Delineating the Exchange Environment of Handicraft Industry from Market Space to Marketplace: An Inclusive Map for RURBAN Development

Abstract

India is one of the significant merchants of handicrafts and handloom to the world arcade. From economic standpoint, the sector is important in terms of foreign exchange that it earns, aided by low investments and increased value addition. As per the latest estimates available, there are more than 23 million handloom and handicraft artisans in India now, constantly engaged in growth of Indian handicraft and handloom industry. In addition to maintaining the aristocracy, handicraft goods provide primary maintenance to the nation’s tremendous number of rural citizens. However, these goods’ contemporary markets are slowly collapsing. A big number of examines are evident of this datum. Major factors attributed to this can be due to lack of sales promotions and exposure. This study will excavate out the public opinion through an empirical approach. Implied findings of this investigation will strongly advocate the policy level implication as well as managerial governance to boost the promotion of handicraft through online sales and e-commerce platform through the development of RURBAN centres. Besides these, the researches will uniquely pistil ate out the unique value creation of Indian handicraft industry to a global platform.

Keywords

Handicraft/handloom Ishikawa Fish Bone Diagram sales promotions market space to marketplace

Introduction

Handicraft represents the uniqueness of a country, its culture and its rich heritage. As reiterated by Patel and Shah, 2016, India is embedded with culturally rich and diversified heritage. The contribution of creativity and craftsmanship of its artisans to its incredibility is matter of paramount importance. The artworks in temple, with infusion of ethnic culture and tradition reflect India’s culture with chronological infusion. Indeed, handicrafts and artisans in India are known worldwide for this uniqueness and symbolize the inherent creativity that these artisans possess. Lately, with the advent of mechanized replication of handicraft articles (not handmade), and coupled with middlemen controlling the demand–supply mechanism, the sector has been under tremendous pressure. Primarily, the concerns faced by the artisans are manifold and non-marketing of these products makes it more difficult for them. According to the reports of the NSDC, 2017, the Indian handicraft industry gives employment to about 6.57 million artisans. The export of the handicraft products has observed a surge of 11.07 per cent through which the employment rate of the artisans has projected to increase it to 17.99 million people by 2022. This sector is characterized by optimum investment, labour availability at cheaper rate with blend of artisanship. Indian handicraft industry has larger availability of labour, and decentralized across the wider geographical habitat of India. Despite having larger availability of artisans, the Indian handicraft industry is lagging behind the Global Industry standards in terms of promotion and marketing. Nigel et al., 2011, believe that the role of strategic management in marketing management is crucial because conventional marketing approach has not played a significant role in handicraft sector marketing. Kesari and Atulkar, 2016, Kim and Hwang, 2012, and Teller et al., 2008, claimed that hedonic and applied principles play a mediating role which motivates consumers to purchase. Their work examined the idea that hedonic principles are a big concern while purchasing the commodity when purchasing the bamboo products. Alba et al., 1997, opined that the consumer wants to examine the product before buying it. Hence, any intelligent environment that provides proper information about the personal examination of the product and ease of access directs the consumer towards intuitive shopping. This condition is gradually changing with the emergence of e-commerce platform and their online tools of advertisement. Concurrently, the government is implementing changes in policy and regulation in order to streamline the unorganized handicraft industry.

Indian economy begins with economy derives from rural India. Economy of rural India is mainly identified through agriculture. Besides agriculture, if any, another sector has imposed significance towards the rural economy of the nation is handicraft sector. However, this sector is lacking due to many reasons identified as lack of advertisements/sales promotions and lack of customer awareness. Due to the same reasons, customer from different regions, different district and even from different state become unaware of indigenous goods. The same not only indicates under development of the sales market of these goods but also gives rise to the market of western goods. Ha, 2003 found that advertisements are mainly of two types: Offline and Online. Flex boards, salesman interaction, newspaper display are main types of offline advertisements. Offline advertisements tactics can be extremely effective in attracting new customers and flying awareness of your brand in local area and do not provide wide-area customer awareness. The same persisting problem introduced online advertisements and online market. Due to advancement in technology and digitalization of day to day lives, online market is immensely appreciated for the betterment of these sectors. The followings are identified as major factors if online markets of handicraft products are introduced:

Wide area customer awareness

Flexible market facilities without spending time and running distances

Encouraging indigenous goods covering wide area population

Development of handicraft/handloom market in terms of offline and online market providing more profits to the artisans

Development of rural economy and further rural society

Development of market, increased profit-making process and societal developments shall also act as motivational tools for artisans.

