Almost all of my customers have complained at one time or another that they had to accept late deliveries because of the Chinese New Year. Deliveries are often delayed during the Chinese New Year mainly due to workers returning home for the holidays and the lack of international shipping capacity. But with the addition of the COVID-19 epidemic, these delays have become more and more severe. How to avoid this situation to the maximum extent? In this article, I will list 5 suggestions in detail.
#1. Prepare your order as early as possible before CNY
If your order requires at least 15 days of production time, the safest way is to confirm the order with your supplier at least 40 days in advance. For example, if January 30th is the Chinese Lunar New Year, then to be on the safe side, I suggest confirming your order and paying a deposit with your promotional item supplier by December 20th. Because the Spring Festival is the most important festival of the year for Chinese people. Most of the factories are concentrated in the eastern coastal provinces of China, while most of the workers are from the central and western regions. These workers will return to their hometown every year during the China New Year holidays. As a matter of fact, the holiday time of the factory will be earlier. If January 30th is the Spring Festival, most of the factories will leave 10 to 15 days earlier. And as the holiday approaches, more and more workers will go home earlier. This will greatly reduce the capacity of the factory.
#2. The smaller quantity, the earlier placed
It is often thought that the big order needs to be prepared in advance because of its large quantity. If my quantity is only 1000pcs, it should not be postponed, right? In fact, the smaller the order, the more likely it is to be delayed. Because almost every customer will push the supplier to deliver early before CNY. There is no doubt that as a factory, it must be a priority to deal with VIP customers’ large orders. Almost all production capacity will be used in large orders first. Therefore, if your order quantity is relatively small, maybe what you need to do is to confirm the order 2 months earlier.
#3. Pay close attention to the shipment time of the goods
You can keep in mind that the deadline for loading containers is 3-4 days before CNY. And it has to be mentioned that, almost all warehouses will be fully booked before CNY every year. Many of the trucks had to line up in front of the warehouse for two to three days. Plus the current port congestion caused by the epidemic is getting worse. I suggest you keep in touch with your freight forwarder and pay close attention to the latest shipment progress.
#4. Should we prepare the next order before CNY
Some suppliers may suggest that you confirm your order before the Spring Festival and start production after the holidays. I don’t recommend it if the amount of the order is high. Because the deposit needs to be paid in advance before the holidays once the order is confirmed, and the risk will increase. Most importantly, not all factories return to work at the same time after holidays. For example, there are 100 workers in this factory. It is possible that 20 workers will arrive on February 17th, 30 workers will arrive on February 27th, and the rest may not arrive until Mid-March. So, this does not significantly improve productivity.
#5. What can you do during the Spring Festival holidays
You could always communicate with your suppliers through WhatsApp, WeChat, and other chat tools. Ask them about the workers’ return to the factory and the next production plan. In addition, according to the usual practice, there will be a small wave of increase in various raw materials in the month after the Spring Festival every year. If you can communicate with the suppliers of your promotional products in advance and understand the rate of material increase, I think it will help you significantly in your business decisions.
It’s worth noting that the Spring Festival in 2021 is on February 11th. So if you need to ship before the holidays, I suggest you act immediately according to the details I mentioned.
