Kozhikode: Kerala's Kudumbashree has grown a lot from its initial status of women empowerment and poverty eradication programme as envisaged by the State Poverty Eradication Mission (SPEM) of the state. The community organisation of Self Help Groups (SHG) of women in Kerala has been recognised as an effective strategy for the empowerment of women in rural as well as urban areas. Now, they are spreading online following a tie-up with amazon.in, one of the largest online retailers in the world.
The official launch of the Kudumbashree products on amazon.in would be in the third week of February, said Kudumbashree Executive Director S Harikishore. A total of 110 products, including handicrafts, beauty products, handloom, toiletries, cleaning substances and Ayurvedic products will be available online. Five to six products are placed on a trial basis and the site would be fully operational only after the official launch, said Harikishore.
Kudumbashree Bazaar, the exclusive online sale website of Kudumbasree, has been operational for almost a year with nearly 450 products. However, lack of continuous publicity pulled down its popularity and the officials are planning to promote it better. The new deal with amazon.in was signed to overcome the difficulties in promoting the site.
Though Kudumbashree Bazaar sells almost all of its products and services, the sale on amazon.in restricts food products.
“The Kudumbashree Bazaar is now purely being run on word-of-mouth publicity. In the online sale competition, it is very difficult to get space only with the quality of products and service. So, in this Budget, we decided to allocate more money for online advertisements too. The amazon.in tie-up would help promote the products to a wider platform,” said Harikishore.
The 450 products on the Bazaar website is being prepared from nearly 200 units. As soon as an order is placed, the units will get a message on their phone and within one day, they will pack the product and send it through India Post. Kudumbashree has a tie-up with the post offices so that the products can be sent worldwide. The website will soon introduce 'intelligent search' so that the options related to the last searched products would also appear.
Though Kudumbashree Bazaar can directly despatch the ordered products from the units, products through amazon.in can be sent only through a centralised store. A store has been set up in Kudumbashree's Thiruvananthapuram office, solely for this purpose.
