Wholesale 3 Fold Harmony & 2 Wild Boars - Ancient Wisdom

Greetings from Spain

Last week I was telling you about how "Authenticity" matters in the gift trade. But what does authenticity really mean? .. you can read about it here.

Soon it will be time to move on, time to travel, time to discover some beautiful things, things that hopefully will delight your customers and enhance your business. If on the way we can help nurture small businesses in developing countries it all adds to the karma and (that word again) authenticity of the offer. So making plans for a return trip to Morocco (a lot offer from there, especially perfumes and florals), then Indonesia - we have a new warehouse (more below), then India, China and maybe a quick trip to Nepal. Hope you will follow along for the ride, and give me your ideas, suggestions and comments. It's your feedback that has shaped AW and made the product range what it is today.

Here's some boar-ing news from Spain.

You will have seen in the media it has been epically, biblically hot in Spain! But here in La Cala de Mijas near the sea, it has been actually quite pleasant. Head inland just a bit and the temperature rockets up and wildfires are raging. My friend Clive's home was almost in a ring of fire, helicopters scooping water from the sea and dumping it in relays to save them. Coming home late one evening we were shocked to find a wild boar and it's cub not far from our house, munching on our comuninial flowers. Clive tells me they run away from the fires and the heat, head towards the coast to cool down.

Wild Boars in town - a sign of global warming.

Here's some less boring news from Bali.

Regular readers will know about Ringo, our man in Indonesia. He a hard working guy, but recently he's been very busy. In between despatching containers, we have been moving warehouse. I signed the lease on Jackfruit village warehouse earlier this year, you can read about it here. that in itself was an interesting experience. Our old warehouse on the outskirts of Ubud, close to the famous Monkey Forest had in recent years become too small to cope, and loading containers more and more difficult as the area got more congested. Our new home is five times the size not far from the main Denpasar highway, has a big yard for loading containers and (pleasantly) within walking distance of the sea. The village area it falls in translates as Jackfruit Village. The warehouse had in a previous life been the islands Coca Cola depot. It was pretty dilapidated, so in return for some rent-free time we spent money to bring it up to a good standard.

One condition of the lease was that after renovation and before use we would need to have the property properly blessed. It was contractual, but Ringo would have done it anyway.

Ringo was so enthusiastic he was live streaming the events to me.. some of the village folk nearby brought goodwill offering, the local holyman laid out a blanket in front of the offices, and the ceremony was made. I really don't understand the details, but it is something to do with three-fold harmony. Harmony with the spirits/God, with the earth/environment and with our fellow humans. Out of this balance can come prosperity.. Here is more information if you are interested.

The ceremony happened this week.. here are a few pictures.

Check, our actual car park temple, locals coming to wish us well.

Hopefully, I will go there soon, we are planning nice offices, a design studio, a QC area and a place Ringo can greet and meet with local artisans. It's a good central location, many of the artisans we work with are in the area and can bring work in and be paid on the spot. Packaging, labeling and quality control in the old warehouse was done in cramped conditions, here we can get really organized. I'm looking forward to working there.. don't worry you will get full updates.

Meanwhile, in sunny Sheffield, a container (from Indonesia) came, another from China and some Indian shipments.. so it's been pretty hectic there.

Tomas is delighted (by the way he reached the epic age of 35 today) because one of his recent creations came to fruition. A range of ready to retail Soap Flowers, absolutely perfect pick up gifts for lots of occasions, and a fresh new slant on the hugely successful Soap Flower range. Maybe he would like one as a birthday present..? haha.

I'm also happy because my range of leather journals came into stock from India. All very "Game of Thrones" style, gothic and stylish at the same time. Ideal for any historic gift shop location and perfect gifts for many an occasion. I seen these first in a gift shop in Portugal last year, a customer of AW, the owner told me of all the products she stocked the leather journals generated the biggest sales. She had a big old table in the centre of the shop opposite the entrance piled high with books.

See below, for more details.. we have more designs coming soon and I believe our prices (as usual, sorry to blow-own-trumpet again) are the best... if not let us know, we always price match on a like for like basis.

Anyway I don't want to boar / bore you anymore :) More news next week.

Wishing you all the best three-fold harmony!

Take Care

David