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Karagiri (Handcraft)
Pallavi-mohadikar got the idea to start Karagiri. When she was pursuing an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow.
“KARAGIRI,” Pallavi Mohadikar says “I would see a lot of chikankari weavers all across Lucknow. And when you come down to Pune. It was not very easy to find these ethnic wear. There was a demand-supply gap here,”
“KARAGIRI” Pallavi Mohadikar was living in a small village in Nagpur. And there is a very problem with electricity. So her grandfather used to weave Kosa silk sari late at the night under the dim light oil lamp. Her grandfather tells her a lot of stories of handcraft while weaving the sari. She sees her grandfather struggle throughout her childhood. And that is the biggest inspiration to start KARAGIRI.
Pallavi Mohadikar’s grandfather was a weaver and he is the one who tells her technical things about threads and weaves. And how the sari was created. So she was so interested in these things but she knows that monitory compensation was less for the weaver. So when she studied at (IIM), Lucknow. She worked on the project chikankari artesian to study the supply of chikankari. During this process, Pallavi Mohadikar realise that this suffering was similar all over the weaver and in India. Pallavi Mohadikar thought of creating a platform where she could give them a ready platform to showcase their arts.
How did the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown impact her operations?
During the COVID-19 pandemic her store KARAGIRI for almost 4 months. Her offline store was shut completely on the online store. Pallavi Mohadikar was taking orders, but she was not sure when she will be able to ship those orders. Because all Karagiri (craft) third-party logistics partners were not working. So somebody who has placed the order today. Four months down the line, five months down the line. So there was a lot of uncertainty that came along with covered 19 pandemics. The biggest problem that she had was how will they support the Weber community of more than 1500 viewers. Who are dependent on Karagiri to put food on their plates.
So in this situation, Pallavi Mohadikar personally believes because now people were staying at home. They had a lot of time at hand and they were spending more and more time on social media. It was a great opportunity to reach as many eyeballs as possible. And get your concept out there, get your product out there. Create very engaging content and get more followers and more loyal customers for your brand. She reduces the amount of spend that we used to do, but they never stopped taking orders. So all Karagiri designers, within seven days, we designed the entire Diwali collection and all their viewers were working throughout the four months of the pandemic so we could keep paying them throughout that period. And Pallavi Mohadikar thinks that is the biggest feeling of gratitude that they have.
Pallavi Mohadikar generally uses Facebook and Instagram as mediums to reach out to a wider set of audiences. Even during the lockdown, she focused more on creating engaging content for their followers. So one of her viewer’s daughters, she’s in ten standards right now and her father passed away one and a half years ago and now she has the entire responsibility of her. She has to manage her studies as well as her business. So they thought that this kind of the story of their workers to come out and let their customers know who is weaving the saris. So these kinds of installed stories they did during the pandemic and Pallavi Mohadikar think that caught a lot of attention from our followers.
Karagiri’s total customer base shot up by around $50,000, and that was a big number, right? And that came in as a surprise for them. They started delivering after the government offered some relaxation on eCommerce in July and their third-party logistics partners also started working. So all the pending orders plus three times the number of orders that they used to get before the pandemic. So it was very overwhelming. Definitely. It has affected the top line for those four months when Karagiri was not operational. But the positive thing is they are back with the Bank and they are already doing three times the projected numbers postcode. They are hoping to close the year at around the 30s. “You get millions of ideas every day, but unless you work on them, they will not become a billion-dollar idea “
Pallavi Mohadikar says “that make the right use of technology, make great use of social media and when you already have the support of your family, it becomes very easy to sell through these difficult and challenges and you will come out stronger and better.”