What it takes to sell online: Three lessons on digital market access for Kenyan handicraft makers
Kenya has a vibrant handicraft sector, from beadwork and woodcarvings to soapstone and handwoven baskets and textiles. These products are popular locally and globally, yet for most artisans, getting products to buyers is a persistent challenge. Craft markets are seasonal, trade fairs are costly, intermediaries often capture the most value, and with sales tied heavily to tourism, income remains unpredictable and seasonal.
Online selling has the potential to expand market access by connecting handicraft makers to local and global buyers beyond their immediate communities and seasonal tourists. But going online is not as simple as opening an Instagram account. Digital skills, time, strong product photography, and the right platforms all shape whether online selling translates into real and sustained income growth. This blog captures the lessons we learned from supporting Kenyan handicraft makers to sell online and what it truly takes to make digital selling work for them.
Online selling in Kenya is growing, with social commerce as the most common channel among micro and small entrepreneurs. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp have become accessible entry points for handicraft makers to reach buyers directly, bypassing intermediaries and staying attuned to customer preferences. For women in particular, online selling offers added flexibility to work from home, manage production on their own terms, and navigate the gender barriers in offline trading spaces, such as production networks and trade fairs. However, not all makers experience online selling in the same way.
As part of the Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) project, BFA Global partnered with Powered by People (PBP), an online business-to-business (B2B) platform that connects small-batch producers in developing economies with conscious retailers in North America. Wanting to better understand what shapes these different experiences, the partnership focused on supporting women-owned or women-staffed early-stage online handicraft sellers who had access to a mobile phone and were experimenting with online sales.
What became clear early on was that digital skills and confidence varied widely across makers, fundamentally shaping how they engaged with platforms, tools, and buyers. While most were familiar with social media platforms, the extent to which they engaged with them, how regularly, and why looked very different.
Early-stage Handicraft sellers fall broadly into three groups:
- Rookies, who have low digital confidence and rely mainly on smartphones for WhatsApp and Mpesa.
- Learners, who are moderately comfortable with digital tools and experiment with different platforms.
- Savvy sellers, who are highly confident and already using multiple digital tools and digital selling platforms.
Understanding where a maker sits on this spectrum is key to understanding what works for them and what does not. And it turned out that these differences mattered enormously in practice. The three lessons below explore what it takes to make online selling truly accessible, effective, and relevant for makers and create a pathway to greater market access.
Lesson 1: Social commerce lowers entry barriers, but success requires time and digital skills
Most early-stage online handicraft sellers rely heavily on social media platforms as their primary sales channels. Some Savvy makers in our research noted that 70% to 90%of all orders come through social media platforms. This is also reflected nationally, as 92% of micro- and small enterprises use social or messaging apps for business, compared to just 27% that use formal marketplaces such as Jumia or Jiji. Social commerce works because it builds on social media that makers already use. It allows makers to interact with customers directly, engage in flexible ways, and tell their stories – all critical in craft-based businesses.
But accessibility does not mean that it is simple. Social commerce shifts significant responsibility onto the seller. Visibility depends on consistent posting, strong photography, responsive communication, and awareness of algorithms. We noted that Rookies and Learners in particular struggled. Their limited access to high-quality images, difficulty writing compelling descriptions, and time constraints make it hard to sustain an online presence. As one maker put it, “Running the online side takes more time than production itself,” since it requires makers to constantly juggle creativity, marketing, and production.
To address this, we experimented with a simple, practical solution: digital catalogues. PBP partnered with 20 artisans to create PDF catalogues for easy sharing on social media platforms. They were designed to showcase products more effectively and reduce repetitive back-and-forth with buyers. Several makers found the catalogues transformative, saying that they made their businesses feel “more professional and ready for customers”. One maker estimated she had a 30% increase in sales, while another reported earning over 50,000 KES (~US$ 390) in additional revenue within three months of adopting a PDF catalog.
