Nov 18, 2016 | General
Coming off the back of our most successful year ever you would think I could allow myself the luxury of easing up a bit but that’s just not possible. As a business we are facing new challenges all the time and have to constantly be innovating, developing new products and finding smarter ways of doing what we do. I am always working on what we will be doing next year and beyond, this year is already ancient history. At the moment we are being mauled by unfavourable exchange rates. For instance the cost of the Yen has increased to us by over 35% since spring. That effectively means Japanese goods are now out of our reach as the increased cost would mean the retail cost of a typical pair of Masakuni scissors would go from around £75 to £98 even though the Japanese offer price remains the same. In my opinion that’s not going to fly. I am not about to go and spend large amounts of money on goods I can’t sell. It’s not the fault of the Japanese, they have not really had any price increases for decades now. The problem is that in the face of political uncertainty around the western world spineless currency dealers made a run for the safe and stable Yen and increased the value of it. Alongside that most large world currencies have taken a bit of a hammering this year. Don’t expect many bargains from Japanese tree importers next year!
I am not worried at all. We have been in this position before. The Yen is currently around the 130 to 1 GBP, in 2008 it was as low as 115 to 1 GBP and we survived just fine. What I think we, and the western world as a whole, have seen this year is the end of stable or falling prices. I know everyone thinks bonsai stuff is expensive and it may well be in relation to some other hobbies but then everything is produced in small numbers by comparison. It’s estimated that 20% of the UK population has been freshwater fishing in the UK in the last two years, that’s about thirteen million people. Kaizen Bonsai have been trading for close to fifteen years now and are by far the largest UK mail order bonsai company and our extensive mailing list, which stretches back to the mid 1990s has around twenty five thousand previous UK customers listed. There are a lot more people buying floats and maggots than buy bonsai stuff. But, here is something interesting…..
Money is constantly devaluing. Anyone over 50 remembers when you could fill you car up with petrol for £5-7. I used to drive a big three litre car to work every day, about seven mile round trip and it cost me £4.50 a week. I bought my first house for £16,000. My first job paid less than £50 a week. However my dad who is in his mid seventies bought his first house for £1800 and his first wage was less than £4 a week. I would say that on average money decreases in value (what you can buy for it) by half every fifteen to twenty years. However the price of most retail goods has been steadily falling since the last war relative to wages, times have been good.
I have right here in front of me a Bonsai Mart catalogue from 1996/7. Some of you may remember that was the business set up by the renowned Colin Lewis and run by his then wife Imelda before being acquired by us in 2004. This was pre internet, there is no web site or email address or even a cell phone number printed anywhere, wonderful times for those of us who remember 😉
The business was not VAT registered.
Here are a few examples (of many) of prices for products we still offer alongside the current price….
500g Aluminium wire £14.75 – Now £11.00 to £9.50
Green Dream 1Kg £7.99 – Now £7.25
Soil sieve set £19.95 – Now £15.95
Moler/Biosorb 25L £16.99 – Now £10.99
Akadama £14.99 – Now £14.45
Black branch cutter 210mm £24.95 – Now £25.95
Black plastic turntables £12.99 Now – £3.95 to £2.40
NOW HERE’S THE SHOCKING BIT! Our prices include a whopping 1/5 or 20% VAT so working that back a 500g roll of wire now actually sells for as low as £7.92 (that’s the price Kaizen Bonsai gets after VAT) WHICH IS ALMOST HALF THE PRICE IT WAS 21 YEARS AGO! It’s actually less than the wholesale price was back then too.
The way we have managed to do all this is my little secret. The end result is that creating and keeping beautiful bonsai trees has NEVER been cheaper than it is today. Price rises are inevitable over the next few years but we are beavering away behind the scenes to make sure the effects of global economic turmoil are mitigated as far as possible. If you look back over some old bonsai magazines from the last twenty years notice how many of the vendors advertising have disappeared. That’s, by and large, because they did not make enough money to stay in business. Profit is a dirty word in bonsai circles but any company that does not make it will quickly succumb. Rest assured we will still be here for decades to come and most of the profit we do make will be ploughed back into our business so we can continue to develop new products and continue to offer our great range of products at fair prices. All thanks to you and your support of course!
In conclusion, don’t be fooled by media coverage of the global financial situation. They like to create hysteria about such matters. I recently heard a BBC reporter telling of a one day “collapse” in the value of the British pound against the Euro. In actual fact the daily loss was less than 0.5%, hardly what I would call a collapse, and two days later there was a 1% nett gain which, not surprisingly, they failed to mention. Unlike politicians and media pundits business people and manufacturers are a canny bunch and ALWAYS come up with creative and clever ways of doing business and keeping the world working. We don’t need ‘trade deals’ or political interference, as long as there is a demand out there we will be meeting it in an intelligent and ultimately profitable way for the good of everyone concerned so, ignore the scaremongering and be happy 😉
G.
