Handloom Fabric Buyers may find it easier with Folksmarket.com

It is often seen that many B2B clients who are interested in the products and wish to enquire about the same, run through a lot of inconvenience while choosing those products which enticed them.

Problems faced by B2B Fabric Buyers

Most of the websites either have one contact page that asks for detail information like Name, Address, Company Name, Telephone number and a message box every time a product is enquired or the client has to choose for each product one by one, fill in detail and send, again and yet again.

So lets say that if I, as a B2B client, wish to enquire about 10 different fabrics from 4 different sub category, I need to remember the product characteristics, its name going back and forth and then fill in those details followed by the message which may be like “I want to have the sample of Product Code xyz, 200 mtr order of fabric for product code abc, for product code def I have written message as “you said you can produce only 500 mtr in a month, but I am supposed to deliver 500 mtr of finished product in 30 days, how will I be able to work it out?..etc”

The problem faces by the client in such scenario are:

n  Remembering so many product item is such a pain

n  If he clears the hurdle number 1, the next hurdle is remembering the Commercial Specifications that tells about the product capacity, minimum order quantity and expected order time. For 10 products, it look like remembering 30 different piece of information

n  Assuming the user has a sharp memory, he remembers well everything. But again, he needs to fill in the details specific for each product based on its Commercial information.

n  What if suddenly the Boss ask hey Mike, go in for Silk fabric also, we might have a client looking for the best Silk fabrics. Ohh no man, baffled Mike frustrates, ‘how come the boss is so cold to my existing problem of enquiring products. I can’t copy and paste the information because even this exercise I need to do 10 times now 15 times for the same number of different products?? What a pain!!

n  To add to the list of already existing inconveniences, now Silk has a count system different from Cotton and Linen, how the hell am I going to remember the Technical Specifications?

This is a perennial problem faces by almost all the website operating into B2B category. To address such issue, we at Folksmarket.com utilized our tech resource to program in such a way that through one click, any user can enquire for the multiple products.

Uniqueness of www.folksmarket.com

At folksmarket.com, we believe in giving all the information to the client in our website itself that eases out the process. We have divided the fabric section information into 2 parts; Technical Specifications and Commercial Specifications. 

While the Technical Specification educate the client about the Yarn Count, Reed Count, Picks per Inch, Commercial Specifications, on the other hand, indicates what could be the timelines for a specific order to meet. Now with this specific and varied information, it is pertinent for us to develop a system that can allow our prospective clients to enquire for multiple products without the hassle of memorizing any detail. 

Add to Enquiry System of folksmarket.com

Our client can send us the enquiry through two easy yet effective steps:

1-      Sign up first; it just takes around 100 seconds.

2-      Starts browsing through different products/fabrics, read all the details, choose the items he wishes to enquire about and keep on adding there itself without leaving the page!!

The Counter System will keep on informing as to how many products they have added so far. Once they are done with, just click on Send an Enquiry, the next page they will be in, displays all the products list wise. Now just fill in details like Order Quantity, Expected Timeline and any message unique for each product. Once they send it to us, we will be in position to know what kind of demand and product our client is interested in. This facilitates in saving lot of time for our fabric buyers.

My Account

What more, all the enquired products are stored in Buyer’s Account which he can refer any time he wishes to. Now this My Account tab is one of the most convenient post enquiry features of www.folksmarket.com. There is a status bar that shows the status of the work as processing, complete, closed. The text box at the end of Enquiry details let you know about the detailed status of the work and payment details. 

Our aim is to minimize the conversation back and forth between us and client about the work. The client may update himself about the work progress at any hour the day.

Customer first

This Enquiry Adding page is the beta version of our Enquiry system. There are many more features that will be added in Add to Enquiry Section and websites as whole. The objective is to increase the status updating conversation between client and Folksmarket.com team. This however does not mean that we don’t believe in communication! We love to speak with our users and clients but just want to save the inconvenience. 

