For NetChoice’s Seller Stories project, I have the privilege of speaking with small business owners that sell products and services through e-commerce marketplaces. One of those innovative companies is Avacraft, founded by Vivek and Asha Kangralkar, a husband and wife based out of Texas. They spoke with me about how Asha’s passion inspired their business and how they are concerned about policy discussions to undermine the incredible services that these online marketplaces offer them.
Asha is an engineer who loves to cook, and she kept getting frustrated by the problems she’d experienced with various kitchenware products. She would try to contact the companies that designed the products for help, but she’d get unsatisfactory answers—or no answers at all.
After raising their two daughters, Asha didn’t want to go back to a corporate life. One day, she told Vivek that maybe it was time to design their own cookware.
“One day I told Vivek…can I just design my own cookware and get it manufactured. And then I can use it at home and we can sell some on the side. He was like, ‘Yeah, why don’t you try that, that’s a good idea. Let’s do it,’” Asha told Krista.
“She really used to get frustrated. Sometimes, the cookware manufacturer that we bought, they would respond pretty standardly that ‘We have received your inquiry, visit here or visit that link,’ or sometimes, we’d never get answers. So that’s how it was. And that was a strong ‘why’ behind Avacraft,” Vivek told Krista.
After that conversation, Asha and Vivek worked for months to determine the best way to design Avacraft’s cookware. Both of them used their education as engineers to learn about the metallurgy that usual cookware is based on.
Asha used her experience as a customer to review the most common frustrations that people have with pots and pans. Then, they found the right manufacturer for their small business and got to work on the design.
“One of the major challenges was that we are both electrical engineers and cookware is a completely different metallurgy, so we sat and actually read and studied…it took us almost 6 months to find the right manufacturer,” Vivek told Krista.
Asha and Vivek chose to begin selling on e-commerce marketplaces because of the convenience these services provided as well as the struggle to get traction on their own website while only having a few customer reviews, either organically or through advertising. Once they joined, they were able to focus on what they were passionate about—creating useful kitchenware and taking care of their customers with their direct and speedy approach to customer service—while e-commerce marketplaces could assist them with the rest.
“Our strength is designing, getting it manufactured and giving the customer service, but the rest of the stuff that Amazon prepared like shipping and storage and so many other things, [this service for businesses] was a…huge success to Avacraft,” Asha told Krista.
Asha and Vivek wanted to spend most of their time closely focused on the needs of their customers. When they receive a customer inquiry, Asha and Vivek have a goal of responding within two to three minutes.
“We wanted to make sure that [we responded] before the customer can put the computer or the phone aside. Our response needs to be there…It’s a true human response and that response needs to have the reason and the answer for [the customer’s] exact question,” Asha told Krista.
This customer focus and close attention to feedback have helped them discover ideas for new products.
“We get a lot of requests from customers that say, ‘Hey, can you add this type of product? Because I really don’t like what’s on the market,’ and if you see our product portfolio, I would say at least 50% of them are based on the feedback…then we just look at that, and ask what is a customer’s issue, find exactly what, and then we buy some of the products which are available and study them…And then we work on addressing that issue.”
But without e-commerce marketplaces, Asha and Vivek wouldn’t have seen such success with Avacraft. Asha enjoys the flexibility of working from home, and they wouldn’t have been able to reach so many different customers around the world or be laser-focused on the needs of their customers if they had to use the more traditional methods of opening a physical store or working with a big box retailer. The internet, and the way consumers shop online, allowed Avacraft to become a thriving, family owned and operated American business.
“Why we started Avacraft, we should be able to help customers when they ask any questions. So, if we go and keep our products in brick and mortar stores, that’s a disconnect. They are selling [the products] but are not able to reach directly to manufacturers. And if [customers] have any problems, they’ll just go return it. So, there is no way that [we can understand] what was wrong with that product, which I could have solved…” Asha told Krista.
“Keeping our products in brick and mortar [doesn’t] reach many consumers, it just limits the location,” Asha told Krista.
“It’s actually way complicated for a small business like us and especially when you’re just starting…there is a lot of complication, when a consumer enters every brick and mortar and [a business] wants [their products] to be on this shelf because everybody can see it. You have to pay more for it. It’s all those things. And then, like Asha just said, the foot traffic in any store is very limited,” Vivek told Krista.
Asha and Vivek are deeply concerned about various efforts to undermine online commerce from some policymakers. They expressed that such proposals would likely cause “detrimental effects” on Avacraft, and it may even “cease to exist.”
“[It] will be a disaster for us…I think it will definitely have a detrimental impact on our craft. It will just cease to exist. That’s how I see it right now, not sugar coating it here because I think the online platforms, whether the legislation side of it likes it or not for whatever reason, it’s a very natural growth in why the natural is because of the penetration of the internet…So There’s no logical sense in it. It’s just made so much easier for people. and really mom and pop types of businesses, now than it used to be in a brick and mortar…It basically means our income goes to zero,” both Vivek and Asha told Krista.
Asha and Vivek emphasized how the internet has changed the world—including how people shop and buy things. People now enjoy the services and conveniences that online shopping brings them, and they don’t want to lose that.
What’s more, many new businesses like Avacraft have been able to spring up due to the flexibility and low barriers to entry of such work. Both physical and online retail must be allowed to grow and thrive without unnecessary red tape, and policymakers need to be speaking more with people like them—the very families that will lose their livelihoods if such proposals are implemented.
“We are a mom and pop shop; it’s a small business…it’s just that instead of being in a brick and mortar at one place, it’s online. That’s the only difference, and it makes business sense because people have phones always and they order from their phone instead of just driving and going to the store. So it’s a more natural progression. Taking an action against things like that is only going to kill the livelihood of a lot of businesses,” Vivek told Krista.
“I would say that they have to listen to sellers like us, or the families like us…Just because we’re selling online, it’s not that people are not working very hard on this as well. [This would] just take away a lot of jobs…I think it’s a disaster. If you look at how online purchases are increasing day by day, that just shows the sheer amount of job losses that these ideas would create,” both Vivek and Asha told Krista.
Avacraft’s story exemplifies the incredible power of e-commerce for small businesses and entrepreneurs. Asha and Vivek Kangralkar’s journey from frustrated customers to successful business owners highlights how online marketplaces have democratized retail, allowing passionate individuals to bring innovative products directly to consumers worldwide.
Asha and Vivek’s emphasis on customer service, product quality and adaptability has been key to their success. However, their concerns about potential regulatory action that could hinder online commerce underscore the pressing need for policymakers to consider the real-world impact on people.
It’s critical that policymakers speak with families like Asha and Vivek’s and support the innovative spirit and economic opportunities that e-commerce provides for countless Americans.