Behind Bali Abundance Episode 5 - The Journey Begins....
Take #2 - Bali Abundance Journey Begins again - my first business trip…
2008 Off to Bali we head… I had my $5000 which was the goal I had set at the Christopher Howard Seminar "Breakthrough to Success". Mum and I booked our flight to Bali to do my first serious buying trip. I booked the flight on my visa card so I still had $5000 stock money. We stayed at the Jayakarta Hotel in Legian as my cousin Michelle and her beautiful family from Perth were also at the Jayakarta. We shopped in the day and could catch up with my cousin's family at night which was a bonus for mum and I as we love this family...
Everyday we headed off shopping to see what we could find. I was just looked for small items that I could sell from home or a market I had not really worked out how I was going to sell them. Which now that I look back was not such great planning. I purchased paintings, fairy costumes, handicrafts, slide didgeridoos, place mats, paintings and jewellery and also some clothing and shoes.
Everyday we would bring home the items we had purchased and the stock in our room was growing. Mum would sleep soundly at night and as the stock levels grew so did my anxiety.. I did not really know how I was going to get everything home and had to get it organised before we left as time was going quickly.
I went to the post office near the Bintang Supermarket the guy who ran it back then was a very funny man and often under pressure with all the tourists sending stock home. I got prices for air freight and also sea freight. I got some prices for DHL and also a shipping quote. I purchased some paintings that were framed that I wanted to send home by cubic metre shipping and also had some painting that I had taken off the frame so sent them home by sea. I would need to reframe them at home. I wanted to compare which way was more cost effective.
I very quickly realised framing paintings was expensive and would then leave little profit. I purchased a drop saw and got my brother who was a carpenter to teach me how to make the frames. I framed all the paintings and decided this was hard work and not something I enjoyed. Sending them already framed was by far the best option no matter how much it cost in the future!!!
We found places like Geneva and Unagi which were like fixed price homewares supermarkets. This was a great place to start but eventually I ended up finding the places where Geneva and Unagi possibly purchase their items so no longer go there. We had fun shopping in the day and catching up with my cousin at the beach for sunset each night. We had a few different drivers who wanted to manage my business. I did not feel comfortable with any of them I just wanted a driver not a manager. This was something I was hoping to establish this trip however I would rather wait until I find the right person.
I had spent all my money and started to organise posting items and shipping items and we started to pack our bags ready for the trip home. We had so much stock still left. We had a suitcase each fully loaded, a backpack each, a hand bag each and also carrying roll on luggage. You could never get away with it today but back then the airport was quite corrupt so we were approaching the counter and I was telling my poor mum to just stand up straight not to look like she was struggling or they may notice we are overloaded. They weighed our suitcases which were way over the limit. The guy at the check in counter handed me back my passport and said you are over if you put $50 in the passport it will be ok! I did not want to loose my stock so just did this and he let us through. Then somehow with all our hand luggage we boarded the plane and headed home. I still laugh about how much hand luggage we had but back then everyone had way too much but mum and I were quite ridiculous lol. This had been a successful buying trip in Bali.
It was really nice time to have with just mum and I and a beautiful time with my cousin and her family. Now to head home and the real journey begins. In order to come back to Bali and do this all again, I needed to successfully sell all my items and still had not worked out how I was going to do this….. I know looking back this was pretty crazy I was just so focused on getting there and purchasing the stock and guessed I would figure this out as I went along...
Stay tuned for the next episode… click the video below