BALI: It had been weeks since a customer last stepped inside Safira Klau Gallery, a small art and furniture shop in the Kerobokan area of Bali, Indonesia.
The area used to be buzzing with tourists and interior designers from all over the world looking to refurbish their apartments, houses and villas, or to buy statues and small ornaments to decorate their homes.
But since the pandemic, the area resembled a ghost town with very few cars passing the small, winding road, let alone stopping to shop.
Gallery owner Vincen Klau said last year he could make a gross income of between 40 million rupiah and 70 million rupiah (US$2,669 and US$4,670) a month selling chairs, dining tables, wall decorations and small statuettes – carved in the rustic and abstract style of Eastern Indonesian wood art.
“Now, it is quieter than my quiet months,” he told CNA.
Klau said he would count himself lucky if he could get 15 million rupiah a month, which is barely enough to pay rent for his store and house, salary for his employee and various bills.
The shop is chock-full of artworks he has not been able to sell in months, collecting dust and occupying almost every inch of the tiny property, down to the store’s parking space.
Some of his unsold pieces, he said, were supposed to be for a buyer from Java who had abruptly cancelled his order.
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“My main clients are people who are building or renovating their villas. Now, all construction and renovation projects have stopped,” he said.
Across Kerobokan, many galleries that could not afford to pay the bills had to close their doors temporarily and Klau worried that his store could be next.
Not wanting his store to go bust, Klau – a short, muscular man in his fifties who until recently did not have an email address – started the gallery’s Instagram account in late June.
But due to his unfamiliarity with the world of social media, his account has only attracted five followers as of mid-September.
The account was barely maintained with the latest post dating back to Jun 24 and the majority of the photos were amateurishly shot, depicting a cluster of random pieces with no clear focal point.
Nearly all of the posts had no caption and when they did, the captions simply read “mask” or “Timorese statuettes”.
Klau said that he does not understand how social media works. As a result, there has not been many curious potential customers liking or leaving a comment on his Instagram posts, let alone expressing interests in buying.
The gallery owner is not the only one struggling with online marketing in Bali. Too used to walk-ins, the craftsmen find their source of income drying up in recent months.
The resort island, which economy is almost entirely reliant on tourism, has seen 59 per cent drop in the number of tourists in the first half of the year, according to the Indonesian Statistics Agency.
When the pandemic hit Indonesia in March, the number of new tourists arriving to Bali was reduced to almost zero.
It rebounded when Bali eased restrictions for domestic tourists on Jun 31 but the number of arrivals in July was a mere 11 per cent compared to the same period last year.
With the central government suspending its visa-free and visa-on-arrival policies for international travellers, businesses such as craft workshops that cater mainly to foreigners take the worst hit.
CHALLENGES ABOUND
Many of the artisans who are reluctant to sell online are held back by their lack of exposure to technology and social…
Read More: As tourist flow stops, Bali’s craftsmen struggle to market their work online