Lessons from the Field: ICTs and Handicrafts


In communities throughout the world, independent artisans create arts and crafts that reflect local culture, history, and tradition. Historically, these artisans have marketed their wares directly to local consumers, tourists and, through middlemen, to export markets. Upscale handicraft boutiques, art galleries, and specialty import stores pay high prices for traditional arts and crafts, but to reach these markets, local artisans have had to work with middlemen who mark up the prices significantly, leaving the local producer with a fraction of the profit. With the spread of the Internet and other information and communication technologies (ICTs), however, these artisans are beginning to have access to tools that give them a competitive alternative.

Online Marketing
One of the more intuitive applications of ICTs in the artisan sector is the creation of online stores that sell goods over the Internet. In fact, the most widespread ICT-enabled handicrafts projects remain e-commerce and Internet marketing platforms. Many of the more well-known platforms offer typical goods from artisans throughout the world, while smaller sites have emerged to serve niche markets, often with a skills training and capacity building component in addition to a pure business profit motive.

One well-known Internet handicraft site is Ecosandals.com. Founded by an American and a Kenyan, Ecosandals.com trains low-income youth in the slums of Nairobi to make sandals out of used car tires. The site has received orders for over 60,000 pairs of tire sandals to date. The company employs about 30 local artisans, who also receive IT training as part of their compensation. Another popular site is Mongolia's Snow Leopard Enterprises. Once featured in the New York Times magazine, the initiative combines wildlife conservation and handicrafts production. The site's online store sells handicrafts made by Mongolian herdsmen who pledge not to hunt endangered snow leopards. To make up for lost income, the herdsmen are trained in handicraft production and marketing.

The lucrative North American bed-and-breakfast market is the target of Grupo Ebanistas, an import-export company based in Guatemala, Colombia, and Honduras. Through their Web site, Grupo Ebanistas places custom-made interior decor in bed and breakfasts throughout North America. In return, the small and medium sized hotels help the artisans market their high-quality furniture to guests, giving master craftsmen access to markets where their goods command much higher prices than those at home.

More traditional e-commerce Web sites that feature handicrafts from less developed countries include Eziba.com, a high-end catalog produced in Massachusetts. eShopAfrica.com sells arts and crafts from Ghana, and encourages their artisans to learn Internet skills in order to help them develop their own design ideas. AfricanCraft provides Web hosting and advertising services along with its popular consumer handicraft platform. Globalcrafts highlights Kenyan crafts, while ECOMERZ markets environmentally friendly Colombian handicrafts. Global Marketplace sells only to retailers, who then place handicrafts in specialty boutiques throughout North America. SERRV offers its clients fair prices due to its close affiliation with the International Federation of Alternative Trade, a leading Fair Trade group. NOVICA specializes in made-to-order goods, often connecting interested buyers directly with the artisan. Both KeralCraft and the Naushad Trading Company are traditional handicraft exporters who recently established an online presence. Indian handicrafts are especially accessible through the Internet: specialty sandals, hand-woven silk, and even a Westernized e-commerce store allow consumers worldwide to access once-remote markets.


Business Support Services
While e-commerce remains a key element of the handicrafts sector, several innovative projects utilize ICTs in ways that go beyond the basic e-commerce platform.

The Maryland-based company PEOPLink, for example, is an NGO helping artisans in remote communities throughout the developing world. Through a network of local "trading partners," PEOPLink equips and trains artisans to use ICTs for product marketing. The artisans are trained to use digital cameras and software that allows them to place product photos on catalog Web sites. PEOPLink also trains artisans to upload stories about their handicrafts, giving customers a more personal connection with the crafts and their local origins.

In order to better serve its growing network of handicraft producers, PEOPLink developed a free, user-friendly, catalog-generation software appropriate for low-bandwidth connections in developing countries. Called CATGEN, the e-commerce platform allows trading partners to retain autonomy over what products and content are displayed online.

