Villcart: Enhancing Income Generation and Market Opportunities for Artisans and Micro Entrepreneurs
Artisans are finding it difficult to survive in the modern world due to shrinking market for handicrafts and handlooms, inability to understand consumer needs, and low margins. Villcart is creating a system that addresses these issues and enables artisans in rural India enhance their income generation opportunities.
1. Shrinking Market: Providing functional utility products at reasonable price will lead to handicrafts being used as regular use items
2. Low Margins: If artisans sell to consumers or retailers directly, they will get higher margins and consumers will get products at fair price, thus increasing both profits and market size for handicrafts
3. Market Needs: The latency in responding to changing consumer needs and quality criteria should be reduced with regular feedback
About You
About You
First Name
Kiran
Last Name
Patil
Facebook Profile
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Village Stores Pvt Ltd
Organization Website
Organization Phone
91-22-42290950
Organization Address
164, Powai Plaza, Hiranandani Gardens, Powai, Mumbai
Organization Country
India, MM
Country where this project is creating social impact
India
Is your organization a
For‐profit
How long has your organization been operating?
Less than a year
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Innovation
Entry Form title
Villcart: Enhancing Income Generation and Market Opportunities for Artisans and Micro Entrepreneurs
What change do you want to bring to the world?
Artisans are finding it difficult to survive in the modern world due to shrinking market for handicrafts and handlooms, inability to understand consumer needs, and low margins. Villcart is creating a system that addresses these issues and enables artisans in rural India enhance their income generation opportunities.
1. Shrinking Market: Providing functional utility products at reasonable price will lead to handicrafts being used as regular use items
2. Low Margins: If artisans sell to consumers or retailers directly, they will get higher margins and consumers will get products at fair price, thus increasing both profits and market size for handicrafts
3. Market Needs: The latency in responding to changing consumer needs and quality criteria should be reduced with regular feedback
What are the primary activities of your project?
Creating sustainable livelihood opportunities in rural areas through:
1. Finding authentic sources: We get handicrafts from rural parts only (we feel in India, with guaranteed employment, artisans have better living conditions in villages than cities). Products procured are specialty of the region having an element of traditional knowledge, local art, and modern technology and design inputs.
2. Enhancing the market: Presently, world over, most of the handicrafts are seen as decorative or gift items, and many people purchase them occasionally due to exorbitant prices. Villcart is working towards changing this outlook by providing functional utility handicrafts to customers (through shops and online) at a fair price, thus handicrafts can be regular use items too.
3. Provide quality feedback: Rural artisans don't get to interact with customers outside their region. In some cases, even if they do, they are not able to guage the feedback as this requires an entirely different skill. Villcart is providing customer feedback to its partner artisans and NGOs so that they can improve their designs and production processes.
4. Create template for marketing handicrafts: Several artisans and urban women want to market handicrafts to uplift their group and interest in these products respectively. This extends to marketing health food, organic food, handlooms, vegan products, eco-friendly products. However, most of them don't know where to start and how to proceed. Villcart plans to create a knowledge base for such enthusiastic people to start their marketing enterprise.
5. Making the template available: Villcart plans to make this knowledge available to people at large through consultancy services, website, books, documentaries, etc.
What is innovative about your initiative? How is it a new contribution to the field?
On the social front, the initiative is new in the following respects:
1. Villcart procures only from rural and tribal areas making sure that the artisans are not displaced for livelihood opportunities
2. Villcart focuses on functional utility items thus taking the handicrafts to the next level
3. Villcart procures from artisans / NGOs directly, thereby reducing the supply chain and enabling the customers get handicrafts at a fair price, thus increasing consumption of handicrafts viz-a-viz machine made products
4. Villcart's efforts are focused towards to creating a knowledge base for other people to start similar activities
On an operation level, Villcart is separate in the following respects:
1. Villcart's success parameter is based on number of artisans benefited, number of customers converted, and amount of profits attained. The success of this model will provide an incentive for many other to replicate the model.
2. Villcart uses the same inventory at different places - shops, exhibitions, its own website, other websites such as Ebay (India). This helps in reaching out to a larger audience with minimal inventory.
What stage is your project in?
Operating for less than a year
Tell us about the community that you engage? eg. economic conditions, political structures, norms and values, demographic trends, history, and experience with engagement efforts.
