Handcrafted Accessories

Craftpair is primarily an exporter of sustainable handmade home accessories. We export wood and natural fibre products to Europe and the Middle East. As the name suggests, the firm is a pairing with craft. We realised that Indian crafts and techniques are extremely pure and sustainable, and we thought of bringing these to the market and started with an online website to sell them directly to customers. There we could find a demand supply gap and had problems in procuring products. At the same time, we started getting bulk inquiries from India and abroad and this made us think of having production units and enter the B2B market. For the past one year we are engaged in B2B activities. We use a range of materials to create our products. Some of these are Coir, Korai Grass, Water Hyacinth, Screwpine, Nilambur Teakwood and Jute. From floor mats, to planters, to decorative ships from our ‘ships of the past’ series, we do it all. We think that in some way we are offering an alternative for a life without plastic, in tune with the environment. We initially started as an online retail platform. We started getting bulk inquiries through our website from India and abroad and a few B2B fairs. This made us think of having production units. We analysed our online traffic for buying patterns and this helped us design a product mix for bulk exports. People are ready to wait for products that are hand-crafted and have aesthetic and functional features. We established export relations with other countries based on sales inquiries and business partnership requests; buying capacity; trade relationship with India; and their approach towards environment and sustainable living.

Products come under the handicrafts sector. Competing with countries like China, Vietnam, Indonesia in terms of pricing is very difficult. Better global branding for Indian handicrafts is needed to position in the mid and upper markets of importing countries.

To have 100 sustainable production units in the next few years, focusing on rural employment generation.

Initial years of establishing a business are challenging and tough, but consistency leads to results.