However, these digital catalogues had limitations. Most makers did not update them beyond the first version, citing time constraints, technical challenges, or a lack of new photos. As a result, many catalogues quickly became outdated, reducing their long-term usefulness. Gender differences also surfaced. Because the listed prices were wholesale, male makers were generally comfortable sharing catalogues and negotiating prices with retailers, while some women were more cautious, concerned about being pressured to lower prices or having their product images copied and misused.
This experience showed that simple digital tools can help makers engage more effectively in social selling – the most accessible entry point to online markets. But while these tools can boost visibility, credibility, and sales, they also require ongoing digital labor to be practical and sustainable. This is a challenge for all makers, but an especially steep learning curve for Rookies and Learners with lower digital skills and readiness.
Lesson 2: Online marketplaces are not enough for early-stage online handicraft sellers
If social commerce shifts the burden of visibility onto sellers, online marketplaces shift control away from them.
We initially assumed that as makers gained confidence online, they would naturally transition from social commerce to more structured marketplaces. In practice, the journey proved far less linear. PBP supported several Kenyan makers to onboard to online marketplaces such as Mawu Africa and Shop Zetu. While many of these sellers were already “Savvy” on social media, sales through these marketplaces were limited. Of the six makers interviewed, only two reported any sales at all, and even those were modest compared to their social commerce earnings, particularly from Instagram.
Our research revealed that the challenge was not simply a lack of customer demand, but also the limited ability of makers to influence outcomes. On social media, sellers can adjust pricing, refine descriptions, respond to comments, and observe real-time feedback through likes, comments, and direct messaging. On marketplaces, makers reported difficulty seeing site traffic, limited control over how products were displayed, and unclear marketing tools. Without access to meaningful analytics or customer insights, they struggled to understand why products were not converting to sales or how to improve performance.
While most makers concluded that marketplace onboarding had no tangible impact on income or customer reach, some noted indirect benefits. Platform analytics, such as high click-through rates without purchases, helped some makers refine their storytelling and imagery. Others described a sense of pride and validation from being associated with a well-known platform brand, which strengthened perceptions of credibility even outside the marketplace.
Onboarding makers to online marketplaces is not enough to expand market outcomes. A critical starting point is ensuring the platform is the right fit for the product, as not every marketplace is designed to showcase handmade goods in a way that communicates their value to the right buyers. For many makers, the learning curve is also steep; for others, limited visibility and lack of control make the effort feel unrewarding.
To better serve early-stage online sellers, marketplaces must go beyond onboarding. This means offering clearer analytics, transparent feedback on performance, and simple guidance to help sellers act on insights. Demand generation should also be shared through co-marketing, such as sponsored listings and storytelling support, to help makers position their products effectively.
Lesson 3: AI tools can strengthen social commerce, but getting makers online still requires a mix of tech and touch
AI tools are beginning to shape how handicraft makers onboard and manage digital sales. PBP tested AI-assisted tools such as Formless.ai and Flowcart (previously Sukhiba) to collect product information and generate digital catalogues. While these tools streamlined data collection, significant manual effort was still required to produce high-quality product photos and compelling descriptions.
Experiences varied sharply across the Rookie-Learner-Savvy spectrum. Savvy sellers found tasks like summarizing product details and uploading images “easy and straightforward”. However, Rookies and some Learners found it “challenging without in-person support”. For them, AI did not reduce friction.
PBP also tested generative AI tools to enhance product images, draft descriptions, and provide pricing guidance to makers. We saw that AI enhanced quality rather than creating it. When product photos or storytelling were weak, outputs felt generic and failed to capture the artisanal narrative that buyers, particularly in export markets, value.