Villcart presently engages with the following communities:
1. Artisans and craftsmen in tribal regions of India (Bastar, Gadchiroli and Dahod): India's tribal regions are characterized by low income opportunities and people get employment only for a few months in a year. Gadchiroli and Bastar are also affected with disturbances and many youth are forced into violence.
2. Rural artisans: Through a network of about 35 NGOs, private enterprises and government clusters, Villcart is engaged with various rural artisans. While in some cases, the artisans are well-to-do, in some cases they are from extremely poor background and have no or marginal land holding.
3. Women groups: Villcart also procures from various women groups directly, or through NGOs and private enterprises.
Overall most of these artisans are from economically backward conditions.
Experience with Engagement Efforts: We have found that dealing with different artisans directly requires longer period of interaction and intervention into other aspects of social development. Physical distance from the beneficiary group also leads to inefficiency of the process. Therefore, Villcart has found that interacting with the beneficiary groups through NGOs and private enterprises enables Villcart create bigger impact.
Share the story of the founder and what inspired the founder to start this project
Villcart is founded by Kiran Patil, a Chemical Engineer from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Kiran has great interest in rural development simply due to challenges offered by the complexity of the problem.
After an experience of 6 years in the corporate sector, Kiran started his own venture for providing technology transfer and entrepreneurship development consultancy. He also coordinated a pilot project by the Humarn Resources Development Ministry for developing entrepreneurship in violence affected regions of the country so that youth engage themselves in economic activity and stop moving towards violence, the developed model is actively pursued by the government for replication in other violence affected parts.
During his work as a consultant Kiran found that the biggest problem faced by people in rural India is lack of income opportunities and low margins provided by the middlemen lobby. The market of handicrafts and village industry products should be increased to create employment opportunities. Also, a model where artisans, farmers and micro entrepreneurs can market their products directly to customers or retailers and get higher margins needs to be devised to free them from the middlemen lobby.
With this pursuit, Kiran, who strongly believes in the open source strategy of creating and replicating systems has started Villcart so as to provide income opportunities to rural artisans and at the same time create a knowledge base for others to replicate similar systems for various village industry products and even farming produce.
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
Please describe how your project has been successful and how that success is measured
The project is in its starting phase and we have found that we have been able to provide a market opportunity and thereby sustainable livelihood opportunity to artisan groups some of which did not have any market access. Apart from our customers, these groups have benefited from partnerships with other organizations / retailers which were connected by us.
We are measuring the success through the following parameters:
Sourcing: How many different types of products we have procured and how many groups / organizations we are dealing with and how many artisans have benefited ((currently about 900, 35 and 80 respectively)
Customer Trends: In the shop, we witnessed 50% of the sales was repeat i.e. the customer had visited us earlier signifying that with reasonable price, customers are willing to buy products for themselves.
Quality Feedback: Presently we are actively providing quality feedback to 3 NGOs and 2 private enterprises on improving their product quality.
Knowledge Base: We are in the process of documenting our learning obtained so far. We are also engaged in sharing the knowledge with other organizations (Opensource barcoding and inventory management system with an NGO, how to set an enterprise for vegan products with an urban woman, how to increase online sales with a private retail for handlooms)
How many people have been impacted by your project?
Fewer than 100
How many people could be impacted by your project in the next three years?
More than 10,000
How will your project evolve over the next three years?
1. Get over 10000+ products in product line from all Indian states and reach out to 15,000+ artisans
2. Open about 10 self-owned retail outlets in India
3. Start international shipping and get about 500 online orders daily from India and outside from own website and other portals such as Ebay, Amazon, etc
4. Set-up warehouse in US and Europe for quick shipping
5. Be effective in providing customer feedback for quality enhancement to about 100 artisan groups / NGOs
6. Provide benefit to 50 entities (NGOs, artisan groups and private enterprises) for marketing handicrafts and similar products through (free / paid) consultancy
7. Will engage in health food / organic food segment as marketing innovations in this sector will benefit millions of people in rural India
Sustainability
What barriers might hinder the success of your project and how do you plan to overcome them?
1. Many artisans fail to send the products as per order and instead send the stock that they have, even if not ordered. To tackle this, we plan to incentivize the artisan group / NGO for sending timely and as-per-order products
2. Handicrafts differ in design and color scheme and getting multiple identical copies of a product is difficult. In online sales, we may not have an identical copy of the product that is displayed on the website. This will be tackled through an effective inventory management system, where we display photographs of products (all designs and colors) that are in stock and make a product out of stock when sold (in shop or online).
