OpenBazaar Ecosystem: Nuichan

In these posts we take a look at some unique members of the OpenBazaar ecosystem and share their stores. Today we are featuring the beautiful handmade women’s clothing store Nuichan! You can view Nuichan in your browser or on OpenBazaar here.

Tell us a bit about yourself. Who are you and what do you make/sell?

My name is Yaowalak Nuichan, I was born in a big family (8 sisters and 1 brother) in the South of Thailand in a place called Phatthalung. After finishing high school and university in Bangkok, I worked a few years in 5 star hotels as their Spa Manager. But my true passion was never far away — fashion. My entire family makes clothing, traditional Thai dresses for ceremonial occasions and more modern designs, so it was only a small step for me to change my career and started doing what I’ve seen for the most part of my life. Designing dresses, making patterns and putting it all together. With help from my sisters of course! :)

How did you get started selling online?

I started selling online as I noticed a growing demand from overseas ( Europe, USA, Middle East, etc.) and it is/was easier for me to supply for my niche market.

How did you find out about OpenBazaar?

Stumbled upon OpenBazaar via Twitter if I recall correctly.

Why are you selling your product on OpenBazaar?

I’m always looking for new markets and for once I want to be part of the start of something which I feel could become really big. I really like the direct link between buyer and seller without an intermediary person/company but the main reason is Bitcoin of course.

You also have a very active Etsy shop which is great! How has the approach of dual listing your items there and on OpenBazaar helped you?

At the moment I do not have sufficient time to properly monitor this setup as I’m in the process of setting up a new website. I did have some requests in the past from Etsy buyers to pay with Bitcoin, but that has come because I do mention the possibility of paying in bitcoin it in my Etsy listings. So far I haven’t noticed any significant traffic coming from my Etsy shop towards OpenBazaar or the other way around.

How has your experience been with OpenBazaar so far?

Actually it has been really good besides some setup issues, but that was mainly due to me not having the technical skills. I had great help from [OB1 Co-Founder] Dr. Washington Sanchez setting up the nodes for both of my shops and guiding me through the set up and also afterward whenever I had any technical issues. Also the guys from Duosear.ch are top notch, they even bought an image from my husband and they use it on their homepage. :)

From a seller’s point of view, I have only had easy, swift transactions so nothing but thumbs up there!

How familiar are you with Bitcoin?

I’ve been following Bitcoin for a couple of years now and am pretty familiar with it, although I would like to be better at the technical side of things. But everything changes so fast that it is really hard to keep up!

What changes would you like to see to OpenBazaar to make it more useful for you?

I would love to see some improvements on the back end, making it more user-friendly to make listings, bulk edit, grid overview of products in stock, ability to share listings on social media from within the client.

What’s it like behind the scenes of Nuichan? What can you tell us about your design & manufacturing process & doing business day-to-day?

My inspiration for our designs comes from my home country, Thailand, with all its wonderful cultures, colors, landscapes, intoxicating smells and the friendly people. But I also allow Western influences to inspire me which helps me to visualize designs and create some more classic looks. Recently I took a trip to Japan to study the amazing shibori technique. This is a traditional manual resist dyeing technique which produces the most stunning patterns. These techniques include cloth wrapping on a diagonal around a pole or pleating sections of the cloth very finely and evenly or sandwiching cloth between two pieces of wood which are held in place with string, just to name a few. The possibilities with this traditional technique are endless and combine perfect with modern dress patterns. Together with my sisters and their 30 years of experience making the patterns and carefully creating each dress I try to keep the business going and growing.

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