Wholesale I found a huge problem in Bali - Ancient Wisdom

Greetings from Bali..

Yes I made it. Lots of hurdles to cross but I finally made it back to Bali.

Last week I was just starting my four days quarantine in Jakarta after an exhausting 26 hour journey from Malaga. At least I met an interesting Thai lady.. you can read about it here if you missed it.

I hope you all brave the bad weather in the UK without any dire consequences. Storm Eunice is coming..

I was showing Ringo and Bondan the news from the UK about extreme weather, I told them it could be the worst for 40 years. Oh really they said not particularly impressed.. In Indonesia, storms, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes and tsunamis are all to be expected. But as we drove up past Tegallalang, with the famous rice terrace view, turned right towards the higher ground on the way to visit Mr Pak Man, (one of our oldest suppliers) we were practically in paradise. Here beyond the tourist zone farmers live gentle lifes tending the rice terrace adorned with small temples and statues. The young rice has just been planted and the terraces are being gradually flooded, trickles of water with the sun glinting off the pools. Lush green trees and huge tropical plants adorn everything. "You might have extreme weather conditions sometimes but you also have paradise" I pointed out.

It might be paradise but AW has a BIG problem right now in Bali.. and I am being shown the consequences.

First job of course on arriving in Bali was to go and visit the team at our warehouse in Ketterwell, after my last visit in November last year activity has ramped up hugely and we have already shipped several containers. Two of which just arrived in the UK this week. The problem is we need to ship far more containers than are actually available, finding a shipping company with accesses to containers and shipping lines with space on a ship is a daily battle. Make a booking and it gets cancelled, or you get gazumped and the price can go up even after booking because somebody else is willing to pay more. It used to cost 15-20% of the value of the goods in shipping, these days it costs 80-90%.

It's not that there is greater demand for containers, it's that the capacity has been strangled by shipping companies who are doing a terrible job but making obscene profits at the moment.

Google made $20 billion last year, the top ten shipping companies (and full details are hard to get) by some estimates made eye popping $300 billion - dwarfing not just Google but Facebook and Amazon combined. We are all paying for it in increased prices or reduced profits, I'm not even sure our partying ruling class even notice this problem - a major factor in the inflation spiral we are about to hit us. Big money like that finds it's way to political party funding as a way to influence those who could put a stop to it.

Gosh sorry for the rant.. but we are at the sharp end of the consequences..

Ringo had been complaining that the warehouse was full, but I wasn't quite prepared for how full.

I arrived at the warehouse see the carpark full, the staff room full, the packing are full. Ringo led me through a warren between stacked high cartons and piles of stock awaiting QC and packing. "Oh my God Ringo.. how can you work in such circumstances?" my head is spinning this is certainly not the H&S standards that we aim for at AW. Ringo's like.. no problem, we can find away. He is always so stress free on the surface and never wanting to bring any stress to me.

What the Bali warehouse looks like now..

"Why don't you leave the stock in the suppliers warehouses?" I asked him.. "Until we have a container to load and bring it then." Already doing that he told me, and today we went to see.

First the guy who makes the Coconut Lamps, his factory was floor to roof full of stock for us. At least two container loads in just that one product.

Then the lady who makes the display stands for bath bombs (amongst other things), her factory full, and borrowing space in several other workshops nearby.

Then we went to see Mr Pakman I have mentioned him before. He is the head of his village and contracts out work to all the families, we gave them an order for natural log stools and those Plant Holders..

His family and extended family live in a typical Bali compound, houses surrounding a temple and shared outdoor living area. Pakman and his wife live in a nice villa with roof terrace open views to Mount Agung the live volcano. The workshop are is full, the shared living spaces are full of stock, the roof terrace has been filled, and the wife was complaining it was hard to get to the bedroom. Even the office area was full so we had to meet on a step.

And he told me the whole village was full. I'm so sorry I told him, no problem he said we understand. We have been paying them before delivery, otherwise not only would they have no space to live but money to pay the workers.

Ringo is calling rould the shipping agents everyday chasing possible containers.

So despite the fact that two containers just arrived in the UK and we have lots of things back in stock, and some new stuff coming online.. it won't last long before out of stock items start to appear.

Our grand plan to be Europe's best (and possibly biggest) importer of Indonesian home and giftware products is hitting a serious glitch right now. This damn container shortage is a nightmare. I'll keep you posted.

Meanwhile Tomas is in Slovakia where we are moving to our new distribution warehouse. Our current one is not far behind the one in Bali for spare space.

Big milestone this week, we got early access - the offices are still being built but we can use the warehouse part. First job to construct the racking.

Our architect and contractor who can make anything happen. Tomas says they are great guys full of positivity and really getting on with the project. We want to be operational by end of April / May time. By which time I'm hoping we will have shipped the backlog of orders from Indonesia - to fill it up..

That's all the news for now, I just heard from Ringo that he has secured one container possibly two for the 25th for shipping to UK. Yesterday we despatched one container to Spain, so maybe things are looking up. But we have lots of wonderful new products that I am just dying to see on the market.. some.. just a little.. arrived in those two containers.. see below.

Take special care everyone, especially you guys in the UK, Storm Eunice is coming.

More news from Indonesia next week.

David