Wholesale David's AW News: Criminals in Malaga - Ancient Wisdom

Greetings from Spain

Hope you had a lovely Bank Holiday weekend, and hopefully successful trading.

Yes, I upped sticks and moved back to my home base.. at least for a while.

Last week I was at AW HQ in Sheffield, and was telling you about our man James who has just been elevated to a director of Ancient Wisdom.. If you missed it you can meet James here.

We had an open week in the showroom in Sheffield and between my other jobs, I was able to meet and chat with a number of our delightful and always interesting customers. (more later).

Very early Tuesday morning Raul (the IT wizard from KL) and I drove over the Pennines to Manchester airport. We took the route via the pretty town of Castleton and through the Winnats Pass, which was particularly dramatic and beautiful in the morning light.

It's worth going that way just for the experience and beautiful views. Then we took a packed Ryanair flight down to Malaga. Arriving early in the afternoon, and amazed at how efficient Malaga airport is these days. Through passport control in minutes and luggage on the belt as we got there. Ten minutes from the plane to Sunshine.

It was lovely to meet some of our customers face to face and everyone I spoke to - so generous with ideas and suggestions. I was really inspired. People telling me their secret best sellers, tips and tricks to sell more. Such as wearing gemstone bracelets whilst serving customers - and ideal price points. Apparently £10 is a good price for our Cedarwood and Gemstone Chakra bracelets.. We have recommended prices from £4.50 - £8.00 (cost from £1.92) if you buy a starter. Yesterday I was in Malaga town centre for a meeting and after we called in one of the esoteric shops to see how it was going.. They had taken our Cedarwood bracelet, repackaged it and had it on sale for €25.. in a basket by the till. There are lots of opportunities at AW!

In the same shop I was surprised to see a Palo Santo heater on sale. Not ours but a copy.. that's been done amazingly quickly. It wasn't teakwood, and didn't have esoteric engraving but the same shape and concept.

It doesn't seem long ago I was designing and developing this product in Bali with one of our old suppliers, in fact our UK shipment only just arrived. (Along with lots of other new items.) see below...

We spent ages getting just the right height and size to take the Palo Santo sticks and heat them just the right way to release the fragrance without the stick catching fire. You can use them for Smudge sticks also.

These arrived in Slovaka a AW-Gifts and sold very quickly.

In Spain, it's been a bit cloudy, but now the sun is coming out and it's time to think positive and make plans for the future in the AW-Artisan warehouse. I was telling you that we have rather too much stock on the way and nowhere to stock it. Our guy Toni had this idea to buy three Shipping containers and stack them in the carpark and use them for backup storage. He found a local company that sells refurbished containers for this purpose and we paid for them.. but the day came for delivery and they didn't come, so Toni chased the company.. and found the email and Whatsapp numbers stopped working. Website down.. Have we been Conned by Criminals? So he called the police and the bank to stop the payment. Lot of drama and it may be too late.. but yesterday we got a random WhatsApp reply that was just a delay and they will come next week. If they don't we will be trying to track them down in the dockland area.. I'll let you know what happens next week.

Meanwhile, Summer is Here! And Father's Day is not far away.. Consider stocking up.. we have so many retailing opportunities.. Also we have PastPay offering many of our customers £16,000 lines of credit.. So stock up!

Take care

Have a lovely weekend.

All the best David