As tourist flow stops, Bali’s craftsmen struggle to market their work online
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As tourist period stops, Bali'due south craftsmen struggle to market their piece of work online
An artisan carving a door in Kedisan village, Bali, Indonesia. (Photo: Nivell Rayda)
BALI: It had been weeks since a client last stepped inside Safira Klau Gallery, a pocket-size art and article of furniture shop in the Kerobokan surface area of Bali, Indonesia.
The surface area used to be buzzing with tourists and interior designers from all over the world looking to refurbish their apartments, houses and villas, or to buy statues and small ornaments to decorate their homes.
But since the pandemic, the area resembled a ghost town with very few cars passing the small-scale, winding road, allow alone stopping to shop.
Gallery owner Vincen Klau said last twelvemonth he could make a gross income of betwixt 40 million rupiah and seventy million rupiah (US$2,669 and US$4,670) a month selling chairs, dining tables, wall decorations and minor statuettes - carved in the rustic and abstract mode of Eastern Indonesian wood art.
"At present, information technology is quieter than my tranquillity months," he told CNA.
Klau said he would count himself lucky if he could get fifteen million rupiah a month, which is barely enough to pay hire for his store and house, salary for his employee and various bills.
The shop is clogged of artworks he has non been able to sell in months, collecting dust and occupying most every inch of the tiny holding, down to the shop's parking space.
Some of his unsold pieces, he said, were supposed to exist for a buyer from Coffee who had abruptly cancelled his social club.
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"My main clients are people who are building or renovating their villas. At present, all construction and renovation projects have stopped," he said.
Beyond Kerobokan, many galleries that could not afford to pay the bills had to shut their doors temporarily and Klau worried that his shop could be next.
Not wanting his store to become bust, Klau - a short, muscular man in his fifties who until recently did not have an email address - started the gallery's Instagram account in late June.
But due to his unfamiliarity with the world of social media, his business relationship has only attracted five followers as of mid-September.
The account was barely maintained with the latest postal service dating back to Jun 24 and the majority of the photos were amateurishly shot, depicting a cluster of random pieces with no articulate focal point.
Nearly all of the posts had no explanation and when they did, the captions merely read "mask" or "Timorese statuettes".
Klau said that he does not empathise how social media works. As a result, at that place has not been many curious potential customers liking or leaving a comment on his Instagram posts, let solitary expressing interests in buying.
The gallery owner is not the only one struggling with online marketing in Bali. Likewise used to walk-ins, the craftsmen find their source of income drying up in recent months.
The resort isle, which economic system is almost entirely reliant on tourism, has seen 59 per cent driblet in the number of tourists in the first one-half of the year, according to the Indonesian Statistics Bureau.
When the pandemic hit Indonesia in March, the number of new tourists arriving to Bali was reduced to almost zilch.
It rebounded when Bali eased restrictions for domestic tourists on Jun 31 but the number of arrivals in July was a mere 11 per cent compared to the same period last yr.
With the central government suspending its visa-free and visa-on-arrival policies for international travellers, businesses such every bit craft workshops that cater mainly to foreigners accept the worst hitting.
CHALLENGES Abound
Many of the artisans who are reluctant to sell online are held dorsum by their lack of exposure to technology and social media.
"I don't understand technology," said Made Ariani.
For the terminal 15 years, she has been selling wooden boxes and souvenirs at the Sukawati Fine art Market - a one-half-hour drive from provincial uppercase Denpasar.
"My children understand engineering improve than me, but they don't have the time to help me. My daughter is already working and my son is still besides little," she said.
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Ariani said her principal clients are souvenir shops in tourist areas like Kuta and Denpasar. Before the pandemic, they could gild up to 500 souvenirs from her in i transaction.
"But they take all closed," she said, adding that she now relies on the very few customers and locals who come to the art market.
Wayan Cedit, 37, also expressed lilliputian involvement in selling his wood craft online.
"I don't accept Wi-Fi," he told CNA with a laugh.
"(Selling online) is too complicated. Even my friends who do (sell online) said it is complicated."
Amidst his worries is dealing with fussy customers online.
"We sell handmade goods. We can't make two products which are exactly alike. Customers will be disappointed if they get a product which is different from the pictures. They will desire their money back. And that happened to my friends," he said.