Marketing of Niche Products: The Challenges and Opportunities

Today, all business try to leverage information and communication technology that enables organizations to market their products and services, communicate and collaborate with their members and other business partners and improve their operations.

Although the members of the cooperatives have the ability and will to produce more, are unable to do so due to limited reach and producers cannot scale up, unless required. Cooperatives and SHGs today face major marketing challenges following globalization and increasing competition. It is also observed that there is a lack of collaboration among the members resulting in a larger number of inactive members. These challenges are further compounded by lack of strong identity and awareness of the cooperative model. E-commerce proposes to address these challenges faced by cooperatives. The empirical research helps us to analyse the benefits of marketplace which today can be considered as the ‘Place’ of marketing mix.

Problems of Handloom and Handicraft Industry in India—Plotting and Studying Through Ishikawa Fish Bone Diagram

Although India’s total textile exports managed to recover to around $39.3 billion in FY2013–2014, which is up by 12.5 per cent from the previous year and a significant increase from the 5.32 per cent decline seen in the previous year. The government expects textile exports to grow again to $45 billion in FY2014–2015, a jump of around 14.5 per cent.

However, the handloom industry is not in a favourable condition and continues to be entangled in a knotty situation. According to the Ministry of Textiles, handloom production is expected to decline by 4 per cent to around 1,116 million m² in FY2014–2015, compared to increases seen in all other sectors:

Mill (6%)

Power loom (3%)

Hosiery (7%).

Meanwhile, handloom is projected to shrink to 10 per cent in total textile production, which is less than half of the 23 per cent share of FY1995–1996. The multiple reasons for the decline of this industry in different clusters can be attributed to factors such as reducing exports, deficiency in technical infusion, dynamically changing consumer behaviour, escalated manufacturing cost and dynamism in system of taxation. As the handloom industry occupies a significant place due to its economic importance, India cannot ignore this industry.

The Japanese quality expert ‘Ishikawa’ formulated a diagram and called by his name, which is helpful to represent the problems and remedies of an organization in a diagrammatic way.

The basic lines drawn to represent the categories and subcategories in the diagram look like the bone of the fish and hence it is also called ‘Fish Bone Diagram’. The major categories, under which the problems and the solutions can be grouped, are listed first. The problems under each category are listed next. Keeping the problem diagram, the solutions are also analysed and they can be also represented in the same diagrammatic way. Fish Bone Diagram helps in understanding the problems of the industry in collective and comparative way. It also helps to find out the solutions in a similar manner. The solutions to the problems are then implemented and the results are interpreted.

In the ‘Ishikawa Fish Bone Diagram’ method, Figure 1 depicts the problem faced by the industry. The collective solutions are also presented in the form of Figure 2.

Figure 1.

Source: Self compiled after assessing numerous literatures which are present in the reference section.

Figure 2.

Source: Self compiled after assessing numerous literatures which are present in the reference section.

Based on the observations in the Ishikawa Diagram, the case study proposes a solution for factors in MARKETING parameter (indicated by circles) by analysing the offerings of a startup called www.GoCoop.com. The company, with the help of web technology, coupled with the advancements in e-commerce exemplifies the solution to the MARKETING factor of the handloom industry.

The Pervasive Impact of E-commerce

E-commerce or electronic commerce is system or portal through which the products and services are traded through internet-based services.

It is executed through electronic transaction, digital marketing, automated data transaction and related modern tools like affiliate marketing, automated inventory system. To manage the online transaction’s life cycle, e-commerce uses World Wide Web (WWW) along with newer technology like mailing service and social media. E-commerce is responsible for the sales aspect of electronic business over internet support as it aids in exchange of data in order to facilitate the financial and payment transaction. Today it is a technically efficient mode of business operation. In terms of flexibility, it will help the business venture in penetrating where the company may or may not have a physical presence.