Our team member from Tech Team, Narendra, deserves special accolades. Keep up good work buddy.

(PS: This piece is not written to denigrate other organizations. Aim is simply to highlight the issue )

The Beatle Nut cracker

It all started with a folklore that we at Folksmarket heard while a random visit to Rewa. The HH of Rewa Maharaja Gulab Singh was looking for something to present to the British Commissioners as a symbolic token of Rewa State. The grand-grandfather of Mr Yogest Kunder, thought of creating something that symbols the Rewa State Culture viz respect and friendliness. And he created a sword from nuts. HH Gulab Singh was amused. He asked the reason and concept for creating such product. And the creator said, “HH what can be a better souvenir than this sword, all made from nuts?” This sword according to him described the valour and friendliness simultaneously.

 It is the custom of folks of Rewa to offer Beatle leaves and nuts to the visiting folks. This symbolic gesture is the characteristic point of the Rewa folks. Not only this, earlier folks here used to give beatle leaves and nuts while inviting other folks on some auspicious occasions. It thus played an important part of the lives of average folks here.

Slowly this art flourished and now-a-days dozens of the artisans creates magnificent, rare products from the nuts and earn their livelihood. One peek into the nut arts will take your breath away. Imagine the bangles full size as woman accessories is made up of the number of tiny nuts. One nut is small enough even for the ring!! Then swans or pair of birds or Taj Mahal of 6”x6” or 12”x12” square inches is a visual treat. A whole range of the decorative items like Lamp, house, Lord Ganesha, Telephone stand etc. As we can see these items serve the dual purpose; decoration and utility. There are some innovative items like bangle holder and lamp. One item with triple benefits viz decoration, utility and not to forget the rare skill displayed right in front of your eyes to appreciate and amuse. These lamps from a casual look can be confused for grapes hanging from the wood.!!

Each item like Taj Mahal are so detail oriented that given the space even great Shah Jehan can be visible.!!! This is true for all the items. Amazingly all with those seemingly not so catchy NUTS.

The artisans earlier used to do all the cutting, polishing, smoothening from the hand. But now as the demand grows they have started using the conveyor belt. Products are normally made as per the order and they do not stock it in their homes. The skill is very fine and as slices of nuts are not very hard, it takes more than experience and skill, the attitude, to design any item. Although the education has no replacement, the tradition and culture of such arts needs more protection than anticipated. The son of Yogesh Kunder is no longer interested in such design. “My all friends are studying in good school and none of them do this work as they consider this as inferior” was the curt reply when the member of Folksmarket had asked about his nonchalant attitude about this art whom his great great grandfather had started.

Yogesh and like him all the artisans who have grown up seeing these arts and adopted this as their family tradition are still folks with pride in their eyes. “As long as I am alive, I will not do anything but crafting designs from the nut”, said one artisan who sends his son to the convent school.

Once again the Folksmarket team found itself on the cross road of thoughts. What is good for the son of Yogesh? Is it going to a convent school where he will supposedly be prepared to join some white collar jobs or learning this rare arts which had sustained his generations for so long and given an identity? Is there a middle way?

Well the answer is hard to find. But for the team Folks M, it is a milestone which enabled us to appreciate the skills of the folks and give a reason to continue our Celebration of Folks!!

Marble-ous World, Indian Marble Handicraft items at Folksmarket.com

Marble is the precious metamorphic stone. Brilliance lies in its texture, its color and above all, if I may say so, its rarity. We might see various stones, red, black etc but finding marble is as rare as finding diamond or say, opium. For folks like us, seeing marble is a beautiful experience as we have never been in the company of this stone. Now think of the place wheremarble is Everywhere, literally!! The mountains made up of the marble, the field of the marble, sitting slabs made of the marbles and what more, even the speed breaker is made of the marble!!...Looks like some fairy tale, no?

