November 19, 2019

They say if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. Well, Aseel made it to New York City!

Aseel was invited to take part in a grand Afghan Rug Pop Up event from 30th October to 3rd of November 2019 which took place at the Metropolitan Pavilion on West 18th Street. The event was organized by Kabul Carpet Export Centre (KCEC) and sponsored by USAID (United States Agency for International Development). KCEC brought 1,800 beautiful hand-woven, hand-dyed carpets from 10 Afghan vendors to be sold both in retail and wholesale at this event.

Our US-based team was more than excited to be part of this amazing event as this was our big opportunity to showcase the work of our talented artisan community. Aseel contributed to this successful event by presenting beautifully hand-woven carpets, ceramics, embroidery, handmade jewelry, leather goods, art, and woodwork for sale.

This was a hugely successful event both for Aseel and KCEC. Over the course of the weekend, Aseel had over 50 app downloads and made $2500 in sales. Perhaps more importantly, Aseel strengthened its partnership with KCEC and USAID with whom we share the mutual goal to develop Afghanistan’s carpet sector and to economically empower Afghanistan’s artisan community. We established new relationships with a network of designers, carpet importers, journalists, and, of course, new customers.

We reflected and will act on the countless positive and constructive feedback we received on pricing and product quality, as well as retail and wholesale strategies. The feedback was essential for a fast-growing company like ours.

All in all the event was a great success for Aseel in many ways. We considered this the start of an exciting mission ahead of us in empowering and developing Afghanistan’s artisan community through an innovative digital platform.

If you would like to know more about Aseel’s work, please check Aseel on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Just follow @aseelapp and join a community committed to economic development and empowerment of the artisan sector and fair trade of beautifully handcrafted products from Afghanistan.