Website takes Kashmiri items to global market

Aamir Khan

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, February 9

In November 2011, ‘Kashmir Box’ started as an e-commerce website for selling Kashmiri handicrafts and other local products, to free artisans from the manipulations of the middlemen. And today, around 2,500 artisans are associated with the group and it has managed to take ‘brand Kashmir’ to a global marketplace.

Muheet Mehraj, Founder and CEO of the Kashmir Box, said “Around 2,500 artisans are directly or indirectly associated with us and we have managed to take ‘brand Kashmir’ to Europe, Gulf and the US. Kashmir Box has now become a market place for local artisans, craftsmen, producers and creative entrepreneurs who showcase their products to the world”.

While their clientele ranges from Bollywood fashion designers, such as Anita Dongre, to international brands, such as Dorothy Perkins, the portal has managed to free the artisans associated with it of middlemen and created their own brand, Mehraj stated.

“We found out that around 80 to 90 per cent of the profits are eaten up by middlemen. But now, our artisans and partners get to sell their products by their own brand names, empowering and giving them a sense of accomplishment and pride,” he said.

The group sells a whole range of products, from Pashmina shawls to saffron and even food products, such as wazwan, the special Kashmiri cuisine.

Even as the group started as an e-commerce website, they recently showcased around 50 products at the ‘NY Now’ in the US, where they will soon be opening an office.

“We showcased around 50 brands at the ‘NY Now’. We feel that there is a lot of scope to market our products in the US. We have already appointed a country director there and will soon open an office in the US,” Mehraj said.

Kashmir Box would be doling out special designs for the US market and was also finalising deals with other Bollywood designers and clients, he added.