Even better, to highlight the glory of such beautiful place is the holy river Narmada. The pious river Narmada is the only river flowing from East to west, covering 750kms, to meet Arabian Sea in the state of Gujrat. 

Bhedaghat, in Jabalpur is one such place. 

The splashing water of river Narmada seems to transfer all its beauty in its bank here. Like the rift valley the Narmada flows between the slabs of the mountain. The water so clear that the river bed is easily visible if one tries to see it closely or dive in. It’s a hub spot for thousands of tourist who are mesmerized by the serene marvel of Bhedaghat. The team of Folksmarket was simply awestruck as soon as we reach in the company of the marble and of those folks who play with these stones and creates marble decorative and useful items again and again.

Yes we are coming to these artisans, these folks who still celebrate their skills, their creations and often instead of idol worshipping (which they are deft enough to create as and when they feel like!!!) they worship the nature. This is the tradition. 

We were amazed when we saw hundreds of the beautiful items sculpted by these artisans.

Marble glasses, marble lamps, marble chess, marble bangles, marble swans, etc. Above all the most amazing was the marble telephone!!. Marble working telephone!! Just imagine how beautiful a glittering marble telephone will look in the drawing room irrespective of the theme of the drawing rooms.

List is endless and every item that we have collected is tempting. Even something as monotonous as small glass for drinks is alluring without bounds. Just check more in our website www.folksmarket.com

Another hallmark of this place is the marble painting. No, no, we are not talking about the rock painting. Almost all the paintings that you will see there are the same painting of Bhedaghat. The river Narmada with all its glory is flowing from the rift valley made of marble. Folks have imagined different times for this theme. Sunrise, sunsets, full moon, half moon, you name it and they have visualized and painted them all. Anyone will at once recognize these paintings as from this place. In a way these are signaturepaintings of Bhedaghat. You may see all these paintings exclusively in www.folksmarket.com

Visiting those sites where these artisans and folks work looks like someone is working with lime stone. The marbles are so whitey!!  These folks are working since ages and the same skill is passing on from generation to generation. We must preserve this. After all this is the motto of the company. The sculptors with chisel and hammer break all the stone into its desired length after measuring its softness. Most of the time its their age old wisdom and experience of creations that measures the softness and hardness of the stone.  Covering their head and nose these artisans often laments about the termination of the marble mining because of which procuring the stones is getting difficult day by day. Innocently these folks have asked us to highlight this point.

One may ponder over whether to support mining that is creating havoc on the environment or not. Not supporting the mining is taking a toll over these poor folks. We may logic it out for the mass benefit. But what about the preservation of the age old tradition? Unfortunately these folks have to pay the price of that mistakes which they have never committed. 

These artisans never pollute the water and never mine the mountains, rather than just take some pieces from here and there which never affects the balance of nature. 

Anyway, there are still some eye opening and breathtaking moments for us that has given our folks the joy. Time to relish our beautiful experience and enjoying the wonderful creations of these folks.

See ya

Small town Surajkund became a Cosmopolitan instantaneuosly!!...First Journey

February 5 2012 is a special day for Folks Market.

The Place
 
It was the first time we begin our official journey to understand "what do we really mean by Folks Market"
The place was Surajkund, a place where craft fair is organised every year. Its strategically located in Faridabad, Haryana bordering New Delhi, the capital of India.
Lots and lots of artisans, craft workers from different places of the world gather here to showcase their products. Some of them are working in pretty organized way others struggled so far and now trying to be organized. We could see artisans coming all the way from Tamil Nadu, Jammu & Kashmir, Bihar, Rajasthan, Gujrat etc. It was like "mini -India". Not only this but we realized that Surajkund Fair has transgressed the international boundary. Many craft men, artisans flocked here from places like Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Congo, Bhutan, and Tajikistan. There must be many more but we might not have seen for wanting of time. The South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC), an association of 8 south asian countries in the areas like Energy, Biotech, Rural upliftment etc was conspicuous by its presence in the form of SABAH that is SAARC Business Association for Home Based Workers started in 2009-10.

