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PEOPlink: Internet
for Global Trade |
  PEOPlink
is a non-profit organization that trains and equips grass-roots
artisan organizations all over the world to market their beautiful
hand made items over the Internet while showcasing their cultural
richness. Since it was established in 1996, PEOPlink has provided
software and training modules for Web catalog development as
well as on-site workshops and on-line support for 55 Trading
Partners (TPs) serving more than 100,000 artisans in 22
countries.
| According to the World Trade Organization,
e-commerce is expanding exponentially and will top $4
trillion in worldwide sales by 2003. How do artisans in
developing countries fit into this picture? Click here
to view PEOPlink director Dan Salcedo's presentation
to the WTO. |
Early Impacts. Early reports of direct
impact on artisans, many of whom earn $1-2 a day, are compelling:
Following a 1998 PEOPlink workshop in Kathmandu, Mahaguthi Crafts
with a Conscience—a local support organization with a network
of over 1,000 artisans—built a very complete Web site as
the centerpiece of an active promotional campaign. Mahaguthi's
annual sales, which had been growing at 8-10% a year, had reached
$ 125,000.00 for 1998. With the launch of its promotional campaign
online, its annual growth rate jumped to 30-40%. Sales for the
past year totaled $ 450,000.
Building the organization's digital capabilities not only increased
its sales but also improved its internal communication with
producers and speed in sampling and product development processes.
And new jobs were created for hundreds of poor artisans in isolated
Nepalese villages. Click
here to see Mahaguthi's Web site
 The
TARA Project in New Delhi has a similar story. TARA has developed
a digital archive of 30,000 images and video clips, depicting
traditional production processes and many producers' individual
stories. After incorporating the extensive use this digital
imagery into their marketing strategy, TARA's sales grew by
20% last year. Check
out the TARA Project's Web site
The new contacts and marketing savvy developed by these pioneers
are being shared in their communities and beyond, through PEOPlink
and other fair trade networks—the virtuous circle in action.
What's New—the CatGen Solution.
PEOPlink is entering a new phase with the recent launch of its
CatGen ( for Catalog Generator) system. Developed by a talented
team of programmers working from Ukraine, Siberia, Albania,
India, Ecuador, and Ireland, under the guidance of PEOPlink's
CTO in the US, CatGen enables enterprises of any size, anywhere
in the world to create and maintain their own Web catalogs.
 CatGen
is a standalone database client application available for free
download. Working offline, users enter both basic enterprise
information and product details like code number, dimensions,
price, and digital images. Each enterprise's data set is password-protected
in order to allow multiple users to share a computer—at
an Internet café or micro-enterprise organization, for instance.
Users can also print useful and cost-effective price sheets
and catalogs on a local color printer.
Users can then go online, register on the CatGen Web site, and—in
two mouse clicks—upload their entire data sets to the Internet.
CatGen automatically generates a fully function XML-based Web
catalog. Future versions of the software will allow users to
upload sound and video files as well as images, and will come
complete with online tools to handle marketing, payment, distribution,
and other details.
| View the Janakpur Women's Development
Center's Web
catalog |
With CatGen, enterprises from all over the
world can build and maintain their own Web catalogs after only
a brief orientation to the program. For example, with a one-day,
hands-on workshop , two PEOPlink interns recently trained the
Janakpur Women's Development Center in southeast Nepal to use
a digital camera and operate the CatGen software to generate
their own CatGen catalog in a one-day, hands-on workshop. Dozens
of groups representing hundreds of artisan communities have
uploaded thousands of items to their CatGen catalogs since the
system was launched only two months ago.
 CatGen
was designed to enable a rich exchange of information between
buyers and sellers, importers and producers—and to enable
producers to control their content by themselves. Users can
upload not just product details and images, but also the "stories"
behind the production process, cultural context, or artist's
life. thus publishing their images, identities, and "micro-cultures"
for the world to see.
Scaling up. Most of CatGen's current
users are craft organizations with long-established B2B operations,
whose new Web catalogs are digitally energizing already-developed
market relationships (primarily fair trade channels). Because
it was specifically designed to operate on a database, the CatGen
system is capable of generating a "Catalog of Catalogs"—creating
a single point of contact that can put importers and artisan
groups in touch with each other.
 A
good example is the catalog of catalogs recently completed for
the
International Federation for Alternative Trade, a worldwide
network of 142 members in 42 countries benefiting 400,000 artisans.
This networking tool fostered new trading relationships on its
very first day of operation.
While CatGen works well with the global fair trade organizations
it was designed for, PEOPlink is also excited about its potential
to fill the need of small and medium-sized enterprises an online
business presence. Its ease of use and ability to build communities
of related catalogs make it potentially replicable on a significant
scale.
To help make that happen, PEOPlink is developing partnerships
with a number of far-reaching institutions:
 US
Peach Corps
United Nations Volunteers
G77 Chambers of Commerce
Acción International
Sebrae (Small Business Administration of Brazil)
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