The best purchase for both you and the maker is usually direct — from the artisan cooperative, from the village emporium, from a shop where the shopkeeper personally knows the workshop. Prices are lower, the maker gets a bigger share, and provenance is transparent. Marketplace platforms (Amazon, Etsy, IndiaMART) work well for widely-produced pieces, but many carry look-alikes made outside the origin region. The current best strategy is a hybrid: use marketplaces for discovery, then check the seller against the origin cooperative's own site or GI register. Live AI searches below help you check which sellers are which.