Our findings indicate that access to technology is not a substitute for digital skills, nor does it guarantee sustained and effective use. Tools must be introduced in ways that match different levels of digital readiness. Rookies require low-risk solutions combined with hands-on support from field agents or dedicated “digital helpers”, who assist them with more complex tasks like setting up their profile, product photography, and uploads. Learners benefit from structured guidance as they begin managing multiple digital channels and experimenting on their own. Savvy sellers can use advanced digital and AI tools to optimize their operations and compete more effectively, but they still need reliable analytics and responsive platform support to reap the full benefits.
Across all three lessons, one thing is clear: technology works best when it meets makers where they are and builds on what they already know, rather than starting from scratch.
The Way Forward: Balancing the Cost of Inclusion with Sustainability
Our research has revealed a persistent gap between what digital platforms offer and what makers actually need. This raises a practical question: who is responsible for making digital markets work for handicraft sellers, and what does meaningful support actually look like?
Our findings indicate that while online marketplaces can be valuable, they work best for a smaller group of higher-capacity sellers already positioned for export or bulk retail. For makers, success depends on selecting platforms that are a good fit for handicraft products and offer transparency through clear analytics and customer insights. For platforms, however, tailoring onboarding to meet the different needs of makers requires substantial investment in hands-on support, data systems, co-marketing, and customized tools – costs that must be balanced against their operational and financial sustainability.
This is where segmentation becomes important in designing sustainable platform strategies. Platforms like PBP can prioritize higher-capacity Savvy sellers who require less intensive support and can generate faster commercial returns. For this segment, platforms can provide three key forms of support:
- Access to larger markets through established B2B sellers: Position Savvy makers as reliable suppliers by connecting them to larger buyers, established sellers, and aggregators within the platform’s B2B ecosystem and extended networks. Their stronger digital skills make them good candidates for AI-enabled tools for product cataloguing, inventory management, and operational efficiency.
- Financial tools: Provide financial tools such as credit or pre-financing facilities to help makers fulfill larger orders on time without relying on external lenders. This will allow them to participate more consistently in bulk and B2B markets.
- Targeted skill building to strengthen social commerce: Offer training on customer preferences, product-market fit, branding, and marketing to help these sellers enhance their online presence and compete more effectively on social media. Offering digital sessions can significantly accelerate their growth while remaining relatively low-cost for the platform.
However, this approach risks leaving a large share of the market, Rookies and Learners, without the same access to customers.
For most Rookies and Learners, social commerce remains the most viable and scalable sales channel. Platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp align with how they already operate: relationship-based, trust-driven, and locally embedded. Yet they still need support to build their digital skills. Here, donors and ecosystem actors have a catalytic role to play. They can:
- Strengthen foundational tools and skills: Support platforms like PBP to acquire and adapt low-cost tools, such as editable digital catalogues, and invest in shared training hubs that build practical skills in content creation, customer engagement, and understanding customer preferences.
- Build shared market infrastructure: Partner with social commerce enablers such as Wowzi to develop co-marketing infrastructure, and with logistics providers like In-Motion to create shared fulfillment systems that reduce operational burdens and help sellers gradually build their digital confidence and skills.
- Subsidize high-touch support models: Absorb early-stage risk by funding physical hubs or “digital helpers” that provide makers with hands-on support in areas platforms may not be able to sustainably deliver on their own, such as product photography, storytelling, pricing, and logistics.
The role of donors is not to permanently underwrite platform operations, but to fund experimentation, generate evidence, and support models that can eventually become commercially viable. As makers build their digital skills and gain experience, they become the next pipeline of Savvy sellers who manage social commerce independently and connect to larger markets.
It is also worth noting how quickly AI tools are evolving. In the near future, they may help simplify the fragmented digital ecosystem by allowing makers to create and manage product catalogues across multiple platforms through a single interface. But until such solutions become widely accessible, building inclusive digital markets will continue to require coordinated support across platforms, ecosystem partners, and donors.
Digital handicraft markets will not become sustainable by shifting responsibility to makers. Instead, this will depend on platforms designing commercially viable segmentation strategies and donors investing where the market alone is unlikely to reach.
