AW Artisan Wholesale Giftware

Greetings from Ancient Wisdom HQ in Sheffield. Yes I'm back from Spain in the UK.. My schedule this time of year is a little crazy, but it's Christmas and it is what it is. Last week in Spain it was mission accomplished, I went with Toni to view potential new warehouses and was able to do a deal on a new place not too far from our existing warehouse . Huge offices and a much larger warehouse already racked out, so we can move quickly.. we will actually start moving over Christmas. So exciting times in Spain. We had the Spain Christmas party on the private terrace of a central Malaga hotel. Very posh, everyone dressed smartly looking amazing. From the terrace we could see the ancient cathedral in the old town light up with a festive laser show and a massive street party below as people come to see the famous Christmas lights. After a formal meal around one large table, I gave my traditional speech (translated by Toni), thanking everyone for their hard work this year, jokin...

Greetings from Malaga, Spain Happy Christmas Folks.. hope that trade is going good. Right now it seems like all of AW is running on Full Steam.. all systems go. Christmas is approaching fast. We are on day 9 of the 24 Days of Christmas Advent Calender .. showcasing our most popular and fast selling products. Well it's almost Christmas.. when Ancient Wise Men first brought gifts and established the first Christmas presents. Since we are Ancient Wisdom - your favorite gift wholesalers.. we are bringing YOU gifts everyday.. Don't miss out it's day 2 already!! Last week I was telling you about my arrival back in the UK.. and the shock of landing in Manchester. If you missed it you can catch up here . It was great to see Rodrigo and Holly.. working on the next "Can You Sell This?" YouTube video.. and all see all the team working on full steam Christmas rush now full on.. Right on our Busiest Week Ever at Ancient Wisdom.. But this month is kinda crazy.. it...

Greetings from my hometown of Sheffield. Happy BLACK FRIDAY!! Hope business is booming for you. Here is the last trading day of the month.. so everyone is running like crazy.. Yes I'm home and at the HQ of AW. It's always good to be home, even if it's cold outside. Back home with friends and family and the teams at AW. Well it's just awesome. Last week I was writing the newsletter from the airport in Bali on the way here. From there I flew to Istanbul, and changed flights to Manchester. At the gate I had to pass two profiling checks and somehow avoided a final security search.. slightly scary when your flight has this extra layer of security. It's like they are expecting something. But anyway from the beautiful art filled airport in Denpasar, Bali to the glamour stuffed stores of Istanbul international terminal.   To erm.. Manchester arrivals .... Well it's just awesome. Like I said lovely to be home. Our man James met me outside and drove me back ov...

Greetings from Bali on my last hours here. I'm at the airport in Bali.. Quickly writing this before my flight. It's time to head back to the UK. Last week I was telling you about our 30th Anniversary of the founding of Ancient Wisdom. I recalled the very first day of trade on a Sheffield street market - 30 years ago. (If you missed it you can catch up here ). The events of that day have kind of fallen into folk law status at AW. How it was a total disaster and almost gave up. But fortunately, I didn't, and here we are today. We ran a 30-hour 30% discount starting at 9.30am on Sunday.. across all our websites. And it was astounding it felt like we almost broke the internet. Thank you everyone for kind words and congratulations. And thank you for your continued trust and trade. Then of course, the next day all our websites collapsed for real when the worldwide Cloudflare downage hit. We are thanking the gods of the internet that it didn't happen during the 3...

Greetings from Bali Hope life is treating you well.. and business is booming. Last week I was telling you a little secret from AW history.. if you missed it you can catch up here . In Bali it's the wet season, plenty of rain.. I have spent half the week seemingly driving up or down roads that have turned into rivers.. But every now and then the skies clear and the air is fresh and clean and you catch beautiful views..  The other morning Mount Agung appeared like magic across the bay in Sanur. Snakes Alive!! So yes there has been big rain in Bali again.. disrupting things. And it seems like various animals are moving indoors. The other day we found a huge lizard hiding in the curtains in the office, and then minutes later found two big snakes exploring our meeting room. Arya (one of our developers) and Bondhan bravely captured him and took him somewhere far away.  The other one escaped and is still at large.. Long time suppliers.. The other day Bondhan and I went to the Sukawat...

Greetings from AW Warehouse, Bali Hope you are doing well, and business is good! Last week I was telling you about how Donald Trump delayed me and I could have missed my flight to Bali. If you missed it you can catch up here . This week Tomas arrived and we have been working in (what we call) the beach office.. with our team of young programmers and digital marketing folk. We have been working on a big upgrade to our system. You see AW is all bespoke, we don't use Shopify or Squarespace everything, all the backend: warehouse, stock control, websites, marketing tools it's all in-house. Masterminded and constantly reinvented by Raul, our IT wizard. It's a lot of work actually. And today, as I write, we are loading a container from the warehouse here. This one is going to Slovakia. It's too hot to work later in the day, so they start loading in the early hours.. we came to check.. Tomas might just see this container in Slovakia around Christmas or New Year.. so for fun (y...