Last financial year, the wedding of a Coimbatore-based industrialist’s daughter brought orders for 1,300 Thanjavur art plates to Poompuar.
“We got this order despite competition from Corporate companies,” says Poompuhar’s Coimbatore outlet manager R. Narendra Bose.
The company wanted to buy gift articles that were traditional Tamil Nadu art pieces and will directly benefit artisans.
The bulk order also gave a boost to the total sales of Poompuhar in Coimbatore last year - turnover of Rs. 2.30 crore in 2014-2015 went up to Rs. 3.15 crore last year.
Poompuhar - Coimbatore, which organised two outdoor sales and several indoor special sales (within the showroom), saw tremendous response for both. Thematic exhibition-cum-sales are organised during the festival season and, “We sold goods worth Rs. 85 lakh to Rs. 90 lakh,” the manager said.
This year, too, the focus will be on indoor sales and on bulk orders, where customers want to buy handicrafts for gifting purpose in large numbers.
The organisation will also look at organising exhibitions in smaller towns in the district. It used to conduct two or three expos in Pollachi earlier. However, as the response was not encouraging and artisans who took part in these exhibitions were not showing much interest, it was dropped. “We can still look at other towns,” he said.
On benefits to the artisans, Mr. Bose said they get to interact directly with customers during expos held during Navarathri, etc. This helps the artisans plan products for the next season. Otherwise, most of them hand over their products to the organisation for sales throughout the year.
“We are encouraging more events where the artisans are able to interact with customers directly,” he said. When there are exhibitions supported by the Central Government, the artisans get financial assistance to put up stalls, accommodation, etc and they benefit even if the sales is not high.
Now, after a gap of three months, when exhibitions were not organised because of Assembly elections in the State, a wedding gifts expo is on now and another one will be organised shortly for non-residential Indians.
A large number of NRIs come to the city during their summer vacation and they prefer taking back Indian art and craft pieces. So, there will be an exhibition for them soon, he said.
