Shraddha Brand
For promotion of handloom and
increasing the earning of the handloom weavers substantially
What is Branding?
Branding is a mechanism for generating trust and winning confidence of the buyers / consumers in favour of any product, produced by a particular producer.
How does Branding help the producers?
Branding helps the producer in expanding the product base and demand of a product by the buyers both for attracting new ones and in repeating orders by an existing buyer.
Why is Branding important for handloom?
Like any other handmade products, handloom products face problems of quality related to dyeing, weaving, designing, consistency which are important for winning customer’s confidence. These limitations affect demand and earning of the producers.
Branding gives the customers the assurance about quality and inspires for purchasing the product.
Importance of Branding in E-commerce
Branding is of critical importance for e-commerce, as the buyer has to make the decision and put the money without feeling and touching the products.
Buyers often don’t like the hassles arising due to poor quality like bleeding of color, shrinking, size being lesser than normal. Branding gives assurance against such abnormalities in quality.
Shraddha’s strategy for Branding
Shraddha NGO is dedicated to promoting handloom on sustainable long term basis.
It is set up by a group of persons of well-known credibility and sound technical knowledge in handloom.
Procedure for Branding
Shraddha brand will require the producer (either individual weaver or group of weavers) agreeing with the principles of Shraddha and
submitting a request.
On receipt of the request, a formal verification will be done by the Shraddha team.
Once the facts stated by the applicant are found to be true, the applicant will be required to execute an agreement with Shraddha and thereafter
details of the applicant will be placed on the Shraddha website.
In the event of a complaint is received about quality of a product sold by the branded weaver, same will be verified.
If the complaint is found to be true, the weaver will be required to refund the amount and the branding will be withdrawn.
The branding process will be purely voluntary in nature to be operated on good faith.
Background
Handwoven fabrics are a part of the rich culture and tradition of India. It provides livelihood to lakhs of people in the rural area and women in particular. However, because of disruptive technology viz, weaving by power loom, the textile market both in rural and urban area got flooded with cheaper power loom fabrics. As a result, handloom was pushed to a corner. Earning of the skilled handloom weaver fell sharply in comparison to the same for the unskilled labor in the rural area. This aberration in income adversely affected the life and status of the handloom weavers at personal and social levels. It led to the younger generation losing interest in their traditional occupation and opting for other avenues.
With a view to reversing this disturbing trend, the strategy for promotion of handloom needs a paradigm shift, based on a realistic appreciation of the major developments of the 21st century. Handloom must capitalize on its inherent strength as an exclusive (Khas) commodity with rare features of a handmade product. It must target customers with a taste for handmade products and adequate disposable income. Instead of being a poor competitor of power loom fabrics, handloom weavers should be encouraged to weave high value, defect free, quality fabrics with new design, new products and contact the high-end customers. Among other things, this approach will widen the customer base and spread the demand to throughout the year in place of the existing limitation of seasonal nature, limited to season based festivities like Raja, Savitri, Durga puja and social functions like marriage.
The smartphone wielding educated primary producer weavers need to be encouraged to look beyond local master weavers or government managed marketing opportunities and come forward to market their fabrics on “D 2 C” (Direct to Customer) basis throughout the year. They should aggressively use information technology-based tools for (i) Generating awareness about the Handloom fabric, (ii) Contacting buyers & getting their preferences, (iii)Weaving quality fabrics accordingly (iii) Sending the product by speed post/ courier, and (v) Getting sale proceeds online directly to their bank account. This will eliminate middlemen, in private / government managed avenues, reduce the margin in transaction and increase their earnings substantially.
For marketing products, unorganized sectors like handloom generally have an inherent limitation in respect of standardization, supply chain management and adhering to the delivery schedule. These limitations dampen the spirit of the customers and restrict the scope for taking advantage of digital marketing. “Branding” by an organization of credibility helps in removing doubts and enhancing the confidence to the prospective buyers for purchasing handloom of his/ her choice directly from the producer weaver on the net. This process will help in eliminating multiple levels of marketing and increasing the earnings of the weavers substantially.
“SHRADDHA”, civil society organization registered in Odisha, is spearheaded by a group of technocrats having decades long experience and reputation of working with promotion of handloom at national and state levels namely Dr Sanjay Kumar Panda, Shri Bijan Behari Paul, Shri Surendra Kumar Patra and Shri Bani Ranjan Das. The organization is also supported by Patrons with domain knowledge in marketing, and stature in society, who have come forward to support the cause, with a view to giving back to society. SHRADDHA seeks to empower the weavers, who would come forward to work with it, for production and dispatch of quality handloom fabrics as per the choice of the customers.