Bridging Indian embroidery and the World

It's been 10 years when I started my journey like step by step into the digital e-Commerce business.

I graduated from Delhi, the capital of India, and then I went to Canada for my graduate education. There I saw a huge demand for Indian handicrafts and Indian craftsmanship. My mother used to design embroidery herself. I could see there are so many artisans in India who could do this. So, when I came back, I started my journey from a very small American website doing retail export.

It worked out beautifully, even just in small quantity. My brother would procure the items from the market. I would upload them online. And my parents used to stay up packing before sending the products to the US and many other countries via India Post. This has continued for 7 years and we have found the Indian artisans from places to places. Then the covid stopped everything.

The Covid took away all of our businesses and Alibaba.com came like a dream. I’ve only heard of Alibaba.com, so I googled and reached out to get a membership.

Onboarding, I knew nothing about mini site and product listing, it was my then account manager Sunni who helped me set up everything and got me into the market.

“The 1st order arrived with my baby!”

I listed just three products, and the response came beautifully. I was pregnant and my baby was due in three months. On the day of my delivery, the biggest order came from Alibaba.com.

This 5,000-dollar deal came from a client from California. She was also a new mother, and she was trying to get rid of her job in telecom and got into the business. Alibaba.com connected us mothers together. She ordered around 2,000 headbands from me and sold them out so fast that she was finally able to leave her job. She remains my friend and my client this day. Many of our clients are females like this.

Astros, Yankees and Taylor Swift.

We started with hairbands. One day, we got a request from Super Bowl league Astros, it was a big surprise for us. And then there came Yankees and Astronauts. I am talking to Cowboys now. So, in that way, we’ve expanded stadiums.

As requests pouring in, I had to start my own manufacturing. Now I have my own artisans living in my workshop and working for me. I have 20 workers taking care of quality control and packing, together with 50 artisans. Orders are completely from Alibaba.com. I’ve also partnered with all the big companies from India FedEx, DHL, and sea ship companies.

My artisans were not educated. They don’t know English but now their kids go to school and know everything. For example, we would make hairbands for Taylor Swift concert. Kids know and they are proud of what their mothers do. That’s beautiful.