Shoegaro Handcrafted Story
Shoegao handcrafted is a story in making, We are based at Agra very well known for Taj Mahal and its fine footwear. Footwear making is a centuries old profession of Agra and has been started in times of Emperor Akbar, but now due to heavy industrialization this skill of handmade shoe making is dying a slow death.
At Shoegaro we are working with footwear cluster industry or footwear artisan groups of Agra to empower them with new technology skills and availability of greater customer reach using eCommerce as the main tool. At Shoegaro.com's Shoegaro handcrafted initiative we have been imparting necessary advanced skills in shoe making to generational artisans to cope up with competition from fully mechanised manufacturing units and provide best shoes at best prices to customers. Few of the stories are given below where we have made some positive impact in bringing the artisans parallel to the mainstream industry.
Sahid has been a small artisan few years back working at other footwear factories in Agra we helped Sahid with latest designs raw material and some basic machinery to start making handmade men's sandals from his home. We then listed his products on various marketplaces and on shoegaro.com . His products got a huge response online and now Sahid is making around 400 to 500 pairs of sandals daily and has become self dependent and he is also giving employment to 5 other artisans at his factory.
Vijay's Story
Vijay belongs to an artisan family his fore fathers were also shoemakers and he has learned skill of shoe making from his elders in the family but due to extreme industrialisation of shoe industry Vijay and his family was barely making their ends meet by making and selling shoes because of lack of modern skills, dearth of ways to reach right buyers. When we met Vijay he was thinking of moving to some other industry as laborer. We helped Vijay in identifying trending designs in men's boots and sandals and gave him assurance of selling his products online now he has to go no where and have to only concentrate on shoe making and we sell his products online and share profits with him.
