doors and windows open for cross ventilation when people came to visit us all for a good causesinger lopamudra mitras brainchild protha has a similar benevolent outlook the boutique caters to the needs of weavers and their employment our store was born out of sheer passion to showcase exquisite weaving techniques of artisans from across india when the pandemic hit us i wanted to revive the artisans who were suffering and give them back a part of the livelihood that they had lost we are very focused on our digital campaigns as far as the brickandmortar store is concerned we follow complete covid protocols such as sanitisation and encourage patrons to visit us with prior appointments she said the ratio of online and offline buyers fluctuates maintaining the digital as well as the physical presence is a tough balance nonetheless the ratio between digital and physical shopping has been encouraging there is a dedicated backend team that responds to our valued patrons as soon as they can the ratio of digital and physical shopping at our store has been about 7030 said lopamudra for suchismita there has been an even bigger digital surge about 80 of our sales have always been online the turnover went down but the ratio remained the same before the pandemic we would have people dropping by with appointments and a weekend exhibitioncumsale organised every six months but we couldnt continue that since the pandemic hit us and had our first exhibition only in august she said kavita thinks the ratio between digital and physical shopping depends on the lockdowns the ratio of buyers online and offline at this time is 23 but it has been 32 during the peak of the second wave in the months of mayjune over the past six months it has been fluctuating just like the number of covid cases she said store owners discourage trials at shopthe biggest bane of turning digital especially for clothing stores is that buyers are not allowed individual trial sessions but how are the boutiques and stores dealing with this bappaditya biswas partner byloom said that they have stopped trials completely we now create dedicated collections for online uploads creating multiple pieces of the same things to be sold online and ensuring regular uploads earlier it was only saris but now we try to upload other products too said bappaditya whose boutique has a dedicated team of five people working online kavita seconds him in this decision but tries to remain a bit flexible for customers our main products are saris and we discourage draping them around in covid times but if the customer insists on draping we do allow it on the clothes one is wearing so that direct touch with the body is minimised she said suchismita has a different way to handle the trial queries most garments we sold so far were outside kolkata so trials were out of the question in the city we mostly send the garments to the customers