Some initiatives are providing business support services to local artisans. The Singapore-based ECom4D shop provides Web hosting, product display, and online transaction security software for Asian handicraft artisans. Acting as an intermediary between local producers and first-world buyers, the group helps arrange safe shipping and also handles customs and logistics issues for member artisans.

In Washington, DC, the Artisan Enterprise Network gives artisans easy access to market facts, best practices, business lessons, and new technologies to help them build their enterprises. Originally a World Bank project, the Network's thorough FAQ section includes information on packaging, shipping, customs, Fair Trade certification, intellectual property laws, and many more topics of interest to entrepreneurial handicraft producers looking to scale up their businesses and enter the international market.

The Virtual Souk, aimed at artisans in North Africa, also provides valuable services. Through its Web site, artisans can access craft guides, training modules, and international marketing services. The Virtual Souk's large product database enables artisans to upload product information and immediately reach a worldwide market through a secure e-commerce platform.


Creating Artisan "Clusters"
E-commerce and Internet marketing represent windows into untapped markets for artisans from less developed countries. When these artisans try to tap into these resources individually, however, they often fail due to high fixed costs and low profit margins. A number of handicraft NGOs have begun to harness the power of ICTs in response to this problem. The results of these efforts are so-called "clustering" projects.

In India, for example, the NGO IndiaSocial is the sponsor of an ongoing effort to link artisans in the same field, such as woodcarving, glassware, and brassware, to achieve economies of scale through clustering. Artisans receive ICT training and learn the marketing importance of advertising the social, historical, and cultural roots of their crafts via their cluster. The Foundation of Occupational Development's Inter-City Marketing Network of Women Micro-Entrepreneurs, also in India, utilizes cellular technology to link women's community-based organizations. Throughout the country, each region has a comparative advantage in both raw materials and skills used for specific crafts. With cell phones, women entrepreneurs arrange to buy and sell crafts from other regions that would normally be unavailable to their markets.

Another example of clustering is the Cottage Industry Global Market. Administered through Georgetown University, the project uses Internet and cellular phone technology in its efforts to network existing crafts cooperatives via "virtual industrial districts." Through the use of ICTs, these cooperatives are able to reach larger markets and achieve economies of scale previously unheard of in the remote areas of India where the project is based.

Since the end of Communist control, small and medium sized enterprises have emerged in central Asia, many of which produce native handicrafts. These entrepreneurs have united to form the Central Asian Crafts Support Association, an umbrella organization providing various degrees of assistance and support to its member organizations. Using CATGEN's free catalog-generation software, the Association has created a central e-commerce platform; other services include micro-lending and access to their inter-artisan communication network.


Women's Artisan Networks
Many crafts producers are low-income women, whose use of ICTs for marketing and sales allows them to transcend traditional gender roles that often prevent them from leaving the house. One such program is the Nepal-based HipKnit, which teaches rural, low-income women important business and computer skills, enabling them to market their hand-knitted sweaters and other items over the Internet.

Women's empowerment and knitting in particular are also central aspects of Bosnian Handicrafts, an NGO that began in the aftermath of Yugoslavia's civil war. Bridging the ethnic divides, Bosnian Handicrafts links skilled women from Serb, Muslim, and Croat communities. Participants are trained in craft skills, business strategy, and online marketing. Their crafts are sold together through an online store that provides employment for over 400 refugee women.

Other examples of women's cooperatives using ICTs for handicraft sales include Mexico's Artesanas Campesinas, the Foundation of Occupational Development's India Shop, and the Rupununi Weaver's Society, a women's cooperative in Guyana that produces museum-quality silk hammocks using traditional techniques and materials and markets them through their online store.


More Resources
The projects highlighted in this article can be found in the Digital Dividend Project Clearinghouse, along with over 800 other ICT-enabled development initiatives. You can search the Clearinghouse yourself. click here.

Connecticut-based NGO Aid to Artisans is a resource for general information about handicrafts projects in the developing world. Their site includes "recommended reading" and "recommended links" pages for those interested in learning more.