City's flea markets go online

While many miss the camaraderie and the experience of flea markets, they agree online initiatives help small businesses

Aditi Nair, artist, recently conducted a workshop on creative makeup at an online flea market.

Flea markets have been a city favourite for a long time now. For small business owners, these have been a great way to grow. However, with the pandemic everyone moving to online shopping and competing with big players, it’s become a challenge. To combat this, many owners have taken to curating online flea markets.

Online flea market culture is not new to India. In 2016, Yappily, a social networking platform, tried it out. They shut shop in 2017 as it was not profitable. However, the general opinion about it now has changed for the better.

Platform For Artists, a community organisation that aims to support artistes in the country, started hosting UNSEEN. The plan was to bring to action the ideas of #VocalforLocal, #SupportSmallBusiness and #ArtistsSupportingArtists. “We realised it was going to be a while before we could back to physical spaces. So, we decided to start a support campaign to bring small business owners together,” says Pawan Rochwani, founder.

Minimalistic setup

They decided to keep it extremely minimalistic and focus on curating businesses, providing a platform and promoting them. “Creating a 3D or VR experience would take a lot of bandwidth and cost. We didn’t want to wait around until that could be a reality,” explains Pawan. They organised the first edition of UNSEEN in August. At the beginning of this month, they conducted the fourth edition of the flea market.

Around 50 artistes and businesses have participated.

Fashion, desk accessories, home decor and beauty products have been the top sellers.

For the non-tech savvy

Mamtha Pillai curated the Trivandrum Flea Market via Facebook in July. Flea markets aren’t popular in Thiruvananthapuram, but the online model has changed that. “Many entrepreneurs would set up stalls during exhibitions and other events. This was a major source of revenue, especially during the festive season,” says Mamtha.

All events were cancelled this year, and business owners who had planned ahead were left in a lurch. “Eighty per cent of them were not on social media. They didn’t have a customer base strong enough to sustain. The platform helped a lot. Most of the businesses saw maximum sales around Onam,” she says. They curate the market on Facebook, which requires very little technical support.

Even then technology has been a hindrance. “Not everyone knows how to use social media. Even if vendors are well-versed, we need customers to be so, as well. However, thanks to the lockdown, many have been learning and this has proven to help,” she says.

Offline vs online

The members of Cooke Town Community Facebook group have been organising the Cooke Town Community online flea market throughout the pandemic. The next flea market will be held from December 5 to 13, and will focus on Christmas-themed goodies. “In an area like Cooke Town, more than enjoying some retail therapy, people enjoy meeting each other and the general sense of bonhomie,” says Kiran Castelino, curator.

However, the online version is not without benefits. “For small business owners, this gives them an opportunity to take their product to the market. For example, a home chef can take orders in advance and cook exact quantities. Whereas, in a physical market, the risk of something not getting sold always exists,” says Kiran.

Aditi Nair, artist, recently conducted a creative makeup workshop as part of the OliveCloud online flea market. She says that her experience was much better than what she expected.

“When we sign up, we are asked to put down the number of people you would like to attend and I wrote down 20. Around 60 people ended up showing up,” she says. She noticed that there was a wider demographic of people who attended her session.

“We weren’t confined to a locality, this allowed people to gain a customer base across the country and even abroad,” says Aditi. Mamtha agrees and says that while they started out with vendors in Thiruvananthapuram, the growing demand and interest made them expand to the whole of Kerala. They have been receiving many orders from customers abroad, who wish to gift their loved ones in India.

“All the vendors shared each other’s profile and event. This helped each of us reach out to a larger audience,” adds Aditi. This type of collaboration is also what Platform for Artists hopes to create.

Authenticity factor

Vendors and customers need to do their due diligence before investing. Checking out the platform, seeing their history of work and reviews is the most reliable way of determining this. Follower numbers should not be the main criteria.

“In offline markets, usually, the owner can be found in the stall. You can chat with them and get a sense of the brand. Here, consumers have to do their own research,” says Aditi.

Cost factor

In a physical set up, a lot of expenditure in terms of space and infrastructure is involved. Businesses have to pay a rental fee, anywhere between Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 to set up a stall. These costs are avoided in the online space. Most platforms allow vendors to use the platform for free.

“For startups, this is a great opportunity. Its no investment making it a risk-free step,” says Aditi. She hopes that even when things revert to normal the offline platforms continue to exist.

However, in the long run, Pawan believes that these sites would ask for a fee, albeit significantly lower than what is asked at the physical flea markets.

“If we want to teach the sentiment of supporting the artists we have to support the curators and communities,” says Pawan.