David's AW News: Historic Event! Gen Z Overthrew the Government

Greetings from Kathmandu, Nepal.

Last week I was debating whether to make this scheduled trip.. the airport was closed and protests were turning to riots and reports of police brutality.. and all happening right in the business area around my hotel where I had booked to stay. Also in last week's news, lots of drama everywhere.. nobody has noticed Temu is a channel for Russian goods into the UK. If you missed it you can catch up here.

Meanwhile, I was being well informed by my friends and suppliers in Kathmandu. The situation had changed rapidly, massive drama going on including the flagship Hilton hotel being burned down. But the army restored order, the government resigned and collectively went into hiding, the Gen Z protests actually worked with huge impact. Historic times. In the end my flight was not cancelled, and the airport was open again.. so I stuck with my plan and went for it.

The first thing I did was to find actual Gen Z protestors and interview them.. I discovered something interesting..

Watch my YourTube video here. https://youtu.be/ntqHtm4Z7b0

The journey.

So on Monday evening I took a flight from Yiwu airport to Chengdu airport, which is Panda central, so many pandas in that airport.  I had an 8 hour connection but found a rather plush airport hotel actually in the terminal, got a few hours sleep and then strolled over to international departures. Very organised place with lots of Panda statues, no hassle at all. I'm sat in the business lounge with a cup of coffee catching up on some work, when a young lady found me to tell me the flight was leaving early. Could I hurry to the gate..

The flight was very sparse, only three people in business class, took off early and arrived over Kathmandu after about 2.5 hours. They actually announced the landing and said we would be on the ground in 15 minutes. But then rather alarmingly we spent a long time in a holding loop over the airport - more than an hour maybe 90 minutes - I was actually getting worried that beneath us something had kicked off and wasn't able to land. The only information from the flight deck was a sorry about the delay and there are traffic control issues.

Back to normal in Nepal

But after landing the notorious stressful passport control was almost empty, no queue at all.. and a very polite immigration officer actually thanked me and said welcome back to Nepal we are glad to have you. No clue why we was delayed.. could have just been the weather.

I took a car to my hotel which was right in the heart of the unrest area - opposite the Grand Place and not far from the burned down Hilton Hotel which we passed on the way to my hotel.

I soon connected with the Gen Z, son and daughter of our Shipping agent and the staff of our Lokta paper supplier.  Watch the video above to find out why the Hilton was burned down.

There is something about the young people in Nepal - they seem to have a lot more agency and independence than the youngsters of India or China. Somehow pretty cool.. very like the Indonesian or Malaysian youngsters. And in Nepal they changed a corrupt and greedy government with mass protest pretty much overnight.

Meanwhile in the EU

There is currently an offer of free or discounted shipping and an additional 5% discount on orders over €200 + VAT, ending on Wednesday. This is an excellent time to replenish your stocks for the run-up to Christmas.
In addition, we have many new products in stock...

What is the Secret of Soap Flowers?

Also in the UK.. Holly made this excellent informative video - for our "Can You Sell This?" series about Soap Flowers..

If you ask me this is one of our most underrated under the radar products. We have a handful of customers who have discovered the secret to selling this line and literally buy pallet loads, one customer bought half a container load. In Europe we sell them really well to many customers.

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wrw6ho8kiWY

Dropshipping Update.

I finally feel happy to report that our Dropshipping website is coming good. This was a lot more difficult than we imagined and has taken a monumental effort buy a big section of AW people. Raul has been co-ordinating the developer team in Bali, Tomas has literally been working day and night to get stuff designed and functioning.. I have been testing and reporting bugs until those bugs are totally eradicated. Martina in the UK is full-time on uploading products and crafting deals..  The APIs that connect Shopify, Ebay etc have been born and tuned and tamed and made to perform for our customers..(More API's are on the verge of being unveiled)..  And a special thanks to some particularly long suffering dedicated customers (you know who you are!) have been immeasurably helpful with feedback and suggestions.

AW-Dropship.es  - now is the time to  dip back in.. and carve out your online sales profits.

Wishing you a lovely weekend..

Peace and love.

David