Kaari
A marketplace where artisans set their own price and run their shop on WhatsApp.
- 👤Role
- Co-founder. Product and research; I'd spent two months with Kalamkari artisans in Srikalahasti before this
- 👥Team
- Niveditha R, Nirenjana R (NIFT), Viney Jain
- 🗓When
- March 2026
- ●Status
- Prototype
- 🔗Links
- kaaristore.com ↗ · WhatsApp demo ↗
The problem
An artisan usually gets a small share of what their work finally sells for, and very few sell online. Language, shipping and paperwork get in the way of selling to strangers.
If he is struggling, what chance does an ordinary artisan in a village have?— From our business plan
What we noticed
What we built
Two sides, each in the form that suits it. Artisans run everything on WhatsApp, in their own language. Buyers shop on a proper website. Local cluster heads help with quality checks and shipping.
How it works
Join and list on WhatsApp
The artisan picks a language first, from eight. Everything after that is in that language: sign-up, then listing a product by sending photos, a price and a few details. No app to download.
Buyers see who made it
Every product on the store shows the artisan and their village, not just the craft.
Every product leads back to the artisan
A product page links to the artisan's profile, so they become creators, not anonymous suppliers.
Orders come back to WhatsApp
The artisan gets the order on WhatsApp, prints the shipping label on a small Bluetooth printer, and the money reaches their bank account when delivery is confirmed.
Where it is now
Kaari is a working prototype from a college hackathon: a storefront, a WhatsApp onboarding demo, cluster-head and admin panels, and a business plan. The products in the prototype are sample listings.
What I'd do next
- Test the WhatsApp flow with ten real artisans and time how long a first listing takes.
- Get the first 100 orders from people who already know these crafts, before spending on ads.
- Show the full price split on every product page of the live store, since it's the whole idea.