In a bid to provide global trade for the Kashmir handicrafts, the Jammu and Kashmir government has decided to tie up with the online shopping giant, Amazon, that has recently launched a separate store for artisans to sell their unique, handcrafted goods reaching hundreds of millions of customers worldwide.

The state’s Industries and Commerce Department has embarked on an ambitious and futuristic marketing project for local handicrafts and other products including paintings by roping in e-commerce giant Amazon for promoting and trading J-K’s exclusive crafts online.

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A joint meeting of the state government officials, Amazon executives and local representatives of the industry and artisans was held in Srinagar on Friday under the chairmanship of Principal Secretary, Industries and Commerce, Shailendra Kumar to discuss the modalities.

Shailendra Kumar said that tying up with online business giant Amazon will help promote exclusive J-K specific products including handicrafts and handloom items and paintings on the e-commerce platform and will offer global market to the local artisans residing in any corner of the state.

He said the government is holding deliberations with the Amazon to have a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with them with regard to the marketing and promotion of J-K’s exclusive products with a tagline of “Crafts from J-K”.

He said J-K’s products including shawls, silk, wool, handicrafts and other items from local industries are in great demand in the national and international markets and buyers are looking for such exclusive products mostly online. He said if these products are made available to the buyers through modern marketing and online business platforms, the artisans will be directly benefited.

He said once the formal MoU is signed with the Amazon, the e-commerce hub can also educate, train and enable weavers and artisans to directly sell their products to its customers in India and even in international markets on their online platform.

“Without any middleman, any artisan sitting in a remote village of J-K will be able to directly sell their products to a customer sitting in any part of the world through Amazon, thus increasing the reach, profit margin and sales of artisans,” he explained.

He said the Amazon will not only provide an online marketplace for marketing but will also engage with weavers and artisans across the state to train them on making the products more attractive, appealing and marketable online.

He said the modern marketing techniques will also benefit the start-ups as they can use Amazon as a platform for marketing their products. In future, such techniques can also be used to sell horticulture-produce and other J-K specific products for getting better sales and profits besides getting a global recognition, he added.

During the meeting, the directors of various departments and corporations presented their views with regard to the marketing of their produce and discussed with Amazon officials the possibilities through which the products of artisans can be sold on global platform, and thus making the socio-economic conditions of the artisans better.