The Blessing

A life size statue of Lord Buddha was visible at the entrance of the fair as if HE was blessing these bastions of the traditions and culture. By the shear size and calmness of Lord Buddha, the heads kept bowing down. We took it as an auspicious beginning of Folks Market.

Journey and the Crafters

We started with the silk city of the India, that is Bhagalpur (Bihar,India). The silk manufactured here is distinct and is known as Tussah or Tusser Silk. Mr Naresh Tanti participates in Surajkund Fair every year. The texture and fabric of the Sarees, he weaved and other clothing were so smooth as if you lost the control of your hand..it just wanted to slip through!!. The vibrant colors, designs and a cheerful expectation of sales in the eyes of Mr Tanti were something that we carried and move forward.

Going forward we almost instantly stopped at few paintings of Rajasthani Flavour. Only one word could describe our feeling for the remarkable art.."brilliant". It was the exhibition shop of Ms Kiran Soni Gupta, a serving bureaucrat (IAS) of Rajasthan cadre. Her other introductions are women activist, reformist, humanist besides artist and bureaucrats. The paintings displayed showed varied flavours like Rajasthani, Abstract, Tanjore Paintings and many more. All this left us wondering about the rarity..given her extremely busy public life and such brilliance with brush. We eagerly look forward meeting her.

As we inched ahead (yes we literally were inching, it was very crowdy) we could make out an usual dense crowd near by one exhibition. "What was that", we asked each other. Man it was none other than the shop of Congo. It was the huge crowd puller. The items displayed were rare and hallmark of the African culture. Black magic items, some masks, items made from the animal hairs (not sure though), boots, coats and many more accessories. Some of them dressed in tribal outfit that was so much African. Feathers, knotted hairs, lots of crafted jeweleries marked the crown that they were wearing. It was such a wonderful treat to eyes. Guess culture is the binding factor, we may not realize that we find so much of a 'connect' with other culture that we do not even realize it. We met Bob Abedi and Pmisenga, well built and smiling guys who travelled all the way from Congo to India to showcase their skills and indeed they got more eye balls then they might have expected. Interestingly French language is spoken widely in Congo.!!

We continued and moved on...

On way we stopped for a while to see blue poppy handicrafts from Bhutan, silk and Pashmina from Nepal, beautiful jute bags from Bangladesh. These bags were displayed by a woman development organization from Bangladesh TARANGO. We met the CEO Ms Kohinoor and tried to peep in the artistic and pretty laborious work done by Bangladeshi Women to meet the two squares of the meal every day.

Enroute we also met Ghulam Nabi Lone and Abdul Mazid, two young men owning different shops displaying Pashmina and cotton+silk items. They were extremely friendly and even posed for us!!!

Our last exploration was with women entreprenure from Afghanistan. They are being helped by the SDF that is SAARC Development Fund Secretariat. The collection of stoles, kurtis and other apparels was beautiful. From the far it might look like any other apparel but the moment you feel it closely, you will find amazing designs, textures. Ms Waseema Been the prominent lady in the exhibition walked us through about the process and what it meant to display these items for them and for scores of households back in war-ravaged Afghanistan.

Retreat

"We should have come earlier",was the general sentiments in the team. But whoa...we had been exploring for more than 6 hours in the same craft fair. Time spent was not less, rather the fair was very very BIG. We retreated when the fair was ended for the day.

It was like a dream, we were mesmerized with the colorful ambience of the fair and so much engrossed as if we never parted from such surroundings. As if we were very much part of this climate. However our dream was broken the moment we came out. The entire colorful world that we were experiencing so far became colourless!!. The machine was everywhere. The world we left in Surajkund Fair was not the part of machine. That was pure human skills. It celebrated the special creation of the God, human beings and that's the dream we see for Folks Market.
Whatever we do, we must celebrate the FOLKS!!