October 8, 2020: Moved by the condition of weavers in the country, three NIT Warangal graduates have launched an e-commerce platform– ‘Pickmycloth’–for the weavers to directly sell their products to the customers and thus bridging the gap between them and eradicating middlemen.
On ‘Pickmycloth’ platform, as soon as the order is placed, the weaver gets the notification. He then packs the product, labels it and then the product is delivered to the customer.
While talking to ANI, Ram Kalyan, Co-founder of ‘Pickmycloth’ said 700 weavers have been listed at the platform from several locations of the country, out of which 400 weavers are active.
“While studying at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Warangal, we made few friends who came from the weaving background. While speaking to them we came to know about the problems being faced by the weavers. That is when I along with two other of my friends Dinesh and Abhishek have started Pickmycloth,” Ram Kalyan said.
“After finishing college studies, we travelled and met many weavers from various clusters, discussing with them their problems and searching for a solution. Generally, weavers get minimal profit as middlemen take away all the profit. So we decided to bridge the gap between the weaver and the customer. Our solution aims at ending the role of middlemen to bridge the gap between weavers and consumers,” he added.
Kalyan said that through the Pickmycloth platform, weavers can earn the desired price for their products and even the customers can get the handloom at a bit less price.
“Handloom products are unique and limited, once the stock gets over, we can not get them again. So, for these products to be sold, there must not be any middlemen and the profit must be enjoyed by weavers only” he said.
“We have a team designated for every handloom cluster who visits the clusters and explain to them about the platform and assist them with weaving tools. This is how we build the trust,” he added.
The CEO said that though the organization is more focused on major clusters, he is willing to expand this to all the clusters in India.
He said, “We would like to expand this to all the handloom clusters across India. There are about 130 to 140 clusters in India with each state containing about 5 to 6 clusters. We would like to bring together all the clusters through this platform.”
Source: Hindustan Times
