Making beautiful embroidery is one skill. Turning it into a sustainable retail business is another entirely — and it’s the second skill that a Women on Wings workshop set out to strengthen when sales expert Marja Versleijen travelled to Ooty to work directly with Sheela Powell and the Shalom Ooty team.
Numbers, not just needlework
Alongside Women on Wings colleague Supriya Kapoor, Marja worked with Sheela to analyse existing sales figures and build forecasts — the unglamorous but essential groundwork behind any growing business. The team also sat down with Shalom Ooty’s social media manager to sharpen its Instagram strategy and get clearer on which customer segments the brand should be speaking to.
Walking the shop floor
The workshop wasn’t confined to spreadsheets. Marja and the team visited two of Sheela’s own retail locations, plus third-party shops carrying Shalom Ooty products, and came away with practical, low-cost recommendations — including using recycled furniture to create more customer-friendly product displays.
The work behind the workshop
It’s worth remembering the scale this all supports: five women work in Shalom Ooty’s office alone, processing embroidered pieces into finished goods and earning monthly salaries they put directly toward their children’s education. As the visit summed it up: “The common, ultimate goal of Sheela and Women on Wings is to preserve the traditional Toda embroidery and empower rural and tribal women economically.”
Source: Women on Wings, “Sales workshop with Shalom Ooty,” July 2023
