We at the KZ team had been deliberating this for a very very long time.
Every time we meet a trader, a merchant, a supplier, a distiller, a farmer, we see a diverse range of wares to which we are incredibly selective and meticulous.
Part to why we had started procuring oils, is because our students and many of our friends had been requesting them, and we needed to seek out classical high quality ones that everyone can take to as a learning reference.
Take for example the Cambodia Classic, the search took about a year, we sampled over 200 “cambodis” from all sorts of sources, suppliers, and couldn’t find one that hit the right note, high quality and value for money, until we found this. I remembered the first encounter with this oil, I chided the trader because it took him so long to be willing to show and share it with me. He says it is very normal not for young and early clients to get a chance to sample the very best. It takes a while to build the relationship and trust, due to the limited supply, it is not simply about the money, but a matter of who should get it and whether they will appreciate/enjoy it. In his words, if everyone wanted or has been shown the best, then how could he sell the more average ones?
On the other hand, we’ve been also digging our grubby fingers into the overseas markets, like how we brought back this sandalwood oil that a Taiwanese suppler had constantly stocked pile for the religious communities to use over the past few decades.
What is our business model on this? Don’t drop your jaw on this. We’re looking at narrow margins for ourself, in the spirit of sharing.
We’re not here to corner the market or to disrupt it, but just to share good scents.
This is not in anyway to rock the boat for the oud trade. There are many esteemed oud distillers, oud sellers that we at the KZ team respect a lot, these guys out there like Ensar Oud, Agaraura, Alshareef Oud, Feel Oud, Imperial Oud etc.. they all distill and produce some of the very best ouds in the world, many of them are regal, luxurious and immaculate. You shouldn’t look anywhere else if you are looking for the best ouds in the world.
What we are doing here is just to provide you scents that we personally use, and personally feel that they punch above their weight in the “cost” factor. Our enterprise has many other aspects that sustains its business, as such we thought we can see whether we can try out narrow margins for the first time. Will it work? We don’t know, may be in due time we have to increase the margins to grow the business.. but till then, we’ll see.
Upcoming soon will probably be two nice oils, one, a sharp, green, metallic Hindi (due to copper), and another a Hindi-Thai blend. Haven’t struck the deal with the trader on this but i’ve marked these two oils on my radar as i find them really enjoyable. Inshallah, I hope to be able to hit the target of under a hundred dollars for a quarter tola.
