The journey to a Tiny Island with huge possibilities

SINDBAD Story Series 2 Part 2

The huge bungalow of Sindbaad was packed by his friends, relatives and other important people of the city. They had just finished the dinner and were chewing scented betel nuts.

“Now Friends, listen to another tale of my journeys.” Sindbaad said. “This tale is much different than the earlier tales as it tells that even the people considered as most wily and heartless, can sometimes offer some valuable teachings. It also shows that even such stone-hearted people can house human emotions. “
“It had been 3 months that I had been living a peaceful life with my family. The wealth acquired during the precious journey wasn’t yet exhausted. Though Initially I enjoyed living with family, now I was eager to start another journey. Responding to my cravings I contacted some sailors of my city and came to know that the next week a group of merchants were scheduled to leave for a trip to a tiny island. The island was famous for a variety of lifestyle items like perfumes, apparels, etc. The idea was to purchase huge quantities of lifestyle items there and sell the same in retail quantity to earn a good profit. So I joined the group and went to the island. The sea journey was safe and the weather was fine. The island was not too far. So, we soon reached the island named “Amneria”. It was a small island and soon we were in the main market.

It was a huge market. The traders from different countries flocked it. One of the best feature of the market was that unlike other markets they had seen before that market was highly organized. Each shop was of the same size and there were separate, straight rows allocated to each different commodity. The spice market housed many spice shops selling spices of different countries while the perfume shop captivated the people with its intoxicating fragrances. I noticed that each market had two section. While the outer section was meant for the retail buyers there was a gate towards the end of the street. Inside the gate there were huge shops that sold items in the bulk. Not everyone was allowed to enter the gate. Only the traders and shop owners can enter inside.

They were not small buyers some used to purchase 500 cartons while others were purchasing in units of shiploads like 1 shipload or 2 shiploads etc. There were traders from different countries: India, China, Middle East, etc. We went to a huge fragrance shop. The shop was like no other. It was really huge, just like an entire city. There were so many items that standing at the entrance I could not see the opposite side of the shop. Another unique thing was that the shop had many small sections with the placard mentioning different country from where the perfumes for that section had been procured. Each perfume had a distinct fragrance, some were so strong that a single drop can make the entire body fragrant while others were so subtle that you could hardly know if someone had applied that perfume till you come very near to him.

Of all the items that we had purchased these perfumes seemed to be the most promising and highly profitable if we sold it back in our city. Being a political capital our city was inhabited by aristocrats, diplomats and other high profile ministers who would not mind spending lavishly on lifestyle items like apparels, decorative crafts and perfumes. They were highly interested in buying the unique items of foreign countries. I was sure that even if we brought 5-6 shiploads of the perfumes we would have been able to sell all. So we all traders decided to go for a very huge quantity so that we can get the price benefit.

After a thorough discussion we decided to order 2 complete shiploads of perfumes that we would divide among themselves in equal quantity.