The practices used by e-commerce businesses are:

Provide e-retailing services as websites, popularly known as virtual stores with complete product details.

Enable buying and selling of products on online marketplaces.

Use of demographic data analytics by referring to internet-based networks and social media.

The use of electronic data interchange (EDI) for B2B, B2C and C2C exchange of data.

Contact prospect and current customers by e-mail and online review messages.

Enable secure business transactions.

With internet, the shopping behaviour of customers started changing over the course of time. This changed buying behaviour has bought e-commerce back into the limelight making it indispensable for any business. It allows any retail or online business to leverage internet technology to maximize profits. Apart from saving time and money, what the customer prefers is ‘Convenience’ which e-commerce has made it possible for them.

Considering the fact that, e-commerce is enabling firms and industries to scale up, the e-commerce sector is displaying constant growth trajectory and is estimated to surpass USD103 billion by the year 2020 at a promising CAGR of 41 per cent. According to KPMG Report—Impact of e-commerce on Employment in India (2017), e-tail being the major segment as the one of the fastest-growing segment and is expected to vie for 67 per cent of the complete e-commerce market. With respect to e-commerce impacting the e-retailing ecosystem, the scale of improvement and expansion has been encouraging. Although challenges in terms of purchase behaviour change vis-à-vis e-retailing, ever-disruptive business models and constant evolution of technology have impacted the dynamism of the industry, but its impact on the linking entrepreneurs to the market space and consumers have been no less than a boon.

The opportunities in employment are not only related to e-retail, but rather has impacted the complete value-chain, that is, the logistics, warehousing, technology and the support services. Significantly, e-retail has also provided relevant opportunities for craftsmen, traditional artisans and merchants and has impacted the larger socio-economic situation in the country through its sheer speed and scale. The e-commerce technology has played the role of a complementing factor to crucial priorities like Make in India, Digital India and Skill India. Some key insights are mentioned in Figure 3.

Figure 3.

Source: KPMG Report (2017).

Impacting Traditional Art Forms: Creating Opportunities for Artisans and Craftsmen

Although the situation of artisans engaged in the most respected and traditional art forms of the country is not very heartening, but the use and access of e-commerce technology as a trading platform have acted as a catalytic change agent empowering the local artisan community to develop sound business sense and thereby redeeming many dying art forms. The e-commerce platform has had a balancing effect on the demand–supply intricacies with organic online demand matching the supply of the artisans as they are actively contributing to the family business enhancing the overall household income. Figure 4 justifies the advantage of transition of artisans from market space to marketplace.

Figure 4.

Source: KPMG Report (2017).

Market Space for Artisans: Creating Appropriate Value Proposition to Customers

Despite all the difficulty, due to the emergence of e-commerce technology, the handicraft market is rising at a satisfactory rate, allowing handicraft entrepreneurs to spread the interest of the goods and the uniqueness of the art and craft. Industry experts opine that apart from the traditional offline medium, the online channel will drive bulk of the demand as customers become indulge in the e-commerce ecosystem. The tech-savvy millennial are more inclined towards online shopping. In term of this fact, e-commerce portals are one of the promising channels in order to promote the handicraft market globally.

Inclusive Development for RURBAN Centre

The RURBAN concept is a conglomeration of rural and urban growth with economic specifications. This RURBAN centres have economical trait of the urban with sociologically retained trend of the rural culture. The economical conceiving of the RURBAN centres is symbol of positive development in society. This happens due to reverse capital investment for rural areas and exposure to contemporary ideas and lifestyles. The growth of economical clusters of RURBAN centres will build a strong platform for the handicraft industry which is mostly located in rural areas. This help in increasing the rural consumption by equitable disposition of economy to the people associated with handicraft industry in a direct or allied way. It will also lead to the development of Master Plan for the market space of handicraft product with ultimate development of smart village.

