Finally...!

After what feels like an eternity, we have at last been able to visit suppliers abroad in the new post-Covid world in which we now live.

During October our buying team visited Thailand and Indonesia for the first time in over three years with the aim of sourcing new products for 2023. For three years we have been coping with ordering existing items and trying to produce new ones by emailing designs and then seeing emailed images of how these turned out – which inevitably needed some changes. All very time-consuming and frustrating.

Working Side By Side

By visiting, we could work daily with suppliers and tweak our designs as samples were shown to us each day. We had forgotten just how amazing some suppliers are – we have an idea one day and the next day we see the first sample. Incredible! There is no substitute for that immediate response and it hugely helps creativity. As a result, there will be a lot of new products for 2023...hoorah!

However, our visit highlighted to us the way in which things have changed since Covid hit the world. Some of the places we visit are – or were – tourist hot spots and we were used to seeing lots of travellers in certain places, but it is clear that tourism has not returned fully yet.

Chiang Mai in Thailand is famous for its night market and in the past, it was full of tourists looking for bargains. Previously, it was virtually impossible to get around the whole of the market in one evening. Now there are fewer foreign visitors and the market has shrunk to a fraction of its former glorious self – it is now approximately 1/3 of its old size. So many of the stalls closed during Covid and the remaining stallholders looked sad and defeated as they compete for custom from the few tourists.

In Bali, the loss of tourism has hit harder, but the recovery seems more hopeful. The economy of Bali depends upon tourists – it relies on their foreign income. In the pre-Covid years, the island received over 6 million visitors each year – staying in hotels, visiting restaurants, going to visit sights, buying handicrafts and so on. So much of the people’s livelihood is earned in this way.

Then Covid shut this off. At the height of Covid, the island lost all of its main source of income. In 2021 Bali had just 51 tourists visit the island in the whole of the year. Just 51 instead of the usual 6 million! That is a fall of 99.999% – a total collapse of tourism and consequently most of the economy.

We were shocked when we visited to see how many of our favourite restaurants, hotels, and shops had closed.  Many of our handicraft suppliers used to have small retail outlets to sell their goods - but now several have closed them. What’s the point of having a shop with nobody to sell to?

Nevertheless, the Balinese are resilient. Some survived by returning to farming, and others looked after each other during the worst periods of Covid.  Now tourism is returning and it is back to over half of the old levels. People are hopeful again, and new businesses are opening.

A Brighter Future

Not surprisingly, our suppliers in both Thailand and Indonesia were extremely pleased to see us and many said that our continued ordering during lockdowns massively helped them cope with the economic upheaval caused by Covid and we are pleased to say that none of our suppliers closed as a result of lost business. When we met them, we worked together on many products and new ranges of clothing and handicrafts are being produced as I write. All are due to arrive into the UK in early 2023.

The post-Covid world of today is far from ideal. Rising prices of raw materials don’t help, the war in Ukraine doesn’t help, and the weak pound and the fragile UK economy don’t help, but nevertheless, the sourcing of new products from wonderful people means that we remain optimistic about 2023!