Bali Updates New Office
Fri May 15 2020 22:35:00 GMT+0800 (Malaysia Time)
Greetings from Bali now lock-down day 48
Last week I was telling you how something strange is going on In Bali, with covid-19 situation.. you can read about it here.
Since then the figures for Bali stay low and improving, and yet the lock-down measures are ramping up day by day. It is now illegal to be out without a mask.. even in a car. You will be fined on the spot. Yesterday right outside my villa on the street was an army guy brandishing a machine gun. I mean what the hell is going on? From today they stopped travel without a permit from any village area to another.. this means I can't go to the warehouse - because it's over the border from this section of Denpasar that I'm living in. Ringo is trying to find away to get permission to cross the blockades.
Meanwhile, so far anyway our warehouse is business as normal. Ringo shipped a container load this week. People often ask if shipping is still working, and the answer is yes, pretty much. Logistics have to continue or everything stops. The only hick-up was that our container booking was bumped. We had a confirmed booking with a shipping line and therefore a timetable for the container stuffing and transporting to the port. At the last minute, we got a call to say - sorry the ship is full you will have to wait for the next one. Pretty much the same thing happened in China last week. I think it's a bit like getting bumped off a flight because they over booked it. Annoying but could be worse. The warehouse is still full, but at the end of last week, it was totally brimming meet Happy our adopted mut.. Ringo feeds him half his breakfast every morning and a quick tour of our warehouse.
We have a nice big office, we turned part of it into a photo studio (I was telling you the other week) but it's not really what I would call a nice office space. So I said to Ringo lets make it cool. We need a sofa, some art, nice tables. If you want me to come and work here I want it nice, anyway it should be nice for you and your assistant. So we went up the road towards Ubud, on the way is an area famous for cool furniture. If you are ever in Bali check it out.. (I know travelling seems a distant dream) tell your taxi guy to take you to Mas village. See I tell you all the trade secrets :) - mostly to annoy the competition haha. There are actually some quite big businesses producing rattan furniture, recycled teak wood furniture (which I absolutely love) and a place that makes Japanese style sea-grass furniture. They have showrooms bordering the road, and at the back barn-like workshops where the furniture is made. Of course this been corona-time no showrooms are open, but by shouting hello, we soon roused an owner or two.
To say they are delighted and amazed to see an actual buyer is an understatement. We met one lady, called Ebu Siri has a business making beautiful furniture for local hotels and for export, mainly to USA and Sweden.
I liked her because she was so happy and had a wicked laugh and a twinkle in her eye. She told us she was 53 got 3 grand children, and I noticed a .. beautiful house at the back. It's lovely I said as she leads us past to the factory behind. She roared with laughter and said - I'm so lucky because I married into a rich family! Self depreciating I think because the products produced there are really nice and I could see her staff (wearing masks and social distancing) clearly loved her. She was the boss for sure. We bought some furniture for the office nice leather backed chairs and a beautiful river table that would cost thousands of pounds in Europe.
When her truck came to deliver, she came along with her daughter to nosy our warehouse.. and we promised in the future to try and do some proper business.
I think we could sell the river tables, they are basically made from imperfect teak-wood with the gaps filled with an opaque resin and polished smooth, giving the effect of a river running through the natural wood.
Ringo in our new office space.
Meanwhile back in the UK.. we took most of our staff off furlong this week as the business seems to be bouncing back. It helps that we have soap, essential oils and home items that people really want. Also the fact that we can offer a drop-shipping solution has made a big difference to many of our customers. (Check out AW-Dropshipping.com) register if your interested now, because we are already at breaking point and may need to stop registrations soon, although I think we will keep it open of course to existing AW customers. Yes I know we could add more staff and we are doing this, but because of social distancing, there is a limit on how many people can work in the department. We are a few days behind with orders, please bear with us.
Stock update.
The frustrating thing is that we are running out of stock of many items.. our own production because of limited capacity because of social distancing rules (it must be safety first). But we are working hard to increase production this week. China stock is a problem because it was all frozen for February and March because of the lockdown there, but since early April is flowing again.. first containers arriving last week and this so stock is coming back online. Indonesian stock is OK and flowing still.. it helps that I am here to help keep an eye on things. More containers are in transit.
Indian and Nepal stock - was and still is frozen. Still no flights from Nepal, so no stock and I think we have a substance sum locked up there. Same with India, we continue to advance funds to suppliers (even though they cannot ship), to help with their cash flow and hopefully still pay workers. Bryant our shipping manager is keeping an eye on the situation and hopefully, soon we will be able to unblock stock and get it flowing again. Difficult times.
I hope you are keeping safe and keeping fruitfully occupied. I know many of you are finding ways to carry on trading, and we thank you for your support.
I'm writing this in the new office space at our warehouse near Sukawati outside of the Denpasar city boundary.. I came here this morning as normal, but getting home this afternoon might be a problem. They announced a major lock-down in Denpasar and no-one is supposed to go to the city without good cause and supporting documents. There are road blocks. Next week I will tell you if I made it home.
Take care.
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