Three Ranchi youths are working overtime to give an online platform —Oyeart.com — to the Indian artisans, individuals, amateurs or anyone wanting to showcase their talent to the world. The trio’s focus is on Jharkhand artisans, says a co-founder Monika. “Ecommerce is really flourishing in India and where you can buy, as one of the ecom site publicizes “ding se dong tak, ting se tong tak”. No doubt everything under the sun (well almost every consumer good), is available on these ecom sites. There are sites which concentrate on specific segments such as furniture, fashion, spectacles, grocery etc., etc. In this jungle of ecom, www.oyeart.com is a breath of fresh air especially for artisans and lovers of their creations,” she says.
All the three founders —Abhishek, Aprajita and Monika are originally from Ranchi who also did their schooling and college from here. But, since they are presently settled in Pune, they decided to make the city as their base for running the business on virtual world. Oyeart.com deals in hand made and hand crafted products. Abhishek, the co-founder says “India has immense talent but it lacks platform to showcase them. We wanted to create a site dedicated to handmade products.” Abhishek is a Management Consultant armed with MBA degree having National and International work experiences.
After working for 3 years in India, he was employed in USA with one of the top consultancy firm for several years. However, with the zeal and determination to do something in his home country, he returned to motherland to start his own venture and founded Aexonic Technologies Private limited, a company engaged in developing mobile apps before co-founding OyeArt and is in-charge of technical aspect of OyeArt.
While Monika is a NIFT, Bangalore graduate and after working with big corporates for several years joined to start OyeArt. Integrating her creativity and corporate experience, she looks after the products, sellers, designing and marketing. Aparajita an XISS graduate looks after general management. While the products on OyeArt come from different parts of the country, they have special sentiments for products from Jharkhand and wish to add more of them from this region in the list of categories up for sale. They highly appreciate the work being done by Jharcraft and invite artisans from Jharkhand to list their products on OyeArt.
This is a platform for all the homemakers, students, amateurs, who are good in some form of art but are unable to reach out to the world to sell the products. OyeArt provides them the opportunity to display their products, fix the prices and sell it to the world. It works on ‘Peer to Peer Market Place’ model and does away the requirement of keeping the products at the warehouse and blocking the working capital. The Seller has complete possession and control over the products and has the option to add, remove, change and replace the products at its discretion, Monika says.
OyeArt believes that India is a country which is rich in art culture and heritage which has been carrying on for generations. It is also a mix of diverse cultures and art forms which varies from State to State and region to region. The artifacts of India have huge demand abroad as well as within the country. However, these art forms are slowly dying and the artisans are gradually taking up other source of livelihoods as they don’t get their due. Due to lack to direct access to the customers, these artisans are constrained to sell their products at throw away price to the large exporters, dealers or are compelled to move throughout the country, leaving their home and family behind, participating in various exhibitions.
OyeArt attempts to partner with these artisans by eliminating the middlemen and helping them get better price of their products by selling it online. OyeArt also provides all kinds of technical support and guidance to the artisans and helps them in managing the orders. It is a company well aware of its social responsibilities as well. In addition to working with companies, stores, individual artists and groups they also plan to team up with NGO to work with them and help the under-privileged talents to showcase to the world.
Due to elimination of middlemen, the products are also relatively much lighter on the pockets of the buyers. Further, this acts as a one place shop for the authentic handicrafts and handmade products from various parts of the country. The handicraft catalogue comprises of not only decorative and ornamental products but also several utility items. One can find options of Home décor, paintings, fashion, toys, puzzles and much more on OyeArt. They also have a section on Gift Ideas to help you choose gifts for different occasions and persons.
Barely a few months into operation, OyeArt has got good response from sellers and has decent mix of products and they now plan to expand it further by reaching to more buyers, sellers and art lovers. Keep watching the website www.oyeart.com for their latest offerings, says Monika.