Oct 31, 2016 | General
It’s becoming a bit of a tradition now, us polling down to Heathrow every autumn (4am start) and with good reason. This show has turned into what I think is currently the UKs premier bonsai clubs show. The team here are tireless and have excelled themselves this year with a cracking event. A nice new big sports centre packed to the rafters with largely well presented trees representing some of the most active clubs and bonsai enthusiasts in the country. I have nothing but admiration for Mark and his team who put on this annual show that has topped out at over five hundred visitors this year and in the process raised £853 to the Royal British Legion. Fantastic! Long may it continue and, if your weren’t there shame on you 😉
I managed to talk myself hoarse with a constant stream of enquiries all day, sorry if I didn’t get to you. Early in proceedings everyone went outside to take a photo so I had a minute to rush around and take a few snaps of trees that caught my eye. Here are a random selection……
The date for next year is 22 October at the same venue. Put it in your diary and be there, you’ll be glad you did!
G.
Oct 17, 2016 | General
Now summer (such as it was) is solidly behind us it’s the time of year when we get busy whipping some of our stock into shape. Living out on the coast the next three months will most likely be very mild and experience has shown it to be an ideal time to work evergreens of all kinds. It also tends to coincide with an ominous lull in activity prior to the Christmas madness kicking into high gear. Not that we are exactly quite around here, I live in hope there might be a quiet few days to get caught up but it’s avoided me so far in 2016.
Third tree of the week was this scots pine. I bought a whole forest of these a year ago and their growth over the summer has been quite exceptional. This is one of the less exciting examples but I fancied letting myself into all this easily. It never ceases to amaze me what can happen with a scruffy tree in four hours. These scots bend beautifully at this time of year and are a joy to work with. My advice to to bust out those savings which are not earning you a penny and buy one of these, work it up nicely and sell it to one of your mates, then buy another. That’s all I have been doing for close on thirty years now, how hard can it be, it’s just a green triangle on a stick 😉
G.
Now available to buy – Click here
Oct 13, 2016 | General
I suppose it’s a dream job for most bonsai nuts. Every year I have to buy between one and two thousand trees. Who wouldn’t love to have a trip around Europe spending a hefty five figure sum on bonsai? I get to see all the new stock when it arrives and all the fresh yamadori long before it is released for sale. The tough bit is that I have to buy trees I can sell of course. I can’t just buy what I personally happen to like. If I did that there would be nothing here for sale and the bills wouldn’t get paid. Mortgage companies do not take trees last time I checked.
The other issue is that when I do buy that ‘special’ tree I tend to get inundated with offers to buy it. So far I have pretty much sold all of my best trees, barring a couple which I have priced out of the market 😉 As a rule any raw material I work into bonsai gets sold in pretty quick order and that makes it tough to keep a nice collection. Also we typically have between two and three thousand plants here and just keeping everything tidy takes more time than I have. As a result a lot of very beautiful raw material is sitting here getting better by the year but rarely getting worked into bonsai.
This year I did my normal winter buying trip and picked up what turned out to be a bit of a sleeper. This big sabina looked like a bunch of junk and was priced accordingly. With my business head on I figured a juniper of that size and price ought to be a bargain but had left my artistic talent at home and could not see the wood for the weeds. However when the tree arrived Ramon and I humped it into the workshop, pulled the weeds and started to see something a bit special. Once we cleaned out some junk and cut away a couple of massive branches (it was over 6′ wide) it became clear i had something a bit special.
Now I have moved it into a smaller pot and lifted a lot of it out of the soil it IS a bit special and is NOT for sale, sorry 🙂 Chances are this will make a nice video project in a years time. Watch this space.
G.
Oct 12, 2016 | General
The excellent Heathrow Bonsai Show is coming up again soon. Once again we will be there with lots of goodies. We already have a lot of orders we will be bringing so if there is something you would like us to bring along please let us know in good time so we can prepare what you need. Please don’t call us the day before because we will be packed and ready by then.
G.
Aug 26, 2016 | General
Here at Kaizen Bonsai we are a family business, on occasions there are three generations of us beavering away here. However we also have a much extended family of wonderful customers who have become great friends and a few become much more than that. I now have just one friend who is outside of bonsai, every single other person I know is involved with bonsai somehow or other. Bonsai folk share so much in common in terms of their views of the world and their respect of the world around us. There are some guys I have worked with and that have been so much a part of my life now for so many years that I consider them family.
One such ‘Brother in Arms’ has recently fallen on hard times, very hard times! My good friend D. needs our help and has requested I ask you all if possible to step in. D. has been a great supported of ours for many years now and we have shared some wonderful long days working together with bonsai. A more kind, gentle and generous man does not exist and It’s bringing a tear to my eye just writing this, life can be very cruel at times.
Our good friend has a small collection of quality trees he needs to sell quickly. We have had them listed on the site for a while now with prices we think are fair for the quality. However we now need to move the remaining trees quickly and so are offering the chance for y’all to send us your BEST OFFERS. Please don’t be shy but do have a little respect!
Links below with specific details of each tree.
Please contact me by email or telephone 01493 781834 if you would like to make an offer.
Thanks for your consideration and support.
G.
P.S Mostly sold now, now just this available….
