Fashion star: The app helping grassroots level weavers in India cut out the middlemen

Indian textile crafts enjoy fame all over the world. The handloom industry employs around five million weavers, and is the second largest employment provider for the rural population in India after agriculture. Like farmers, however, many artisans and co-operatives have to route their handcrafted products through middlemen and lose out on substantial profits. Siva Devireddy founder of GoCoop, an online marketplace, is trying to change that by helping weaves become self-empowered businessmen and manage inventory, orders and deliveries themselves. Vogue spoke to Devireddy on how the website (and now, app) is making its mark in the handloom industry.

How can technology drive social change?

Since my days at Hewlett Packard in the US, I always aspired to work on a project that would have a social impact, especially for people living in the rural parts of India. Having spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ village in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh, I was close to the rural producers—both farmers and weavers—and the challenges they faced in marketing their products. I still remember our village had an entire lane of weavers. In early 2012, we started GoCoop with the main objective of improving the livelihoods of rural producers through technology innovation. We spent the next two years understanding the workings of craft clusters across Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, looking at different handloom products, their markets and the challenges faced by weavers and artisans. In 2013, we started working as an e-commerce partner for some of the largest weaver co-operative societies in the country such as APCO and Boyanika, and launched their e-commerce platforms—this was the first e-commerce initiative in the handloom sector.

In 2014, we launched GoCoop.com as India’s first marketplace platform for weavers and artisans. So far, the platform has created the largest supply chain for handlooms in India. We work with over 50 craft clusters across India and over 350 master weavers/co-operative societies on the platform.

Image: GoCoop

My main mantra is that technology can drive social change. We are seeing this happen in the artisan sector—artisans who are mostly in remote parts of the country have been historically deprived with access and information. Technology is playing a key role in enabling the artisans and connecting them with markets and the rest of the world. But just technology alone may not be the solution—we need to work on branding and marketing handmade products, integrating designers and their inputs into product development, and educating our consumers on the benefits of supporting and using handmade products.

Tell us about how GoCoop works.

GoCoop has digitalised and built this significant web and mobile-based marketplace platform, which seamlessly integrates and helps co-operatives and master weavers to manage inventory, orders and deliveries. It provides visibility and traceability to buyers in terms of production and supply chain.

Our operating model involves cluster-level workshops to educate the weavers and artisans on online marketing and merchandising of products based on consumer demand. Post the workshop, co-operatives and master weavers or artisans can register themselves on the platform. GoCoop’s cluster level service executives work closely with the weavers and artisans to get them on the platform, and provide required support to manage their products, inventory and ongoing business.

With crafts dying and weavers’ children moving to cities in search of new jobs, it has become all the more important to support the handloom industry. Your thoughts?

Yes, this is one of the biggest challenges for the sector. Unless we create a suitable demand for handloom and craft products, the livelihoods of the weavers and artisans are not sustainable and the migration would continue. We need to create a stronger market for handmade products, with a focus on connecting the creators and producers directly with the consumers and markets. Benefits from the markets should be equitable to the producers—this is the key. We need to also promote entrepreneurship among the next generation weavers and artisans, and we have seen very successful entrepreneurs from the weaver community in many clusters including Mangalgiri, Maheshwar and Chanderi.

Image: GoCoop

How are the local weavers and artisans benefiting from GoCoop?

GoCoop dis-intermediates the supply chain and helps the co-operatives and weavers by connecting them directly with the consumers, both online and offline, through our exhibitions. This helps them understand a better price for their produce, as compared to what they can know in their clusters or villages. On an average, we see our weavers getting a price that is 15-30 per cent higher when compared to the traditional sources in their clusters.

Other important benefits for weavers and artisans is identity and awareness, which is getting generated online. Many of our weavers have successfully become entrepreneurs and have developed their business in the last four to five years. Similarly, we have seen significant growth in business for some of the co-operatives because of their online presence. Understanding consumer needs helps the weavers a lot in creating products that are more suitable for the market requirements. This is one of the key benefits of direct marketing, where the producers can directly learn from the consumers and the market.

Of all the products on the website, which ones are the most sought after?

Pochampally ikats, Maheshwari saris, Chanderi saris, Ilkal saris and Bengal cotton saris are the most common.

What are some of the challenges you are currently facing?

There are many challenges to building a good market for handwoven products, and this includes a need for greater awareness in consumers about the benefits of supporting and using handmade products. Competition from lookalike mill-made and powerloom products that are less expensive and can be mass produced is another concern, apart from the usual obstacles of online marketing where it is getting so expensive and difficult for smaller organisations to operate. In addition, as an organisation that is not profitable yet, it has been quite challenging to continue our efforts without required funding. We are expecting GoCoop to break even in 2019, and this should make us more self-sustaining going forward.