Theoretical Framework

In this investigation framework has been divided into three categories:

Digitalization Through E-commerce

The e-commerce is standing for Electronic Commerce is developing as a smart cum creative method for promoting the business as well as explores the business among the world. In Asia-pacific India has fastest-growing e-retail industry today along with China (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com, India Business News). For adopting of smartphone and day by day increasing rate of internet penetration have paved way for new marketing strategy for existing industry. Still, chosen demographics and internet increasing rate helped in assisting the growth. Yadav and Mahara (2019) investigated about the buying motives of the consumer and extract mediating purchase intention. The factors like website quality, perception about product and services are the key constructs for building self-reliance in online shopping. The two major pillars for promoting purchase through online shopping are the innovative products, perception about the service and ability of the website to expand the service through integration of information and service. Conferring to Taylor and Owusu, 2012, online users in Indian increasingly very high across the globe and probable that India will cross the USA in the upcoming years. In the era of twentieth century introduced e-commerce and in this introductory year it became the very popular concept for doing the business and economically upgrade the marketing strategy for promoting the setup. In India, handicraft market is more popular than other nation. In spite of the uniqueness of the artistic creation, the lack of awareness, labour shortage due to urban vibration, lack of technical infusion are the major obstacles hindering its global exposure (Jadhav, 2013). Devendra et al., 2012, define that platform is one of the greatest tools where customer can doing their business consists of selling and buying every product or service over electronic system uses of computer networks. E-commerce not only used to change the infrastructure of the business it is also used to change the financial transaction policy with some of the e-services like M-commerce, NEFT, RTGS, PayPal, Paytm and others allied tools. This will ensure in framing strategies which will be inclusive in nature regarding key business activities (https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy). Sellers may also use strategy-based tools to promote their business, such as SEO (Search Engine Optimization), marketing through mail, social media marketing tools like Facebook, Instagram, Optimization through Social Media which is also known as Social Media Optimization and other digital marketing tools. From the Indian business perspective, e-commerce transformed the business module from offline retail industry to online retail mode and has given a new way for Indian entrepreneur/ marketer (https://www.ibef.org/industry/ecommerce.aspx). It had been seen by 2016 e-commerce market had grown to US$ 200 billion from US$ 38.5 billion as of 2017. The reason is that increasing rate of different factors like smartphone penetration, interested and involvement in social media sites, increasing rate of new online startups, product penetration, expanding the internet users, etc. The digital transformation rate in our country is growing at exponential rate with number of internet user darted to about 560 million by 2021.

Handicraft Market

As we know that the concept of Marketing which mixed up of science and art of determining, generating and bringing worth to gratify the requirements of the target gallery to profit-making. It does recognize the frustrated needs and desires. There is another important marketing sector which is handicraft from the Indian Context. Handicraft sector creates new thing, generates new idea, encourage to start-up entrepreneur for setting up their business, making different type of crafts products for generating new business which helps Indian Economy.

Armstrong and Kotler, 2010, said the marketing deals with customers for building the customer relationship based on their value and satisfaction. Now the rural producers are stressed for their own products and amenities to enter the market for selling and promoting their products from local to national to global market. Artisans are fully depended on the middleman to collect the raw materials, revenue collection and finished products because of the scarcity and inexperience. The achievements of handicrafts depend on various innovative products and define the market with the help of tests and preferences of customers. Many of the artisans face some problem like transporting problem, low cost of the hand made products, lack of access materials, different equipment’s, shortage of skilled labour, infrastructure problem, policy uncertainty, income tax and one of the major problems is promoting their products. And as consequence business producers are not getting proper revenue. As reported by Assocham: It is forecast that demand of the handicrafts product into the international market is so high and their economic growth is increasing stage which is from 17,000 crores to 24,000 crores by FY2020–2021. Some of the major states with significant number of cluster like Odisha, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Gujrat are very popular area in India for handicraft product making.

