Last time I was here 6 months ago, it was dead quiet in the market with traders complaining of practically no business. But now something has changed. The place is buzzing again, although with South Americans, Russians and Africans the main buyers. Not so many Americans or Europeans. Some but not so many - so our suppliers are super happy to see us. But when business has been slow it leads to much more innovation, new products and ideas aplenty as traders work hard to attract trade. 

We spent one day doing factory visits, another exploring the main giftware parts of the market saying hello to old suppliers. But then we just had to go visit the gemstone market - it's not in the Yiwu official market.. in the back streets old school traders.. and wow it's full of fresh ideas! Whole days eaten up checking out the new amazing stuff here this time. Yesterday and today we spent many hours totally immersed in gemstones. Beautiful things that I'm sure your customers will just fall in love with. In China the internet is restricted (as you probably know - even VPN's don't work too good now) but fortunately I found a way to hack the phone and internet so that we have a pretty good connection and can research on the spot online and check market prices.. this is speeding up things no end. Thus we have access to Google lense and this is also a major boon to check if prices given are good enough for you to compete..