DharaviMarket: From the Craftsmen to the Consumers
DharaviMarket started with an aim to make the skills of the leather craftsmen of Dharavi accessible to a wider market. Over the years, how has it managed to stay relevant with the changing industry?
Mohammed Gufran, a craftsman in his 30s, sat near the door of his first floor workshop atop a steep rickety staircase in a blue checkered shirt surrounded by his two young sons as he pasted pieces of leather together. A resident of Dharavi, he has been a leather craftsman for over 10 years. Along with numerous other craftsmen residing in Asia’s largest slum, he used to supply leather bags and products to wholesalers and retailers. However, for this talented craftsman, orders were hard to come by. For the past five years, he has been associated with e-commerce platform Dharavi Market which has helped him grow.
For numerous such karigars, Dharavi Market has become an effective platform in connecting them to a worldwide audience. Set up by journalist-turned-urbanologist Megha Gupta, the platform initially started with Gupta’s personal funding of ₹5 lakhs in August, 2014. Gupta was working in the slums of Dharavi on a project as an urban planner and realised she wanted to do more than just report problems. Driven by the need to create a solution, she set up the e-commerce market which enabled the craftsmen of Dharavi to directly sell their products to consumers, eliminating the cumbersome middlemen.
The small for-profit venture blew up beyond Gupta’s imagination and garnered media attention soon after its conception from several media outlets including Economic Times in 2014 and BBC in 2015. The unprecedented success of her platform even earned Gupta an invitation for her own TED Talk at the TEDxDharavi event in Mumbai in 2019.
Almost six years since its conception, Dharavi Market has grown into a large platform catering not only to consumers but businesses as well. Employing over 300 karigars, it has enabled craftsmen engaged in leather bags, shoes, accessories, and even clay and pottery, to access the power of e-commerce. The karigars use an app to upload images of their products, which are vetted by Gupta before being put up for sale. The prices are set by the craftsmen, with the site earning an undisclosed commission on every item sold. The portal now caters majorly to corporates, having worked with brands like Hindustan Unilever and Aditya Birla Group in the past, with bulk orders and corporate gifts forming a large part of their revenue. Their client base also consists of international buyers with the brand exporting products across the globe.
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Picture credit: CurrentMoodMag
Megha Gupta- Founder DharaviMarket, Mohd Gufran outside his workshop
Picture credit: Insider.com
Picture credit: Insider.com
Picture credit: Pinterest
Sustainability in the Slums
Gupta’s vision for Dharavi Market is to make a positive social impact, whether it is empowering the craftsmen of Dharavi, or introducing them to more sustainable materials. She read about plant-based leather in 2015, and five years later, she has managed to introduce a line of plant leather products to Dharavi Market. Unwilling to reveal her vendor, Gupta maintains that the plant leather, made with mixed leaves, is cruelty free and more ethical as compared to Polyurethane leather. Made with cellulose and latex, she claims it is washable, tear-resistant, lightweight, bio-degradable and can be printed with various textures to increase its resemblance to genuine leather.
“It took a few tries to get it right. We had quite a few samples that had to be rejected due to subpar finishing, but eventually the craftsmen got it right,” she said of the challenges faced. The new range of products, which includes bags, diaries, and keychains, is part of their 90 Feet collection which is made in collaboration with fashion and accessory design students from design institutes like National Institute of Fashion Technology and Pearl Academy. Although the plant leather has been imported from Germany, Gupta says she strives to keep the products affordable with a standard laptop bag costing around ₹700-800 when ordered in bulk.
The plant-based cellulosic leather isn’t the only innovation Gupta has pushed her craftsmen towards. An upcoming range titled ‘Zhero’ utilises chindis or waste fabric from corduroy and velveteen fabric manufacturing mill Velcord Textiles in the Mira-Bhayander area of Mumbai. ‘Zhero’ includes products like laptop sleeves and bags designed by Gupta’s design team and is set to roll out to the market by mid-March.
However, eco-friendly materials and methods comes with challenges. “It takes two days to make one bag from the chindis and the plant leather is difficult to mould and stitch because it doesn’t bend or stick easily. I don’t prefer working with them,” said Gufran. Since the craftsmen are paid on a project basis and learning to work with new materials is time consuming, there is a lack of enthusiasm when it comes to experimenting. Gupta hopes a positive response from the market will help convince the craftsmen to understand and accept the importance of environment friendly practices.
Picture credit: DharaviMarket Instagram
Laptop Bag made from plant leather
Future Possibilities For Upliftment
A quick scan of the website outlines the NGO ‘Wayfarers Foundation’ to which 1% of the revenue from all sales is allotted. The NGO aims to introduce a Social Capital Credits(SOCCS) program which will reward the craftsmen based on the number of products they make. The rewards will range from mobile recharges, to tuition fees for their children. While the initiative is a well-intentioned idea, the execution hasn’t come easy for Gupta. Donations are hard to come by and the profits made from the products sold aren’t enough to sustain both, a business model and a non-profit. This is why Gupta is currently focussed on expanding the business to aid these social endeavours.
Dharavi Market has made a space for itself in the last five years; but it still has a long way to go according to Gupta. She aims to become a one-stop solution for leather products-genuine, vegan, and ethical, citing wholesale e-commerce site alibaba.com as an inspiration. Gupta acknowledges that the platform and its craftsmen require a lot more training to compete with the quality and prices that her competitors offer but she has hopes of developing the business and uplifting the community eventually. “I’ve learnt to be patient, but it’ll happen for sure,” she says, ending our talk with a dash of optimism.