Gift Focus - May/Jun 2018 (Issue 107)

When did Ancient Wisdom start? What was the reason for setting up the business? It was a Thursday morning a long time before Google and Facebook, and as I laid out my market stall with aromatherapy and home fragrance products on a street in Sheffield I was more than apprehensive about what people would think. A few months earlier, I’d been reading a book called Ancient Wisdom – now out of print. The book highlighted many things that seem out of place in history – the pyramids, Stonehenge to name a few. At the same time, I’d been researching aromatherapy. It struck me that essential oils had been used for thousands of years and ancient people must have known more about them – (healing and enchanting) than perhaps we did. I found supplies of oils and a potter down in Stoke who made me my own design of oil burner, and invested in a pallet load of candles. The first day, I only sold one lavender oil and gave some tea tree away to a spotty girl. I went home and almost gave up. The next day, I decided I needed to get my act together, and made an offer, lavender oil, oil burner and a nightlight... I sold my first oil burner set in five minutes... and Ancient Wisdom was born. Soon, I sold 50 sets a day and gradually found customers for my range of essential oils. That was more than 22 years ago. How has the company developed over the years? After the market stall, I developed a chain of giftware shops with the first one in Sheffield market. This was followed with gift shops in Bakewell and Castleton. Meanwhile, I was involved with a company selling coffee to pubs and restaurants. We changed it over to giftware wholesale, with the Ancient Wisdom brand and products. Since then, the company has grown, with a few ups and downs, to become an international giftware company, and we still sell lavender oil fragrance oils and oil burners. We also sell 10,000 other products to more than 60,000 customers all over the world, with warehouses in Indonesia, China, the UK, Spain and Slovakia. We’re one of a kind among major wholesalers in that at Ancient Wisdom there are no salespeople, so our products have to be good enough to sell themselves. Tell us about your product offering. We’re a UK manufacturer of hand-made bathroom, aromatherapy and home fragrance products and also importers of exotic and original gift products. We simply love gifts! Since 1995, we’ve been passionate about bringing the best in giftware gifts to our customers both in Europe and across the world. Currently we have more than 7,000 aromatherapy and giftware product lines available to order online with fast delivery across Europe. Thousands of gifts and gift lines including hand-made bath bombs and soaps, essential oils, Nag Champa incense sticks, ear candles, gemstones, himalayan salt lamps, soybean candles, organza bags and packaging range. What’s your most popular collection? This would be our own manufactured luxurious collection of cocktail bath bombs. We only launched this collection in autumn 2017 and it’s already become one of our top selling lines. The scents for this range were exclusively created for Ancient Wisdom by one of the UK’s top fragrance houses. There are six variations with their own scent and colour, making the bath smell and look just like the real cocktail. Our cocktail bath bombs bar includes Gin & Tonic, Margarita, Martini, Mojito, Champagne and Pina Colada. There are three themed drink bombs in each gift pack containing the finest scents of all your favourite mixed drinks. Each bath bomb weighs approximately 120g. The stylish and detailed design of the boxes is an attractive point of sale in a shop, and they’re great value offering a substantial and fun gift for around £7 retail. Have any products taken you by surprise with their popularity? We introduced a range of luxury soap flowers some time ago. Our initial stock sold out literally within days. We import them from China and had to start ordering container loads to satisfy the high demand. How do you keep your designs current? How often do you launch new lines? Managing Director of Ancient Wisdom, David Hardy talks to Gift Focus about business, travel and well being wise words spoken This is David at the Children’s home in Kolkata that Ancient Wisdom is proud to support 30 giftfocus