This story is part of “How Tech Changed It” — The Better India’s series that looks at how technology has transformed the sectors, systems and everyday experiences around us. From how we travel and learn to how we farm, build, communicate and access healthcare, each story traces the journey from what it was like before to what it looks like today. Because technology isn’t just about new gadgets or breakthroughs — it can change how an entire sector works, making things faster, smarter, safer, more accessible and more efficient.
There was a time when finding something special meant walking through a crowded bazaar.
You knew which lane sold the best bangles, which shop had the freshest spices, or which potter made the prettiest diyas. A shopkeeper’s reputation travelled the old-fashioned way: through neighbours, family, passing customers and word of mouth.
For artisans and small sellers, the market was usually just as local. If you made embroidered bags in a village in Kutch or painted ceramics in Khurja, your customers were largely the people who came to the town, knew a trader or happened to find your products through an exhibition.
From physical markets to online storefronts, technology is helping small Indian sellers reach customers while preserving traditional ways of making. Photograph: (The Hindu and iStock)
Today, that same journey can end very differently.
A customer sitting thousands of kilometres away can discover an artisan on a website, browse their products, pay digitally and have the parcel delivered to their doorstep.
Technology has not necessarily replaced the bazaar. In many cases, it has stretched its walls far beyond the town it once served.
From village homes to a website
Pabiben Rabari’s journey offers a glimpse of what that transformation can look like.
Growing up in Kutch, Pabiben was surrounded by Rabari embroidery, a craft traditionally practised by women in the community. But when traditional wedding embroidery was restricted in the 1990s, the elaborate craft faced the possibility of fading away. Women began experimenting with ribbons, machine appliqué and trims, eventually developing a faster technique called Hari Jari.
Pabiben later turned the technique into something people outside Kutch could use: the now-recognisable Pabi Bag.
The important shift came when the craft moved from being something made within a community to something that could be built into a business. Pabiben launched Pabiben.com in 2015, creating an artisan-led enterprise that could connect handmade products from Kutch with wider markets. Today, the enterprise supports more than 300 women artisans.
Pabiben Rabari turned a traditional embroidery technique from Kutch into the Pabi Bag, helping take the craft from village homes to customers beyond the region. Photograph: (Divya Bhaskar)
And the website is no longer simply a digital visiting card. Pabiben.com has hundreds of products, lets customers shop by artisan, and brings crafts from Kutch directly to consumers.
The transformation is subtle but significant: the artisan no longer has to wait for the customer to arrive.
When the whole town becomes a marketplace
Khurja, in Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr district, tells a larger, town-sized version of the same story.
For more than 600 years, generations of potters here have worked with clay, glaze and hand-painted designs. The town eventually became known as India’s Ceramic City, with hundreds of units and factories producing everything from tableware and planters to tiles and industrial ceramics.
Earlier, much of this trade depended on physical markets, wholesalers and buyers travelling to or sourcing from Khurja.
Today, a customer does not necessarily need to know where Khurja is to buy its pottery.
Khurja’s centuries-old pottery tradition continues to be shaped by hand, but online marketplaces have opened a new route for its ceramics to reach buyers across India and abroad. Photograph: (Homegrown)
Online stores now list Khurja-made mugs, planters, bowls and dinner sets, allowing customers to discover and order them from home. The craft has also travelled beyond India, with Khurja ceramics reaching international markets.
Technology has therefore added a new layer to an old ecosystem. A potter can still shape a vessel by hand, an artisan can still stitch or paint as generations before them did, but the route to the customer has changed completely.
The bazaar now fits inside a phone
And it is not only individual artisans or established craft clusters benefiting from this shift.
Digital marketplaces are increasingly giving small businesses access to customers far beyond their usual catchment. Amazon, for instance, says more than 50,000 offline retailers and neighbourhood stores are now part of its Local Shops programme, allowing businesses to continue their physical operations while reaching customers online.
Government-backed platforms such as eSaras are taking a similar idea into rural India, helping Self-Help Groups and rural entrepreneurs list products, manage inventory, accept digital payments and access customers across the country.
The bazaar may have moved online, but the craft, skill and stories behind these products remain rooted in tradition. Photograph: (TRIPR)
Perhaps that is the most interesting change.
The bazaar has not disappeared. The familiar craft, the family-run shop and the generations-old skill are still there.
What has changed is the distance between the maker and the buyer.
Once, you had to find the right lane. Now, sometimes, the lane finds you.
