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Vintage-Style Bags Get a Boost From Online MarketingThoughtful web marketing drives an artisanal business.
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In demand: Artifact Bag Co.'s waxed canvas and leather totes.
Photo© Dana Damewood
In February 2010, after playing around with an industrial sewing machine and commercial cutting table he bought viaCraigslist, Chris Hughes launchedArtifact Bag Co.The Omaha, Neb.-based business sells handmade, American-sourced, waxed canvas and leather bags (priced $65 and up) through Etsy, the crafts marketplace.
A former musician who worked briefly in the world of tech startups, Hughes says Artifact's popularity--he has received hundreds of orders following write-ups in The New York Times, GQ and Rolling Stone--is the result of running a "19th-century manufacturing company using 21st-century marketing channels."