Ecommerce Options for Handicraft Industry

Now coming to the Indian Handicraft industry through online process, it gives the impression that Indian handicraft industry is one of the prominent industries in the world. But there is no such prominent product from the handicraft community which is available on online portal. A number of e-commerce firms such as gaatha.com, craftsvilla.com, naaptol.com, Flipkart.com, Amazon.com and okhai.com have now taken it upon themselves to market India’s innumerable handicraft items to the world at large. ‘Gaatha’ is among one such leading handicraft selling website. They believe that their only focus points are not their customers alone, and they focus on the pairing of the craftsperson and the customer. Few of them from the handicraft marketer has stared their business like ‘Madhusree Textile’ selling their power loom saree through Flipkart and Amazon. They meet every single artisan with whom they work. Not only a single meeting but they stay with them and understand their work and way of life. ‘Gaatha’ and many such websites initiate the improvement of artisans in directive to recover their societal and monetary illness coming to Indian handicraft market and its presence on online retail platforms. We do not see any common craft products online, while India is one of the world’s leading craft suppliers. India is one of 50 countries’ best markets for handicraft supplying goods in rural and urban areas.

In such conditions, modern marketing techniques such as e-commerce in the handicrafts sector can be an asset to artisans as they can compete in today’s fiercely competitive and complex business environment. It will also give Indian artisans an extra edge among other countries. In this sector, artisans make a product from purchase raw material to finished goods with their full skills, labour worth ₹100 and the time of product delivery at amount for ₹110–120. After making the product, goods are sold through numerous coatings of businessmen until it reaches to retailers and distributors at about ₹160–180. In such case, the price of the final good to be delivered is about ₹250–300. As a result, through this supply chain system, the inefficient intermediaries obtain a margin of 150–200 per cent. However, manufacturer is getting only 10–20 per cent profit margins.

Some of the portals like craftsroot.com and flipkart.com have created new openings for artisans, as they have already opened another door for luxury products but simultaneously product accessibility and availability on online has only enhanced for the art expertise. This is the strategy that also helps in the international market for selling their products. According to Sarkar et al. (2018), the e-commerce infrastructures and internet-based advertisings create an optimistic word of mouth about the brands and the products under the brands. Deshwal (2016) wrote a paper on the topic about the impact of online advertising on consumer behaviour and, from his study, concluded that ‘World Wide Web’ (WWW) is increasingly a great advertising tool with increased online advertising and social media use. Antum Bilos, PhD, Ivan Ruzic, PhD, and Ivan Kelic in their article about the effectiveness of Online and Offline media related to Communication purpose (published in June 2014) stated benefit of online advertisement. According to contemporary literature (Eshghi et al., 2017; Sarkar, 2014) brand reputation plays a mediating role to increase the cognizance about the product. Bhagat and Sambargi (2019) examine the entrepreneurs’ perspective on initiation, acceptance, adoption decision and implementation of digital marketing for their enterprise. Leung and Cossu (2019) implemented an empirical survey on South East Asian nations like Thailand and Taiwan country on the framework of digital entrepreneurship in East Asia. Through digital entrepreneurship, a new class of creative workers has been created who advocate for free shops and distinctiveness. The digital entrepreneurship provides cheaper marketing strategy with higher promotional outcomes.

Our government is not far behind; The Vice-chairman of Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH), Mr Rajesh Kumar have rightly indicated about the necessity of e-commerce portals for the development of handicraft Industry. Mr Rajesh also suggested that our handicraft products offer huge openings and opportunities for international and national market. The industry experts said after embedding the e-commerce in handicraft industry sale is increasing day by day and a lot of new start-ups is generating.

Research Gap

After completion of a detailed literature survey, it has been learnt that there is a direct co-relation between factors concerned with subject study are undermentioned:

Customer awareness towards a product is directly co-related with online advertisement for particular product.

Increment in total sales volume of a product is co-related to customer awareness towards that product. A field survey through face to face interview has been carried out by the researcher in areas wherever handicraft/handloom products are produced and the following points were learnt:

The handicraft/handloom products are lacking in sales promotions/advertisements.

Wide area customer awareness is very poor due to under sale promotions/advertisements.

The market of handicraft product in West Bengal is declining day by day mainly due to sale promotion/advertisement and customer awareness.

Hence, it is evident from the above that the handicraft/handloom market of West Bengal is declining day by day which requires detailed study to identify major causes of decline, that is, sales promotions/online advertisements/online markets and customer awareness. This study will not only help to suggest possible measures to be taken to revive, but also contribute towards the development of artisans, society and state and after all nation’s economy as a whole.

