Indian textile and handicrafts industry is one of the largest employment generators in the country after agriculture, employing about 7 million people directly or indirectly. Sharing a major portion of Indian economy, textile and handicrafts industry has been estimated to contribute 18 percent annual growth to the economy. However, presently the industry suffers lots of setbacks due to lack of education, low capital, and poor exposure to new technologies, absence of market intelligence, and a poor institutional framework. Many of the artisans/weavers/craftsmen and small shopkeepers are struggling to sell their products and searching for a channel to showcase their offerings, where they get maximum profit and coverage. With a vision to offer a global platform for artisans, craftsmen, small-scale vendors, shopping-kart24.com provides an online website to showcase unique and versatile Indian products. Prateek B Singh, MD, Shoppingkart24, says,“In this growing era of digitization, there are so many artisans/craftsmen, vendors, retailers and

shopkeepers who are still not aware of online businesses even though they produce unique and quality products. As a result, the Indian originated brands are losing their share of demand in the market. Shoppingkart24 has only one mission: provide the best selling portal to these neglected artisans/ craftsmen, rural and urban vendors and work for their growth.”

Established in 2015, Shoppingkart24 is delivering authentic and unique Geographical Indication products and other quality handicrafts directly from rural or urban vendors to customer’s doorstep. Started with a humble beginning, Shoppigkart24 envisions a radical transformation of Indian textile and handicrafts industry; hence, they focus on three main areas – Educate, Empower and Enrich. They are Educating rural craftsmen/women with practical skills and bringing it to the online market: thus Empowering them through providing a better quality of life: and finally, Enriching them by help scale up their businesses. Prateek describes, “Shoppingkart24 is a solid platform to sell and publish various indigenous Indian crafts and arts globally. Beyond that, we are promoting uniqueness and richness of our GI products by connecting vendors and identifying the authorized/registered users of GI Products or assisting those who are not received GI registration, so that they can use the GI tag on their products to prove the authenticity or genuineness of their products. We are the first company to get collaborated with CIPAM-DIPP (Ministry of

Commerce) to enhance the market ability of GI Products. Our team is also associated with some NGOs and SHGs, who are working towards the betterment of Artisans and Craftsmen. We are also working vigorously on One District One Product Scheme and we have listed over 10 product categories from different districts till now and 10 product categories from other 10 districts are under process.”

Shoppingkart24's USP lies in their product offerings. To ensure easier shopping experience to all the customers across the globe, the company has rolled out a user-friendly mobile application on Android Play Store with a special Voice Search feature and this is not the end, the company is also planning to build a strong offline presence in the market. “Our journey till date has been tough yet productive and we’re growing slowly and steadily. Today, Shoppingkart24. com features more than 1500 sellers and 10000 products within a short period. Under the mentorship of Aparna Mishra, Founder of a Virtual Incubator - Accelerator,‘Club CafeBiz,’our team has been unfolding new aspects for company’s growth. We’re on the verge of implementing new features on the website to give the best experience to both our sellers and customers. With a target of 10x growth in customers within next six months and 3x increase in customer spend, Shoppingkart24’s future plan is to strengthen their Indian market presence, channelize the sale in other countries and promote indigenous arts, crafts and designs to increase foreign trade,” Prateek summarised.