"(Selling online) is just too difficult. It's not like dealing with existent people. Customers tin see and feel the products in person. Yous can't exercise that online."
Cedit said he used to make a gross income of lxx million to 100 1000000 rupiah a month and could employ up to 15 freelance workers at his workshop.
"Now, information technology's nearly null," he said, adding that his workshop had not produced anything in months and his freelance workers have now become farmers.
Of the 68,000 small- and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) registered in Bali, only a handful have social media accounts. "The percentage is very small," primary of the Bali Cooperative, Pocket-sized and Medium Enterprises Agency Wayan Mardiana told CNA.
The Bali government has trained a number of SMEs selling food and beverages to get online, with the aid of ride-hailing companies GoJek and Grab, but has not been able to practice the aforementioned for handicraft SMEs.
"Unlike food, their market is domestic and strange tourists, not local Balinese," he said.
"There are many artisans who are not familiar with engineering science. They are not familiar with social media. We accept to alter their mindsets and we are trying to come up with a grooming program and then they tin sell their goods online," Mardiana added.
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Power OF SOCIAL MEDIA
The challenges cited past the artisans were mainly just excuses, said a workshop owner who has tasted success in using Instagram to promote his work.
I Wayan Gede Mancanegara, who runs the Ganesha Fine art Gallery, said many of the business operators claimed they stay away from social media considering they exercise not want their work to be copied.
"Some said their Internet connection is non good. Only these are all excuses. They just don't want to larn new things," the 32-twelvemonth-old said.
His workshop in Kedisan village - a twenty-minute drive from the nearest town Ubud - is amid the few places that are even so busy working on woods fine art orders and commissions. The 4th generation artisan has diversified his product line to offer sleek and modern designs alongside traditional Balinese style forest arts.
On a contempo Fri, the workshop was abuzz with the sound of hammers and chisels as four workers carved a wooden sign for a cafe, an ornately decorated door and a statue of the mythical bird Garuda, the official symbol of Indonesia.
Lying on the flooring at one corner of the hilltop workshop was a presently-to-be finished proper name plate, intricately carved for a high-profile pol from Jakarta.
The shop has but been around for less than two years, merely it has already attracted the attending of President Joko Widodo, Bali governor I Wayan Koster and a number of loftier-ranking officials and politicians.
Information technology also attracted international clienteles, with orders coming in from the United states of america, Germany and Singapore.
Part of the reason for his success was his savviness to promote his work on Instagram, ready up equally presently every bit he opened his business.
"I felt that having a social media presence was essential. It is especially relevant during corona where everyone could not or would not leave or travel," he told CNA.
Mancanegara said he tried to upload at least one post or story a 24-hour interval to go on his 2,300 followers engaged.
He added that ninety per cent of his sales since the pandemic hitting tin exist attributed to his social media efforts. Before, 40 per cent of his income came from locals, tourists and expatriates visiting his workshop in person.
But that does non mean business has non slowed downwardly. A drop in walk-in customers and a devastated global economy that discourages people from spending on arts and crafts take caused his acquirement to drib past 30 to forty per cent.
CHANGING MINDSETS
Mancanegara is trying to convince artisans from his hamlet to at to the lowest degree try selling and promoting their work online.
"I told them,'There are no customers coming to our workshops now. Why don't yous promote your piece of work on social media? I got many orders from social media. Why don't you ask your kid to ready for y'all?'" he said.
He has helped three neighbouring workshops to set upwardly their ain social media accounts, besides sharing tips and tricks on how to become their audiences engaged.
"I also fix upwards a unlike (Instagram) business relationship for those who don't know how to start social media. Some don't have galleries of their own. Then I act every bit the account's administrator and promote their work," he said.
Only two people accept agreed to be featured at the collective account then far. "But I want all of the workshops in my hamlet to join so they tin realise the power of social media," Mancanegara said.
The potential accomplish of social media, for instance, should non exist underestimated, especially when 1 has quality goods to offer. "If you evangelize quality products they will guild more, recommend us to their friends or tag us on their ain social media accounts," he said.
Mancanegara is not afraid that the young man artisans could 1 mean solar day be his competitors.
"I want people in my hamlet to exist able to take some income. For every workshop that can stay afloat during this hard time, there will be a dozen artisans who can continue to be productive," he said.
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Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/asia/indonesia-bali-craftsmen-struggle-online-wood-furniture-covid-19-191976
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