Scope of the Study

The research is an empirical approach in extracting the consumer’s perception about the up-gradation of handicraft industry in West Bengal. The study will excavate the public opinion selected through research protocol in upgrading the handicraft industry of West Bengal. The market position of the handicraft industry can be evaluated with concurrent transition from the market space to marketplace. The transition of market space to marketplace can be hailed towards global platforms through the knowledge of the public perspectives.

Objectives

Based on the research gap the specific objectives have been framed:

To indicate customer awareness, an indicative factor for increasing sales of handicraft/handloom goods.

To find out the ways to convert non-buying online customers of handicraft to buying customer.

Hypotheses

H1(1): Web-based advertisements of handicraft product is a significant indicator to promote consumer awareness.

H1(2): Online shopping portals do acts as mediating platform for converting the non-buyer into a prospective consumer of handicraft products.

Research Methodology

The research gap is revealed by co-relating conclusions/suggestions from previous research papers relating to this subject proposal and persisting market system in the sectors of handicraft/handloom in West Bengal, India. In order to validate the questionnaire, the interview has been conducted with the maintained protocol of the Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and interview. The dichotomous questionnaire has been distributed to a selected number of respondents in order to extract the latent variable.

Most of the related variables were taken from literature and were added possible variables after discussion through an expert who is working in this community. The questionnaire has been distributed to those respondents who have well-acquainted experience of purchase of handicraft and handloom products through online shopping. The research paper is the descriptive one through which transition in society due to up-gradation and increased exposure of handicraft industry will be deeply studied.

Data Collection

Here, our research model has been recognized through the help of together primary and secondary data. Samples are drawn randomly from peer group from smart city Kolkata under West Bengal. One hundred respondents were finally collected out of 115 questionnaires distributed for this investigation. The data is refined and proportionally put into statistical ‘Z’ analysis. The analysis through ‘Z’ analysis is conducted in the case when two population means are different and amount of population in respective study area is large. The value of variance is also unknown in such a case.

Research Question

For this investigation, open-ended dichotomous questionnaire has been made. The study was established to excavate the question of how e-commerce and innovative strategies have directed to explore the handicraft industry.

Formulation of Hypothesis 1: Web-based advertisements of handicraft product is a significant indicator to promote consumer awareness.

Handicraft e-commerce is evolving steadily in India, with many entrepreneurs and start-ups launching the businesses of traditional Indian arts through digital infrastructure which is changing the basic socio-economic condition of Handicraft Artisans. The power of e-tailing of crafts owes to the culmination of growing awareness about customer preference and mandate preferences for handicraft products attached to young craftsmen with substantial feast of expertise and brashness of e-commerce. Positive artisans’ attitudes towards governmental and non-governmental organization ads and intermediary eradication help artisans adjust to market orientations resulting in low-cost production and profit enhancement (Ansari, 2014). Due to the much de-centralized state of handicraft sector in India, e-tailing of handicraft is necessary as it has vast untapped potential as it makes available the exquisite products in the reach of the customers in different geographies. (Mukherjee, 2011). Although the internet continues to create opportunities for retail entrepreneurs, conventional artisanal retailers now use it mainly as a platform to supplement their store and catalogue offerings, boost their sales and add value to their customers (Kumari & Srivastava, 2016). Raghuvanesh (2007) based on rural artisans in need of help in the global period of marketing. The author believes it will promote the cognizance of handicraft products to global market through organized way. It is a well-known fact that an enterprise will benefit from transparency, scope and productivity improvement, e-commerce and internet technologies. SMEs embrace e-commerce to promote the buying rate of their products (Abell & Limm, 1996), to advertise globally (Quayle, 2005), to connect with new consumers and to penetrate in unexplored market zone (Ritchie & Brindley, 2001; Vescovi, 2000), and to optimize productivity (Tetteh & Burn, 2001). Shah and Patel, 2010, are also of the opinion that the lack of adequate structure and tools, lack of knowledge of modern designs and newest inclinations and fashions affects the artisans’ overall adaptation to e-tailing of crafts. The authors’ state that factors such as lack of adequate infrastructure and devices, inability to comprehend technological innovations and related up-gradations contributes to limited adoption of e-commerce for handicrafts. The authors further emphasize that e-commerce helps to reach a wider consumer base that helps in domestic and international markets to increase interest and demand for handicraft products. The literature so far extracted have indicated that technology-based infrastructure mediates the growth of Handicraft industry. But the contribution of advertisements and publicity through digital contributions has not been evaluated so far. In lieu of such a situation, it is very much necessary to evaluate the contribution of web-based advertisements to enhance consumer awareness. Hence following hypothesis have been formulated as:

Hypothesis 1:

H1(1): Web-based advertisements of handicraft product is a significant indicator to promote consumer awareness.

