As part of the Help a 1000 Entrepreneurs project that I have launched, the second enterprise that I would like to promote and share about is www.NatsyByDesign.com.
You will love this site if you have a discerning taste and like hand crafted stuff made by artisans using hundreds of years old techniques.
India has been home to hundreds of different types of crafts that has been passed on from one generation of artisans to another for centuries. Some of the art forms are even a few thousand years old. Of late, the artisans have found it difficult to survive and there has been a movement by extremely dedicated patrons to help these artisans survive so that the art form doesn’t vanish.
The challenge in this is two-fold:
- You need to be able to design new contemporary designs using these age old art forms, so that these products find home in the modern homes.
- You need to find customers or people who appreciate this effort and are willing to pay that little bit of premium for the products.
This is where the entire e-commerce business model has come to help.
I would like to introduce NatsyByDesign.
The founder has actually created an online store that has products made by more than 50 art forms with thousands of product options.
What I like about the product:
- The focus of the business – which is to present the various art crafts with modern designs while at the same time remain authentic to the craft.
- Contemporary designs which are not only authentic to the craft but chic to wear and use at home.
What I would like to see more:
- It would be really nice to know more about the art form while looking at the products made using the art form. That way, the customer will be able to appreciate the product better and hence are willing to pay a premium.
Business Model:
- This is a hybrid e-commerce model with a physical experience store in Bangalore for customers to touch and feel the product if they want and a e-commerce website for people to order online.
- The key value proposition that the business offers is the following:
- Hand-crafted products ensure that there is a level of exclusivity of the products.
- The emotional satisfaction for the customer of having helped a art/craft form revive.
Ideas for the founder:
- Create or link to videos that that show how a particular product is crafted and where possible share a story about the artisan and their lives. This will ensure that the people who buy the products appreciate it even more.
- Host online events to talk about the various art and craft forms that are more than a century old. This will help build even more authority for the business in the niche that they are in.
- Hold member only pre-launches before introducing new products or product lines like preview sale that brick and mortar stores run for their existing customers. Even offer exclusive products for members only.
- Create a focus product of the day/week/Month which the founder can showcase with a lot more information about the product/craft/artisan.
- Create a referral system for existing customers.
- For every new friend that an existing customer refers, they get points that they can use to buy products from the catalogue.
- Alternately, Allow an existing customer add a product to wishlist. Based on the product that they have added to the wish list, the team can actually suggest the number of friends that they need to refer in order to get the item shipped for free to them.
- Add pre-order capability within the platform, ie, create a product in the digital form and ask for pre-orders from the patrons before actually producing the product.
- Create exclusive limited edition products (for pre-order or on produce).
Overall, if you love arts and hand crafted products, this is a great site for you to find more than 6 lines of products made by 50+ different types of art forms, then NatsyByDesign is a great place for you to buy.
This is also a great site to find art/craft based products that you can buy as a gift for someone you love.
I wish the entire team of NatsyByDesign a lot of success!
