of the project ‘Tribes India’, an (NGO) under the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India. ‘Tribes India’ distributes products by tribal communities, so that the money acquired becomes an earning source for them.

The program has been associated with Flipkart for over three years, and Abdul is a key part of the Hyderabad division. Tribes India, Hyderabad offers its products in different categories like home and decor, jewelry, organic forest products, clothing, etc. Amongst these, their jewelry products like necklaces, bangles, earrings are most popular. Their larger customer base is from Delhi, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh.

“We are generating a revenue share of Rs 10- 15 lakh per quarter, ever since we have associated with Flipkart. Our numbers have also shot up to 40-50 orders in a week, as compared to the earlier figures which was only 5-10 in a day. We have gained more visibility through Flipkart and can offer our products to a wide range of markets,” said Abdul.

Art beyond borders

Vijay Bhai from Surat, who owns an embroidery business ‘VIRUYA’ for over 14 years, has always dreamt of taking his products to people beyond Gujarat. To scale his business and widen his audience base, he joined Flipkart as a seller.

As Vijay Bhai transitioned from an offline business to an online one, Flipkart offered him a seamless onboarding experience along with relevant training, which helped him scale his business to new heights within a very short span of time. Today, he has customers from West Bengal and other neighboring states.

“I am excited about the upcoming Big Billion Days. Every time there is a sale on the platform, it gives great confidence to sellers like us and pushes us to work even harder. It has always helped us in boosting our business and we look forward to more such opportunities,” he signed off.