Yes, I made it to China, and I can tell you it is unnaturally hot here.. The streets are oven-hot with a humid hair-dryer-breeze. Evenings are sticky and tropical.

From Bali, I took the daily China Southern flight, which leaves every day at 30 minutes past midnight and arrives in Guangzhou five hours later. A big storm further up the coast was blasting Shanghai and I think we were feeling the effects, we had bouncy turbulence for almost all of the flight. In Guangzhou, I cleared passport control and made my way to the domestic terminal with a flight at 11am to Yiwu. We landed in Yiwu on time and my luggage arrived quickly, within minutes I find Coco waiting for me at arrivals. All seemed pretty smooth and it is amazing to be back in China.

Last week I was telling you about foreigners behaving badly in Bali.. if you missed it you can catch up here.  

Today we launched (or should say relaunched) the AW Gold Reward Amnesty.. it's my plan for rewarding our loyal customers... like you :).. more below.

It's auspicious this year because not only is the festival on a full moon, but a super large harvest moon,  a lunar eclipse sending the moon red, and a visible comet in the night sky. All these astrological events the Chinese predict major events in world affairs. Feels strange... The hot humid sticky weather adds to the strangeness. 

At this time in China.. Moons and Rabbits everywhere..

Anyway so Tomas arrived, and we hit the ground running.. visiting existing suppliers first and checking out the projects already in development. Our designers have been super busy ahead of our trip here and now we need to make things happen.. which here is fast and fun. 

Only had a couple of days to check out new stock ideas and we have lots! Almost beside ourselves with excitement!  I think a lot of creativity has been going on this summer.. that means we will have stock on the way for Spring, and Easter next year that going to be awesome.. 

Here is Mid-autumn festival but in Europe it's the Equinox.. and that means it is officially autumn - making the start of the "back-end" in the gift trade.. Time to think about Christmas.. and Halloween.

We had a lot of stock delivered this week.. I know the warehouse team has containers most days. Lots back in stock.. quite a lot of new stock.. Including some India stock which has taken forever to arrive here, mostly because if the shipping container delays, but also for some reason Indian suppliers have many domestic issues causing delays.. 

So let me tell you about the Gold Reward Amnesty.. You will have noticed we give volume discounts in most families (or ranges) of products. This is to encourage retailers like you to carry a good selection of a similar product range because a good selection means you will give your customers confidence and thus sell more... It also means your order can be picked and packed more efficiently, so the savings can be passed on to you.

All good so far right (I know this because I used to be a retailer many moons ago).. except that for sure you will sell out of the most popular lines quickly and then need to restock. Restocking is expensive.. so our system is that you can restock (within 30 days) and still get the discount. We call this the Gold Reward Discount...   

It's all good if you can remember to order regularly.. if you are loyal to your stock your customers will be loyal to you.. but life gets in the way.. and well you know what happens..

SO.. that's why we invented the Gold Reward Amnesty.. what with COVID and Brexit it kind of got forgotten.. but this week we are delighted to bring it back..

Rodrigo and Sandra and the team.. came up with a fresh look involving a Goldfish.

 

Take care .. have a lovely Equinox weekend..

More news from China next week.

David