Further, it is hypothesized that 60 per cent of population has given their perceived opinion that online advertisement can act as a catalyst for increasing awareness of the consumer. The table compiled below will indicate about the inputs given by the respondents for this section of hypothesis:

Total sample size	S	100
Total number of online customer opined that web-based advertisements of handicraft product are a significant indicator to promote consumer awareness.	P₀	89
Proportion	P₀	0.89
As it is Hypothesized that 60% of population opined that web-based advertisements of handicraft product is a significant indicator to promote consumer awareness.	µ₀	0.56

Formula of statistical ‘Z’ analysis is undermentioned:

Z = p 0 - μ 0 / (σ for p 0)

where $σ for P 0 = \sqrt (\frac{p 0 q 0}{S})$ and $q 0 = 1 - p 0$

After the calculation, the value of Z is indicated to be 6.087. According to the statistical protocols, the 5 per cent level of significance has been taken into consideration. Through this statistical implication, the value of Z has been restricted within 1.695. Thus, the value obtained falls within the region of rejection. Thus the null hypothesis 1 is rejected which is clarifying the proposition that web-based advertisements of handicraft product are a significant indicator to promote consumer awareness.

Formulation of Hypothesis 2: Online shopping portals do acts as mediating platform for converting the non-buyer into a prospective consumer of handicraft products.

Sellitto and Martin (2003) reiterate that internet and e-commerce have become extremely significant enabling the use of technology by businesses. The rapid growth of the internet has helped small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to become more competitive in global markets (Schmid et al., 2001). Based on Hinson’s (2004) SME Internet Profit Model, it notes that internet and e-commerce are beneficial to Non-Traditional Exporters (NTEs). Global research about e-commerce in l developing nations, such as South Africa, China, India, Sri Lanka and Singapore, shows that SMEs have been slower in adopting e-commerce, but the adoption of internet usage in SMEs have grown as compared to previous usage rate. This indicates the barriers faced by the SMEs to adopt e-commerce infrastructure (Marshall et al., 2000). The improved use of the internet and e-commerce for export purpose enables SMEs to bypass the traditional strides of the value chain as it eradicates all geographical restrictions, allows instant establishment and access to virtual branches, and allows direct and immediate customer interaction and purchasing. To add substance to the fact, customers hardly care about

Supplier’s remoteness from the market area and size of merchandize given top-notch merchandize are circulated remotely at sensible costs.

As discussed by Shah and Patel, 2010, the significant benefit that the internet provides for a company is its global reach that enables small and medium-sized businesses to realize the goal of extending their market beyond regional borders and interacting with local client segments.

Members in web-based business have presented sites that offer an assortment of merchandize to Indian buyers. The principle advantage is that the internet permits an association to play out its business at a generally ease, and the business operations and service delivery expenses can be essentially limited by utilizing the web. It fundamentally supports more prominent presentation as clients are bound to try different things with better approaches for retail shopping and progressively enabled to look for and buy items on the web. Web infiltration, decreased 4G telephone rates and the far-reaching utilization of broadband make shopping on the web helpful for purchasers. E-following offers enormous and undiscovered zones for the organizations as well as indigenous neighbourhood craftsman, as indicated by Aitha (2012). By offering a global marketplace it has changed the way business is conducted and transacted. E-commerce provides the domestically manufactured goods a broad marketing network. On the other hand, few literary works have opined that activities and endeavours by governments, adoption of e-commerce by SMEs still lies in its early stage and distant from its replacements, for example, huge organizations (Chiliya et al., 2011). But there is a dearth of extant views which can quantify about the conversion of non-buyer into potential buyer of handicraft products. Considering such consistency, the following hypothesis has been detailed.

