Wholesale Seven Years Ago / Travel Hack - AW Gifts Europe

Greetings from Spain...

It's just turned crazy hot (over 30c) and the yellow fire planes are buzzing my house. A lot of news this week... I have never seen it this early in the summer.

It's hot and getting hotter in Spain. Last week I was telling you about possible criminals in Malaga.. if you missed it you can catch up here. (update below).

I hope you are organised and ready for Father's Day.. now is the time to make hay.. good luck guys!

This week Raul, our IT wizard who was staying with me and working night and day to bring you some tech upgrades (coming soon) had to return home to his family in Kuala Lumpur. I drove him to the airport yesterday... We said emotional goodbyes. Raul has an interesting travel hack... that almost always works... I'll tell you below.

I really cannot believe it was SEVEN YEARS ago...

Another big event (at AW anyway) is the Seventh Birthday of AWGifts.eu in Slovakia.. regular long time readers of this newsletter will remember our founding of that company in response to the Brexit vote. We figured out early (I think before most of our competitors) that it would be increasingly hard to sell from the UK to gift shops in Europe... we were (sadly) so right in that judgement call was a success at least.

So Tomas, Katka and I went looking for a warehouse and a team in Slovakia.. in the town of Trnava near Bratislava simply because this is Tomas's hometown and it gave us connections. Our original team (Erika, Matej & co) was carefully put together and what can I say except they have far exceeded our expectations. Slovakia AW is now our biggest and trades in every EU country, we moved from our modest warehouse after a few years and now work from a big beautiful shed distribution warehouse. We keep expanding and the team keeps growing. Of course, we wish them continued success!

They are not big on partying (like our Spain team hahah) but there was coke and cakes.. and speeches..

Well done guys!

Raul's secret travel hack.

Raul is not a business-class fan and likes to travel cheaply but in comfort. His flight to KL was via Abu Dhabi. About 7 hours each leg.

Here's the hack and it takes a strong will not to follow the crowd. You need to overcome the herding instinct. First job.. buy late about 7 to 10 days before you fly.. the cheapest seat is probably an under-booked flight. Second, travel light, you don't need the overhead locker. Finally, arrive at the gate very late, and wait until everyone else has boarded.. wait a bit longer and then when you are reasonably confident you are last.. stroll on. Look for the empty row.. and sit in the middle seat..(someone else trying the same trick is not going to take a seat next to you) after the take off you claim the whole space to lie down. Worst case you have to use your assigned seat. But he says he has 80% success. A good hack for lone travellers...

Meanwhile in Spain...

The (possible) crooks who took our money for three second-hand containers failed to deliver as promised yesterday. Now they are saying the 16th of June.. which is too late anyway - we need that extra storage space NOW... I worry they are just fobbing us until they disappear.. updates later.

Meanwhile in India...

You remember a few months ago Toni and I were on the Epic Asian Tour - in India.. the stock we ordered then is pretty much ready to ship... there are a lot of products. I'm a little concerned there could be major cock-ups.. So Drishtanta (who is the son of Chatterjee) bravely set out from Kolkata with an assistant to retrace that Epic Tour.. they are visiting every supplier and doing Quality Control checks.. checking a long list of things that could go wrong and confirming specs, labelling, paperwork etc.. He was in Delhi yesterday, today in Agra, and later back to Delhi then Panipat and Jaipur.

We have a shared WhatsApp group at AW and Drishanta is uploading (it seems) thousands of pictures and videos as he checks and tests every product. I think he is doing an awesome job.

He has already found some underweight issues and some labelling errors... I think the fact he was coming probably helped sharpen the mind.

Good job Drishtanta!

Meanwhile in the UK..

We have an India container and a China container that just unloaded. Lots of fast-selling Incense is back in stock.

And key products from China also.. stock up while you can.

Hope you have a lovely weekend.

More news next week.

David