Ethnotek sells artisan-made bags,backpacks and wallets, crafted using handwoven fabrics. The brand’s mission is to celebrate these artisans’ stories while supporting communities.

They work with photographers, content creators, and their in-house team to produce product shots, videos, and behind-the-scenes content showcasing the artisans’ at work, bringing their mission to life.

However, as Niels - the brand’s Ecommerce Director told us - an increase in visual requests from their retail partners meant it was becoming increasingly difficult to manage this workflow. And they were spending too much time hunting for assets.  

Keep reading to learn why shared drives were hindering the team, and how Dash became the best solution. ✨

The challenge 

Using shared drives for content creators became messy 

Ethnotek regularly works with content creators to produce product images and videos. This is an effective way of capturing content from artisans working in different countries. However, before Dash there was no streamlined way to get their photos into Ethnotek’s system. 

They often used WeTransfer or similar tools to send files, which created extra admin work for the team. 

“We have content creators and we want to give them access to a place where they can send the photos. We’d often ask them to use WeTransfer or similar tools, which meant we had to collect them and we had to sort them. It was just a lot of work.” 

This fragmented process slowed everything down and made it hard to keep content organised - especially as more creators got involved.

It became impossible to find the content the needed 

Ethnotek’s growing content library lived across both Google Drive and Dropbox. It meant that finding the right assets for a campaign became a huge time sink. Searching for a specific product in a specific style meant wading through thousands of photos with no way to filter or tag them effectively. As Niels tells us: 

“Say we do a promotion or a particular campaign, we just want to look for a particular backpack in a particular style. I’d have to go through all the photos and it became impossible to find anything.” 

With no centralised tagging system, their content became harder and harder to manage as it scaled.

An increase in retail partnerships meant more work

Ethnotek’s network of retail partners was steadily growing across Europe and Asia. These stores play a vital role in showcasing Ethnotek’s products in person, giving customers the chance to see and feel the quality of the handcrafted fabrics for themselves. These partnerships also offer up more revenue potential, which is super important if they want to grow their brand. 

But with growth came a new challenge: content requests from these partners were increasing, which meant it was taking more and more time to deliver the right assets. Keeping up required digging through scattered folders, cloning files for different partners, and manually sharing assets one by one — a process that quickly became unsustainable..

“The moment where we really made the big decision to move away from Drive is when we were getting more and more retailers who were asking on a consistent basis: ‘Hey, we need more photos. We need more videos to promote all the items.’” 

This surge in demand was the tipping point. The team knew they couldn’t keep supporting their retailers — or continue growing — while juggling content across multiple platforms.

This is when they moved to Dash. 

The solution 

Giving self-serve access to retailers 

No more cloning files and manually sharing them via WeTransfer every time a retailer needs content. Now, the Ethnotek team now uses Dash portals to give partners self-serve access to everything they need. They can spin up dedicated, branded portals for specific retailers or distributors, or share a general one for groups of smaller partners.

These portals don’t just make sharing content easier, they also help Ethnotek deliver a more curated, premium experience to their partners. Each portal can be tailored with custom visuals, messaging, and an optional password. It means every retailer feels like they’re getting something created just for them. 

“I think the nice part is that you can fine tune it per portal. You want it to feel special for your partners. Like: ‘This is something exclusively for me as a bigger partner.’” 

Using portals isn’t just about getting content to partners. It’s an important tool to help build and maintain partnerships that ultimately contribute to revenue.

Improving the approval workflows with content creators 

Dash has also made life much easier when working with photographers and content creators. Before, creators would send large batches of photos via WeTransfer, and the team had to download, rename, and manually slot them into their folders. Now, creators can upload their shots directly into Dash, and the team can review and approve them in one place.

“Once the photoshoot is done, [the photographer] has access to the platform. He can upload the studio photos there. And then for us, it’s only a matter of approving the photos or just giving feedback. And then the final versions will then be stored in Dash.”

It’s a simple shift, but it’s saved the team hours of admin and made sure every new piece of content starts its life in the right place.

Finding assets quickly in Dash 

With all their content finally in one place, it’s really easy to search for assets. Ethnotek has organised their library to mirror their Shopify structure — by product and variant — so anyone on the team can find what they need in seconds.

“I would search for something very specific like our Guatemala range. I can just literally type it in and I can quickly find the images that I want.”

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Whether they’re pulling product shots for a campaign or lifestyle images for social media, everything is easy to find, ready to use and always up to date.

Niels’ recommendation to other brands 

For Niels, bringing Dash on board wasn’t just about tidying up their content — it was about unlocking growth. Ethnotek had reached a point where their content chaos was holding them back, and he knows other brands will hit that point too.

“There will be a tipping point… where it just gets too messy in a brand that relies very heavily on marketing assets.”

He encourages other brands to think about where they are in their journey. If your content is still easy to manage, you might not feel the need for a digital asset management (DAM) tool yet. But once your team is drowning in requests, wasting time digging for the right files, or duplicating content for every partner — it’s time to level up.

“At some point it's impossible to find what you're looking for… especially if you're working with a lot of content creators or creating a lot of content yourself. Plus, if you work with retailers like we do, then the portals in Dash are very, very good.”

For Niels, Dash has made it easier to stay organised, speed up their workflows, and give retailers a more professional, seamless experience. It’s helped Ethnotek focus less on hunting for content, and more on telling the stories behind their products.