AW Artisan Wholesale Giftware

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...

Greetings from Bali, Indonesia And happy Halloween. November is here!! It's scary how fast the time flies, it doesn't seem like ten minutes since last year's Halloween. Traditionally, at AW, we get in the spirit and come to work in ghoul and ghost mode.. I'm writing this before all the costume drama has taken place..(time zone issues) , but see below for the results.. AW Artisan in Spain AW Gifts in Slovakia Ancient Wisdom in UK AW Aromatics in UK Last week I was telling you about saying goodbye to Toni and Chatterjee (my travel companions for the last few weeks in India) and flying from our base in Goa to Bangalore and then to Kuala Lumpur. If you missed it, you can catch up here . Goodbye Mr Chatterjee - see you next time.. Full Body check I was in KL for my regular body check at the Gleneagles Hospital. One of the nicest hospitals in the world, I want to call it the Gleneagles Hotel , because it has a lobby, bell boys, a grand piano and welcome dr...

Greetings from Kuala Lumpur Hope you guys are doing well and the Christmas uplift is coming your way.. Last week I was telling you about our trip to the gemstone mine.. in Jharkhand - a small Indian state - a surprisingly peaceful and beautiful place .. I'm working on a YouTube about our trip.. coming soon, but if you missed the newsletter, you can catch up here . As is traditional, we spend a few days in South Goa with our good friends. The last days in India, sorting out the loose ends and relaxing. Me, Toni and Mr Chatterjee..Then yesterday Toni headed back to Spain, Chatterjee and I parted in the airport, him going home to Kolkata. Me onwards. I just arrived from India to KL on an overnight red-eye flight. The journey started with a taxi from our apartment in Goa to the airport, in which a young, crazy guy on a motorbike tried to squeeze through an impossible gap and managed to scrape two taxis in one go . Fortunately, no-one was hurt, but two angry Goan taxi drivers y...

Greetings from the 60th Edition of the IHGF Delhi Fair. Mr Chatterjee, Toni and I are at the huge Indian bi-anual trade show. It's a big deal because this is the 60th edition.. Actually 30 years of trade shows. It's changed a lot over the years, and many familiar faces, old friends, competitors and the odd fraudsters are here. More than a few read this newsletter. I have been attending more years than I'm happy to admit. It was here that I met Mr Chatterjee, who became a good friend and our agent.. our Man in India. He is a well known figure in the show.. mostly because he is tall, towering above most other Indians and sports that trademark white flash hair style and always wears the brightest of clothes. I feel a bit like AW and this trade show have grown up together.. see below why. Last week I was telling you about the noisy city of Varanasi and our search for silk, if you missed it you can catch up here ..  But I also found time to make a YouTube video about it. Thanks...