Products:

Home decor items, collectibles, personal accessories, apparel, paintings etc

Services:

Design products to map international standards and encourage high quality product development, keeping in mind traditional skills and expertise .Follow up with aggressive and targeted marketing and sales efforts to generate revenue.

Business Description:

Craftsbridge Today : Set up in 24th August 2000, Craftsbridge India Pvt. Ltd. designs and markets handicrafts from across India. We have been working with a special objective- to make a difference to the handicrafts business by offering a viable and fair marketplace for artisans and development organizations. There is a vacuum in the availability of professional and fair services that are offered to this segment.

Location: Pune, Maharashtra

Branches: Pune and Mumbai

Phone: 91-20-27291065

FAX: 91-20-27291066

Email: craftsbridge(at)craftsbridge.net
Note: (at) = @

Contact: Khuzem Batawala

Position: Senior Management

Postal Address:

Vasant vidhya, B-wing, Peninsula, behind Renu electronics, Banner road,
Pune-411045

Craftsbridge believes it is important to:

1. Design products to map international standards and encourage high quality product development, keeping in mind traditional skills and expertise
2. Follow up with aggressive and targeted marketing and sales efforts to generate revenue.

We market to various channels- Corporate, Retail, Design Houses and more recently- Exports. We have in-house design, merchandising, order fulfillment and marketing teams. We also have one of India’s most comprehensive e-commerce portal on handicrafts. In fact, we are the first to create an e-commerce channel dedicated to the Indian Handicrafts Industry.

We specialize in Home Textiles which use traditional skills and combine them with contemporary designs. The product lines are based on trend research and market price indicators. We work largely with natural materials like silks, cottons and jute. Environmentally- we always look for natural solutions, with a high element of “handmade”

Taking our objective forward, we have set up a dedicated initiative called ‘Shop the Cause’ to sell products made by Non Profit Organizations (or NGO’s- Non Governmental Organisations). This umbrella brand has been developed in collaboration with ICICI Communities and Give Foundation. This is a major breakthrough as it involves collaboration with one of India’s largest and most respected financial institutions.

ICICI Communities is an initiative of ICICI Ltd., which is India’s leading financial institution. ICICI is involved in large venture funding projects, infrastructure building and other projects. They are involved in many social initiatives like education for the underprivileged, helping the poorest of the poor with health and nutrition and micro financing for agriculture and other employment generating initiatives.

Shop the Cause:

The joint project ‘Shop the Cause’- has the goal of setting up sustainable income channels. The second goal is to be able to keep alive century old traditions and skills by giving them a contemporary context.

NGO’s have to be able to offer round the year employment to the ‘family’ and not just the individual. Handicrafts have typically been an income generator for women and men. To enable sustained income generation, artisans must be able to adapt to today’s context and demands and yet utilize their age-old skills.

This channel has been successfully marketed in Indian Retail and Corporate Channels last year. Shop the Cause has implemented orders of over 30 lakhs (62,500 US$) in the last 1 year. A beginning towards the exports market has been made with some products exhibited last year at the New York Gift Fair. This presence was possible with a grant from American Express, of 3,250 US$. The event resulted in some orders that were then produced by a Non Profit Organization. More importantly, there have been new enquiries and Craftsbridge is already working on sampling orders with a few NGOs. In effect a beginning has been made in the exports channel with the initial event.

What Shop the Cause has done so far:

Online e-commerce- the site has been selling products made by over 15 Non Profit Organizations, in their names. We approximate have at least 30 sales every month on online orders through sites present on Craftsbridge and other affiliates. Affiliates include Rediff.com, Sify.com and Fabmart.com which are some of the best e-commerce channels in India. This online channel is a direct interface between the customer and the producer (NGO).

Retail- We are currently selling to two of the largest retail chains in India with the Shop the Cause label- Westside (a Tata group Initiative with 10 stores) and Pantaloons (8 stores). We are talking to more retail chains in India.

Corporate- Sold conference gifts, diaries and other desktop products for the office to prestigious clients like IDBI, ILFS, ICICI Bank, ABN AMRO, and Kale Consultants to name a few.

Projects- Implemented and styled two complete office interior projects using Shop the Cause items like wall hangings, dhurries, table covers, sculpted figures, etc. The projects were for IFMR (a corporate training and advanced education institute) and the office of the ED (ICICI Bank)