Bernie Baskin's week will begin with a Monday morning visit to a ceramics artist in Mountain View. Later that afternoon he'll be in Yellville, checking out a newly-launched aromatherapy brand.
A small-batch cocktail mixing company in Fayetteville is on the Tuesday morning agenda. He'll drop in on a Northwest Arkansas crafts artist in the afternoon before heading back to central Arkansas.
It might sound like an interesting way to spend a couple days, but for Baskin this is work.
Baskin, a Little Rock native who recently returned from living and working Singapore, is traveling the state looking for products to feature on Maayde.com, a website devoted to locally made goods. Through the site, which he launched this month with his wife, Yvonne Quek , Baskin is hoping to tell the unique stories of the products and the makers behind them.
Even for folks who are handcrafting products using traditional and low-tech methods, there is a need for modern marketing and sales. Baskin said every artisan featured on the site wants to sell outside of their town and state, but few know how to effectively do it.
Prior to launching the site, which Baskin designed with product photography from his wife and videos from Lukas Deem, they scoured the state looking for products worth featuring. Currently, about 100 products and 10 makers from places like Hot Springs, North Little Rock, Huntsville and Little Rock are featured.
Arkansas goods currently available range in scope from an $8.95 cheese straw mix to a $1,625 ceramic pot. There is no shipping charge for items in the 48 contiguous states, though sales aren't just limited domestically. Buyers can search for prices based on the Australian dollar, the euro and the British pound.
"When we came back to Arkansas we realized a lot the makers here are doing phenomenal stuff," Baskin said. "They're making great products that could compete at a global level. We've lived overseas and I'm telling you, 100 percent, these products could compete at a global level."
All vendors with listings on Maayde are visited in person. Baskin said it's important to get a sense of how the products are made and their quality before selling them.
It is nearly impossible to write about a fledgling e-commerce company like Maayde.com and not mention the global leader in this space (sorry, Bernie). I mention the national brand to give a sense of how large the market for these sorts of goods are and to show where Maayde strives to be different.
You're likely familiar with Etsy, the online marketplace for handmade goods and such. It boasts more than 1 million active sellers and reported 2014 sales of $1.93 billion.
While those numbers are great for Etsy, they're not always good for its individual vendors. It can be difficult for sellers to develop a following there and anybody who has every set out looking for a general item knows how time-consuming and sometimes fruitless a trip to the site can be.
Maayde.com will focus only on Arkansas products and is attempting to keep things organized in basic categories. There are products related to grooming and beauty, home decor, office and grocery.
Other sites make money off per-item listing fees and a sales commission. Plus, they can charge fees for advertising help, payment processing and shipping labels.
Maayde is simplifying the process, charging a flat percentage to its vendors only on completion of a sale. Marketing help -- like the product photos, maker stories and videos featured on the site -- are all part of the deal with Maayde, Baskin said.
Making money is certainly the goal of any business, but Baskin sees Maayde as serving an even more noble purpose. It exists, as he sees it, to create awareness of Arkansas-made products across the world.
There are no plans to expand to products made outside of the state. If our mustache combs and fly fishing bags are good enough for us, they're good enough for the rest of the world.
The rest of the world just needs to know about them.
Baskin and his team are self-funding the venture. They're leaning on their own knowledge of the state and word-of-mouth to help them find stories worth telling and products worth selling. He envisions adding 15-20 makers per month.
"We want to take a really deep dive into the state over the coming months," Baskin said. "We want buyers and visitors to expect the most comprehensive, high quality listing of goods in the state. I don't think there is a magic number of products. The more you have the better as long as they're easy to find and featured in a meaningful way. We're curating pretty selectively."
SundayMonday Business on 04/05/2015