Wholesale Beyond the Gates of Heaven - Ancient Wisdom - Giftware and Aromatherapy Supplier

Greetings from Amed, Bali

Hope the heatwave is being kind to you..

Here in Bali the weather is not too hot, we came East - the far east of Bali under the looming Mount Agung to a spectacularly beautiful but not really well known area.

Last week I was telling you about a typical day's work in Ubud, and trouble with monkeys.. if you missed it you can catch up here.

The village of Amed is basically a coast road stretching about 10 kilometers with small guest houses and little hotels dipping their toes into the warm sea. The main reason to come here is diving and diving schools and dive shops make up half the businesses. French people discovered the area years back and the locals seem to know as much French as English.

This sleepy part of Bali suffered badly in covid lock-downs and basically closed, now Bali is booming but the tourists (mostly French) are only just rolling up here, and Amed is not ready, only two ATM's in town are functioning. I stood in a queue of complaining French folk at the only working ATM trying to explain the Indonesian concept of "sabar".

Sleepy Amed with Mount Agung the volcano in the back.

The internet is on and off and when working - pretty patchy, which for my wife Coco is stressful because she spends most of the day communicating with the AW China office in Yiwu. She is getting a little agitated because Yiwu has gone into zero covid lock-down again. Yesterday we were due to load a container, Coco thought it would be fine, the last lock-down business was allowed to flow with some strict restrictions.. the driver couldn't leave his cab. But this time it's super strict.. everything is closed. At the last minute even as the empty container was enroute to our warehouse, everything was cancelled. How many cases are there I asked. 131 she said. Here in Bali it is similar but no-one is panicking. In Yiwu now, there is full lockdown, and daily testing.. for at least a week. So a container of stock for Christmas is delayed. Sabar.

You can snorkel straight off the beach into the most spectacular tropical sea filled with every kind of fish and if you are patient and have enough "sabar" it's entirely possible a sea turtle will bless you with company and swim alongside.

The dive shops will take you further to dive on sunken Japanese ships from the second world war or in search of sharks, but I'm happy inshore just with a snorkeling mask and flippers.

We came here seven or eight years ago and Coco wanted to revisit.. hence our trip. Ringo brought us here, he likes this area also -- high on the mountain looking down on Amed is his favorite temple. Known as the "Gates of Heaven" it's an instagram spot. A Balnese gate frames a mountain view of mount Agung. To get to the temple complex and the gates is quite a walk up 1700 steps up the mountain but Ringo explained that the real temple is small and sacred and can only be approached on foot, another 2000 steps higher up the mountain, he was there on a pilgrimage recently but would be happy to be our guide and take us up. Basically beyond the Gates of Heaven.

Before covid this spot became super popular with the insta crowd, the queue to get this shot could be upto two hours.

Anyway with all the trouble in the world, it's nice to escape a little. Back to work tomorrow.. back to Ubud and the AW warehouse.

Lots of jobs to do.. not least sorting out our bulging warehouse and streamlining container dispatches.

Meanwhile back in the UK it's definitely getting busy, and it's nice to see so many Indonesian products selling. The Marame Hati Hati Angels.. these were so long in the making I can't tell you.. are selling very well and this makes me happy because I can report to the young enthusiastic guys making them that a re-order will be forthcoming. When? they ask... Sabar sabar I say..

But not all is good, here and in the UK raw material prices are rocketing. Shipping costs are still through the roof. At AW we work hard to absorb price increases, and I know that every product has an optimum price at which it sells best.. It worries us when products start to look expensive because it disrupts the all important flow of goods and good karma.

So here is a heads up guys.. shortly we will be increasing some prices..

The combined effects of supply issues, raw material increases, raw material shortages, inflation, fuel cost, and energy price have pushed cost prices much higher than we would like.
At this stage we are focusing on the products produced at AW Aromatics.. our own production items.

That's the bad news , but the good news is as a valued customer and reader of this newsletter we are giving you advance warning to enable you to order ahead of the increases.
The price rises will come into effect in the first week of September. The rates vary from 10% upwards and in some cases much higher - because horribly some raw materials have doubled in price.

I hope you can understand, despite many increases over the last 11 months this is the first material increase we have made in a long time.
I can assure you that we remain focused on being competitive in the market, so even after these price rises we aim to be your best value supplier, if you should find "like for like" products cheaper then please let us know.

The good news is there are some stunning new products available - Massage soaps - wow and considering everything the guys in production have achieved a good price point.

Other good news - if you want to stock up now ready for Christmas and ahead of price rises.. we have more payment options available.. including 60 days credit subject to status, (you can check in the check out stage) and also pay in 3 is enabled in Paypal.

Take care.. have a lovely hot weekend and if anyone stresses you .. just smile, hold your palm face down and push gently away and say softly "sabar my friend"

I think you have worked out what it means.. be patient, be kind.

More news next week.

David