AW Artisan Wholesale Giftware

Greetings from Bali, Indonesia Last week I was telling you about my trip from Spain to Kuala Lumpur - not without Drama.. if you missed it you can catch up here . I spent the weekend in KL, one of my favourite cities in the world, and then on Sunday afternoon took a Batik Air flight from KL International airport to Denpasar, Bali. Very smooth flight, about three hours, and very smooth through the airport. Batik arrivals stand is the one next to the arrival hall. Because I have investor status in Bali I get to use the VIP passport channel. Which I enjoy, yes ok I know maybe shallow and childish but so nice to skip the lines. I have to speak Indonesian, because they assume I can (actually not very well at all), but I wing it and like this I'm off the plane and in the luggage area in 3 minutes.. grab my priority luggage and to customs control..    here's a tip you can fill the form and get a QR code before you fly.. customs is just a scanned code and you're outside in a ...

Greetings from Kuala Lumpur, I just arrived here from Spain. Not without some drama. I was having a late lunch on the beach with Toni, Tomas and Raul partly to celebrate the roll out of the new Dropshipping website in Spain and partly to say goodbye (for now). As we were eating the beach grilled sardines I received an auto-call that my flight from Malaga was delayed 90 minutes, now since I had a 2 hour connection in Istanbul that seemed like fun.. but at least I had time for another glass of wine... almost missed the connection.. Last week I was telling you about trying not to complain about the hot weather and other complaints.. If you missed it, you can catch up here . The brightly lit landmass on the left is the European side, and across the water to the right is the Asian side. The Bosphorus is the dividing line where Europe meets Asia. First Drama of the Trip As we came into land at Istanbul I was able to grab this dramatic view of where Europe ends and Asia starts. A fit...

Greetings from Spain, How are you doing today? Here in Spain, it's still almost too hot.. I'm trying not to complain . I hear good weather is also blessing the UK this weekend.. so hopefully you can enjoy it ...   Rodrigo, our marketing man in the UK.. will certainly be enjoying it. Here he is enjoying the weather with the recently expanded team.   This week, we are excited to welcome Alex (the cool guy in the baseball cap) A traditional AW picture, always includes a Buddha statue. Toni is stressed. Toni, our man in Spain, has had a busy (and stressful) week - a container from India finally arrived after clearing customs with what seems to me ridiculously unfair treatment. (I'm trying not to complain) . Despite having all our paperwork carefully prepared and in place, answering every customs query and despite never ever doing anything dodgy.   The delays in customs create storage charges, which we have to pay even though it's not us causing the delay.. and the...

Greetings from the middle of a heatwave in Spain It's hot here in summer, but this summer is a little too much. Hard to sleep at night, I'm waking up in a pool of sweat.. sorry too much info. Last week I was telling you about Slovakia, and how damned efficient they are there. But also friendly and fun. And I was telling you that with the help of Katarina, we made some content for YouTube.. It was lots of fun!! Travel Update Regular readers will know that the circle of life goes on at AW and that involves constantly bringing you new products, and that involves travelling.. I have spent much of this week coordinating with our man in India, Mr Chatterjee, about an Indian tour in October.. and it's looking pretty epic. We are going gemstone hunting in regions unknown, hoping to open up new hippy textile connections in one of India's iconic cities and meanwhile catching up with old suppliers. Before that will be Indonesia, China and Nepal.. so a lot to organise.. sta...

Greetings from Spain... Yes, I'm back home for a while. Last week I was telling you about our beautiful Slovakia warehouse and all those Buddhas we have there, creating a calm and serene working environment. If you missed it, you can catch up here . It was amazing working with the Slovakian team.. so organised and efficient. Something about Eastern European folk is so good at finding the best way to have a smooth workflow. Well done, team! Here me with the Buddha in the outdoor relax zone we have. On Wednesday, I left Tomas and Raul working on the new dropshipping website (update below) and took an early morning taxi from Trnava, Slovakia to Vienna Airport. More efficient stuff.. I'm so impressed with the stress-free check-in experience. No people, just scan your boarding card to get a luggage label, take luggage to the belt, here is the weight shown, scan the luggage tag and boarding card again .. And my luggage is gone. So quick, sweet and easy. All the airlines...

Greetings from Trnova, Slovakia. Yes, I'm in our Eastern Europe distribution warehouse.. Our big beautiful (Buddha) warehouse. On Wednesday afternoon, Tomas, Raul (the IT wizard), and me took an Uber to Leeds Bradford airport and boarded a packed and rowdy Ryanair flight to Bratislava. When we landed, all the Slovaks clapped and cheered, have you experienced that? I think only Slovak and Czech people do that.  Last week, I was telling you about sinkholes in Bali and our new arrivals. If you missed it, you can catch up here . Regular readers will know about our Trnova adventures. This is Tomas's home town, and after Brexit happened and we realised that selling into Europe to independent gift shops was just not going to work well, so opened a warehouse quickly here.. it has been wildly successful, and a few years ago we moved to a big, beautiful new warehouse - 6000 pallet spaces.  We wanted to make an amazing space that our team could enjoy working in.. Tomas and Erika (and te...

Greetings from heatwave Sheffield. I hope you are finding time to enjoy the beautiful weather here in the UK.. I'm so lucky to be here at this time.. but so busy. It's been a crazy - mad crazy week. The main focus has been the launch of the new big beautiful dropshipping website .. full honest update below. Last week I was telling you about how we almost lost our shipment of Full Moon Singing Bowls from Nepal.. and how our man James tracked them down and recovered them. If you missed it you can catch up here .. We are so happy to get them back, our new social media girl Holly.. enthusiastically got into the world of Singing Bowls (including the Full Moon Bowls).. and made an info YouTube video for your enlightenment, entertainment and inspiration...   actually Singing Bowls are booming (pun intended ) business.. lovers of singing bowls - that includes me.. are obsessed with them.. will pay big money for the more exotic bowls and spend hours practicing to make the spine...