Handmade Nigeria is giving Nigerian craftspeople the chance to sell to the world. It’s a marketplace on the web for jewellers, leather workers and textile makers and designers to gain access to customers far beyond their immediate vicinities and regions.
This online platform is doing more than just supplying made-in-Nigeria sandals and bags to international buyers. It’s helping to solve a problem that bugs the average handmade products dealer in these parts: how to break past the confines of selling locally. It is a saturated, fragmented market out there, and there’s very little room for reasonable profit to be made.
This was what inspired Omolara Sanni to set up Handmade Nigeria in 2016. She had been selling manually crafted accessories herself for a while and had started a blog for people in the trade. A community of craftspeople formed on the platform, and they talked regularly about the drawbacks that were affecting them.
“There were so many of us making jewellery and bags,” she recounted, in an interview with Connect Nigeria. “But there was no cohesion [in our space]. A lot of things were left to chance, and people weren’t really making profit.”
The discussions on the forum brought the big issue to the fore: they needed access to the demand points, which they were not reaching at the time. The existing e-commerce platforms weren’t exactly suitable; they were stacked with foreign, mass-produced, lower quality alternatives, and buyers were choosing them over the local handmade products.
“People needed a platform to sell, where the value of their handmade products would be recognized,” Omolara explained. “So we built the website (Handmade Nigeria).”
In two years, Handmade Nigeria has gained a sizable following on its social media channels. Merchants put their bags, shoes, sandals, headgears, jewellery and other accessories up on the website for sale, and they’re bought by people from within and beyond the country.
Omolara says that there’s already a community of vendors willing to reach new markets and that sign-ups for the online marketplace have never been a problem. Their need for an expanded customer base tends to be met on the company’s multiple online storefronts. This business’s global reach helps these vendors achieve the growth they want.
Besides vending online, pop up markets are organized periodically. Businesses are able to exhibit and sell their crafts to the public and connect with other merchants in the handmade products sphere.
Handmade Nigeria is finally getting recognition for its role in bringing craft merchants’ businesses online. This year, it was listed among ConnectNigeria’s Top 100 SMEs, an exclusive group of emerging businesses. These ventures represent a glimpse into the future of small and medium enterprise in Nigeria- innovative, purpose-driven, and popular companies that are defying the odds. Handmade got on the list thanks to the many votes of its loyal followers.
As you would expect of a gold-getting entrepreneur, Omolara has her eyes set on the future of the platform she’s building. She already has her plans for the next year mapped out. Among these is the establishment of an offline presence.
“We have pickup points for customers who want to collect their deliveries, and drop off points to which vendors dispatch their products,” Omolara explained. “But we are hoping to set up an experience centre, like a showroom, where people can come in and interact with our products and buy off the rack.”
The Handmade Nigeria team is pushing for a better deal for the country’s accessory makers. They will be hoping that as the world opens up to their offerings, it will see the quality of the works produced by Nigerian hands, and value them for what they are.
Featured Image Source: HandmadeNg