3. Artisans may send products that are not authentic (are machine made) and not made at their place. This will be tackled through quality and authenticity checks by experts and regular surprise visits to places of production.
3. Look and feel of the product is preferred for handicrafts. In online sales this is not possible and hence people are apprehensive in buying handicrafts online. To tackle this we have introduced 100% return and refund policy (as is present in the US for almost all products) so that look and feel requirement is minimized.
4. Holding inventory is necessary for Villcart as the vendors (artisan groups and NGOs) who are in rural and tribal areas will not be able to ship the product when an order is received. This will result in locked capital. We plan to utilize the same inventory for shops and online. Further, we may seek external funding from angel investors or venture capital funds.
Tell us about your partnerships
Presently Villcart has partnered with various grassroot NGOs to streamline the sourcing of handicrafts. All these NGOs are engaged in income generation activities through village industries for its beneficiaries. One of these NGOs – Sahaj India is a fair trade certified organization, while two others – Magan Sangrahalaya Samiti and Gramodaya Sangh are associated with the Khadi Village Industries Commission of the Government of India. Two other prominent NGOs Villcart is associated with is Dharamitra in Wardha and Sathi Samaj Sewi Sanstha in Bastar.
In the next few months Villcart plans to have o following partnerships:
1. Government organizations that are involved in either training of artisans or marketing of handicrafts
2. Design consultants for getting new designs of handicrafts
3. Leading Indian e-commerce websites to register Villcart as one of its vendors
Current annual budget of project, in US dollars
$10,001‐50,000
Explain your selections
Presently Kiran has funded the activity himself.
How do you plan to strengthen your project in the next three years?
Financially, the activity would be strengthened by:
1. Increasing the customer base and sales that will provide profits for fuelling the activities of the company
2. Seeking funding options from angel investors, venture capital funds, etc
On the sourcing front, the activity would be strengthened as explained in the barriers section
On the technology front, Villcart plans to hire software engineer/s for developing and maintaining the website, API integration with other e-commerce portals, inventory management systems, etc.
Challenges
Which barriers to employment does your innovation address?
Please select up to three in order of relevancy to your project.
PRIMARY
Restricted access to new markets
SECONDARY
Underemployment
TERTIARY
Lack of efficiency
Please describe how your innovation specifically tackles the barriers listed above.
Restricted access to new markets: Through Villcart, the rural and tribal artisans of India will get access to new markets especially the online market
Underemployment: Villcart is focusing on making handicrafts a regular use item. The increase in market size for handicrafts will result in creating employment opportunities
Lack of efficiency: This barrier is tackled by providing customer feedback on quality of products and new design inputs. This will result in minimization of rejected products for the artisans and improvement in efficiency.
Are you trying to scale your organization or initiative?
If yes, please check up to three potential pathways in order of relevancy to you.
PRIMARY
Leveraged technology
SECONDARY
Influenced other organizations and institutions through the spread of best practices
TERTIARY
Enhanced existing impact through addition of complementary services
Please describe which of your growth activities are current or planned for the immediate future.
The current growth activities include the following:
1. Strengthening the sourcing procedure
2. Focusing on online sales in India through own website and other portals such as Ebay India
The planned grown activities for immediate future (4 months) include the following:
1. Deploying inventory management system
2. Increasing the types of products in the inventory
3. Start shipping to locations outside India
4. Diversify into the health food and organic food segment
Do you collaborate with any of the following: (Check all that apply)
NGOs/Nonprofits.
If yes, how have these collaborations helped your innovation to succeed?
We have found that dealing with different artisans directly requires longer period of interaction and intervention into other aspects of social development. Physical distance from the beneficiary group also leads to inefficiency of the process. Therefore, Villcart has found that interacting with the beneficiary groups through NGOs and private enterprises enables Villcart create bigger impact.
 | 49 weeks agoKiran Patil updated this Competition Entry. |
| 49 weeks agoKiran Patil updated this Competition Entry. |
| 49 weeks agoKiran Patil updated this Competition Entry. |
| 49 weeks agoKiran Patil submitted this idea. |
