Why do you think that is?

I think because there are-- I've said it in other, uh, sort of, uh, interviews before, I think there's a very low barrier of entry into the cycle market, and there is just too much, too many brands and too many products, and there's just-- and it just, we produceWay more than there is con- consumer demand.

And that's the problem we've got, and it's just people come and go all the time.

But, you know, as I said earlier, when a brand, you know, they, they...

It's a relatively low cost of entry.

They think they've got a great idea, the best thing ever.

It, it comes in, it doesn't work.

Is that helping you?

Again, there's not very global data on what the inventory levels are, and that's why there are so many different opinions on what the inventory situation is actually like.

Well, I think we are slowly recovering.

It definitely started to notice a, a pickup in the market towards the end of last year, and that continued into this year, although we're now obviously dealing with, uh, some extra things we weren't planning for with, uh, the war with Iran, which, uh, isn't helping for sure.

But, uh, I think generally speaking, it was, there was definitely a, a, a fragile but clear, uh, start of the recovery in the last quarter.

I think even the, the recovery probably started a little bit at the beginning of last year, and the first quarter of last year was pretty strong.

But then I think we had budgets and, uh, various things that just, uh, you know, increased business costs and just caused a, a, a lot of sort of uncertainty for business and they kind of hit the mood even though we had a fantastic summer weather.

Um, I think that kind of had a, a negative impact of national insurance cost increases and minimum wages and all these things that are impacting a lot of retailers and every business, you know, every business, but particularly in smaller retailers, there's another big increase for them.

... how was Taipei? How was the mood there?