About The Wishlist Store — Handmade Crochet Toys & Fair Trade Amigurumi

How This Started

I started The Wishlist Store because I kept seeing the same problem from two different directions at once. On one side there were incredibly skilled artisans, mostly women working from home in small villages in India, who could crochet things that would genuinely stop you in your tracks. On the other side there were parents and gift buyers in Australia looking for something real, something made by hand, something that had a story behind it rather than a barcode and a factory address.

The gap between those two groups seemed unnecessary. The skills existed. The demand existed. What was missing was a way to connect them that was honest about what it was and fair to everyone involved.

That is what The Wishlist Store is. It is not a complicated idea. We source handmade crochet toys and amigurumi animals from skilled artisans who are paid fairly for their work, and we bring those pieces to Australian families who want gifts worth giving. My name is Ammar Poonawala and I run the store from Melbourne.

Who Makes Our Toys

Every toy in our store is made by hand by women artisans working in small communities in India. These are not factory workers. They are skilled makers who learned to crochet through family tradition, local craft networks or community training programs, and who now run small home based businesses built entirely around that skill.

The challenge most of them face is not skill. It is reach. A woman crocheting amigurumi animals in a village in Rajasthan has no straightforward path to an Australian customer who would happily pay a fair price for her work. She has no marketing budget, no e-commerce infrastructure and often no reliable internet access. Her work gets absorbed into local markets at a fraction of its value, or it stays a side income that never quite becomes enough to matter.

We source our products through a nonprofit organisation that works directly with these communities. They vet the artisans, ensure safe and fair working conditions, and establish pricing that reflects the actual skill and time that goes into each piece. When you buy from The Wishlist Store, the margin that reaches the maker is meaningful, not token.

How Fair Trade Pricing Works Here

Fair trade is a term that gets used loosely, so it is worth being specific about what it means in practice for us.

The artisans we work with are compensated at a rate agreed directly with the nonprofit organisation that manages the sourcing relationship. That rate is set based on the time required to make each piece, the cost of materials, and a margin that supports the maker rather than just covering their costs. It is not a fixed percentage. It is negotiated per product and reviewed regularly.

We do not work with intermediaries who compress margins at the artisan end to pad their own. The nonprofit we source through takes a coordination fee that covers quality control, logistics and community support programs, but the artisan pricing is protected from that compression. The goal is that a maker can earn a reliable income from this work, not just a top up on something else.

Quality and How We Select What We Sell

Not every piece that gets made ends up in our store. The nonprofit organisation we work with carries out quality checks before anything ships, and we do our own assessment when stock arrives at our Melbourne studio.

What we are looking for is consistent stitching, secure construction, safe materials and finished detail that holds up to the kind of handling a baby toy gets on a daily basis. Cotton yarn, embroidered features rather than plastic eyes or buttons, tight seams, and stuffing that stays where it should. We handle every piece before it goes on the site.

If something does not pass that check it does not go up for sale. We would rather have a smaller range that we stand behind completely than a large one with inconsistent quality.

What Happens When You Buy

Orders are packed and dispatched from our Melbourne studio in Bundoora, typically within one to two business days. We use Australia Post tracked shipping so you can follow your order from our door to yours. Free shipping applies on orders over $100 Australia wide.

Each piece ships as it is. There is no additional wrapping or assembly required on your end. If you are sending a gift directly to someone else, enter their address at checkout and add a gift message and it will arrive ready to give.

If you have a question before or after ordering, you can reach us directly at contact@thewishliststore.com.au. We are a small operation and we read and respond to every message.

The Bigger Picture

There are a lot of talented people around the world whose work never finds the audience it deserves. Not because the work is not good enough. Because the path from a skilled maker in a small community to a buyer who would genuinely value what they make is long, expensive and full of people taking cuts along the way.

The Wishlist Store is one small attempt to shorten that path and make it fairer. Every toy sold here is a direct transaction between someone in Australia who wanted something real and someone in India who made something beautiful. We are just the connection between them.

If that is the kind of purchase you want to make, browse the collection here.