The lure of the Internet has a northern co-operative rethinking the way it markets its Inuit and Dene arts and crafts.
Arctic Co-operatives Ltd., with its main office and distribution centre in Winnipeg, launched two new websites late last year, where art galleries, retailers and consumers can order sculptures, prints and crafts created by aboriginal artists from northern Manitoba, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.
Jeff Provost shows off some of the aboriginal artwork the company sells.
"We've had a lot of positive feedback (about the websites), and maybe that (Internet sales) is the wave of the future," Jeff Provost, the ACL's manager of member and public relations, said in an interview. "We're starting to see that (Internet sales) take off... and we're quite optimistic that will continue to grow."
Provost said the response has ACL officials wondering whether the federation needs to maintain a retail store in Winnipeg.
On April 18, the federation closed its Northern Images store in Portage Place Shopping Centre, because it was no longer generating enough sales.
The store had been there since the mall opened in 1987, but Provost said sales had been declining in recent years as the mall changed its retail focus and began attracting a different type of shopper.
"The numbers we were doing at that location in the '80s and now are not the same. We tried a variety of different ways to make the numbers work, but unfortunately we couldn't at that location."
In addition to the Internet, the federation sells through its three retail outlets in the North (at Churchill, Inuvik and Yellowknife), as well as its wholesale division, Canadian Arctic Producers, in Toronto.
Provost said a decision on whether to open another store in Winnipeg will be made before October.
Even if ACL doesn't reopen in the city, he said that doesn't mean the federation is abandoning Winnipeg. It is keeping its home office and warehouse/distribution centre on Inkster Boulevard.
He said the advantage of selling over the Internet is that it enables art galleries, retailers and consumers from all over the world to view the products and place orders.
"It even allows them to do a customized search for their clients."
Because the websites have only been up for a few months, Provost said it's too soon to say how many sales they will generate.
"But what we're seeing is an increase in inquiries... and that is what we want to see. We can build a marketing plan around that (the information gleaned from those inquiries)."
He said some of those inquiries are coming from outside the ACL's traditional markets of North America and Europe.
murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca
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