Hypothesis 2:

H2(2): Online shopping portals do acts as mediating platform for converting the non-buyer into a prospective consumer of handicraft products.

It has been hypothesized that 60 per cent of population has given opined that online shopping portals do acts as mediating platform for converting the non-buyer into a prospective consumer of handicraft products. The table given below has compiled the perceived opinion given by the respondents:

Total sample size	S	100
Total number of respondents opined that online shopping portals act as mediating platform for converting the non-buyer into a prospective consumer of handicraft products.	P₀	90
Proportion	P₀	0.90
As it is hypothesized that 60% of population opined that online shopping portals act as mediating platform for converting the non-buyer into a prospective consumer of handicraft products.	µ₀	0.66

Formula of statistical ‘Z’ analysis is undermentioned:

Z = p 0 - µ 0 / (σ for p 0)

where $σ for p 0 = \sqrt (\frac{p 0 q 0}{S})$ and $q 0 = 1 - p 0$

The value of Z considered for this factor is value of 4.624. Post-application of 5 per cent level of significance has restricted the value of Z within 1.695. Thus the value falls within the rejection area. Thus null hypothesis 2 is rejected and the proposition that online shopping portals do acts as mediating platform for converting the non-buyer into a prospective consumer of handicraft products can be validated.

Discussions and Conclusions

Theoretical Contributions

The study imperatively suggests the need for the marketing and sales of the handicraft goods to be digitized. The scope of the marketing and distribution cycle of the handicraft goods has a major effect on improving the handicraft industry. As the study indicated, respondents bent their positivisms and the social constructivism validated well. The intrinsic cognizance of the social constructivism has well apprehended through ‘Z’ analysis which has spearheaded for the digitalization of the handicraft products. There is a dearth of research-based evidence that can estimate or evaluate the role of web-based advertisements in enhancing consumer awareness. In such circumstances, this study will be a value addition to existing literature aimed to research consumer behaviour. The extricated findings have decreased the information crevice within its framework by exploring the commitment of e-commerce infrastructures on craftsmanship industry (Figure 5).

Figure 5.

Source: Authors own and complied by them after reading all literatures.

Managerial Implications for Inclusive Development

The study is unique in its nature in excavating the latent variables to leverage the handicraft industry. The implied findings can be utilized to embroider the design strategy for the handicraft market. The cognition that has probed to find the affinity of the handicraft market is eventually necessary to elements of marketing design. The implied fact will also advocate for the policy level changes which will bring the changes in the ground level through macro perspective. In lieu of this fact, the growth of the handicraft industry can be exponentially darted through rural growth clusters which are also known as the ‘RURBAN’ centres. This fact can be a boosting factor for the development of rural entrepreneurship. Thus, the findings of this study will be a breakthrough to balance the fulcrum for the agenda of rural development inclusively. The rural consumption pattern though has declined through this quarter of 2018–2019, the research outcomes can be a resource of informed decision making for the rural entrepreneurship. The findings have multidimensional implications that are not limited to entrepreneurial implications only. The development of RURBAN growth clusters has implicated for the social changes with the managerial front end. The development of growth clusters can be positively rippled to increase the employment rate.

Limitation and Scope of Future Research

This qualitative and quantitative-based research has been surveyed on the online handicraft buyer of the smart city, Kolkata only. In future, the research can be expanded to other parts of West Bengal in order to have better cognition and construct about the other districts of West Bengal. This will help in assessing the public perspectives in more holistic way. In future perspective, the implications of this research can be utilized to build a strong marketing design for the constructive seeding of the handicraft industry in the indigenous as well as global domain.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Seacom Skills University officials in Bolpur, West Bengal for providing this support and both administrative and technical assistance. Seacom Skills University Bolpur, West Bengal supported this work from the beginning. We would like to thank Professors from Amity University Patna and also Vice-Chancellor and Pro. Vice-Chancellor of Amity University, Patna for providing guidance when carrying out this research work. We would also like to give gratitude to our family members and also the artisans of Handicraft Industry, West Bengal who have adopted the e-commerce in their own start-up (Handicraft Business) for grant success.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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