Local craftsmen, handcrafts makers and independent publishers of books, comics and music have rallied around the Craftery platform to work together to build an alternative to today’s mass-produced industrial products, according to a news release.
Instead of changing their production method and trying to enter big distribution chains, the affiliate manufacturers decided to create their own “virtual craft store” where, in the company of those who share their values, they would offer their products and communicate with customers who understand the importance of being and the survival of such an authentic production scene in Serbia.
After numerous countries around the world where similar platforms have proven to be successful and necessary in the market, Serbia has finally got a different and more exciting place to shop – a virtual department store for unique, carefully created products that are more exclusive, better quality and healthier than those offered by mass production.
Now that manufacturers are assembled and products are broken down into categories, customers have the opportunity to “one-click” contribute to a positive change and support the return of a “human character economy”, knowing that the money they spend on buying a product goes to the person who made the product, and not the corporations whose product lines are most often employed by poorly paid workers, in inhumane conditions.
Craftery’s proponents Aleksandar Scepanovic, Ivan Gacesa and Milica Stankovic Scepanovic, who were awarded this idea in 2018 at the “National Green Ideas Forum”, point out that there are currently over 800 products on the site and state that this is just the beginning of their fight. They work to bring together all the relevant domestic producers by the end of the year, and then to sell their products to the foreign market, Nova Ekonomija reports.
