Wholesale Just ONE thing... - Ancient Wisdom - Giftware and Aromatherapy Supplier

Greetings from a cool and windy Spain.

Tomas was here until Wednesday (now back in the UK) and we were making plans and setting targets.. at AW we always think big. It's easy to get bogged down in management speak and technical fixes. Of course every element of the business is important,each and everyone's jobs are important - from customer service to despatch to goods-in to marketing.. But the one thing that is most important, without which any business plan will fail.. is easy to forget..do you know what it is?

Last week I was musing about the 5 most important retail trends as I see it.. if you missed it you can catch up here?

It's nice in Spain, I enjoy working with our team at AW Artisan.. they are hard working but know how to have fun. We have more parties than 10 Downing Street. It was my birthday and my favourite team surprised me with a birthday cake and a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday" . We had a 15 minute jolly party, where everyone kindly pretended not to believe how old I am.. then went back to work.

At Christmas in the UK, I happened to visit M&S in central Sheffield and was shocked and saddened to see a virtually empty store, not much seasonal fizz at all. Spaced out shelves, stock shortages, glum staff, no queues at all. Very sad. So this morning I was surprised to read in the Times "Marks & Spencer" hails sparkling sales across the board"

On closer reading I discovered that on-line sales had been well up, and that.. "a light-up tin of shortbread and a bottle of gin that incorporated a snowglobe, each sold more than a million units" - thus saving M&S from the knackers yard.

So the one thing that saved them was great products.. and in the gift trade this matters as much (if not more) than any other business.

It's the middle of January 2022..and next up in the gift trader calendar is Valentine's Day, Which marks the start of what we call "The Season of Love" - Mothers Day, Easter, Father's Day.. the Wedding Season. Spring should put a spring in your step.. time to get busy.. and let's not forget the lesson M&S teaches us.. always focus on the product. PRODUCT is king..

That's the ONE thing to never lose focus on, your products make your business. New products, repeat selling products, on trend products.. If you don't delight your customers then it's time to refresh those products.

Well I don't want to bang our own gong too much.. but AW is the best place to find great "Season of Love" products, it's what we do best. Check out the new products and deals below.

And if you did want to bang your own gong.. Now you can because we just received stock of Gongs from Indonesia. See below, these gongs are traditionally used in Bali and Java in temple ceremonies, but these days used in Yoga studio's and many believe the gong sound to have healing properties.. sound the gong to bring peace and love into your place..

Talking about the season of love.. 2 years ago to the day I took Coco (my wife and our China agent) to Malaga airport, and waved her goodbye as she flew back to China.. I expected to see her again in just a few weeks after a trip to India. Of course covid happened and that blasted that plan apart. So today marks two years since I have last seen Coco. Hopefully soon things will change.

Lots of stuff back in stock this week.. which is making us pretty busy and a little behind with orders.

We are doing our best to catch up and I understand we have a saturday shift to catch up with the orders.

Also the famous Sheffield street artist: Peachzz has been finishing off her beautification of AW HQ.. turning an otherwise boring passageway to the main office into a jungle run..

Hope you have a lovely weekend.

Take care - more news next week.

David