How Can E-commerce Owners Avoid Delays During Chinese New Year 2018

Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, is coming on February 16^th,2018. Since it’s the most important traditional Festival in China and other Asian countries. Although the official holiday in mainland China lasts for only seven days, from February 15^th to February 21st, 2018, many companies and enterprises including Chinese suppliers and domestic shipping agencies choose to start the vacation 3 to 5 days before the holiday, and come back to work after 8 days of the 1st month in the Chinese calendar (February 23th, 2018). Because Chinese New Year is a festival for Chinese families to reunion and stay together, so the Chinese New Year holiday may be the lowest period of people’s willingness to work. Many online sellers who own China-related e-commerce will be painfully aware of the long holiday comes disruption to all the businesses. The only solution is to prepare early. Here are some tips for e-commerce owners to avoid shipping delays and other problems during Chinese New Year.

Get to know the supplier and the shipping agency’s schedule early.

Most of the suppliers factories will be closed much earlier than the statutory holiday, sometimes as long as 15 days, because people want to go back to their hometown (may be thousands kilometers away from the factory) early. No matter your supplier is a factory or a trading company, it’s better to ask about their holiday schedule at least a month before Chinese New Year. More than that, people who often buy from Taobao know the fact that China domestic shipping always closed 3-5 days before Chinese New Year, so are the global shipping forwarding agencies in China. Your shipping deadline depends on the shipping agency’s schedule, or the products will be stuck in the warehouse until March, 2018.

Order the products at least 30 days early.

After knowing the schedule, it’s time to place orders. Due to different production time, it’s recommended e-commerce business owners to place orders a month earlier. For example, if it takes 10 days for the factory to produce a batch of products, then you need to place the orders 20-40 days before the shipping deadline. Some of the suppliers take a lot of orders before the holiday, but most orders will be processed after the Chinese New Year. Another situation is, some factories will never open after Chinese New Year, makes it harder for overseas e-commerce business owners to get products they ordered.

Use professional fulfillment service.

Other than early preparation, getting professional fulfillment service is also essential during Chinese New Year. In order to avoid delays and unnecessary losses, below are some suggestions for e-commerce business owners.

An affordable warehouse to keep inventory during holiday.

A third-party to do the quality control in the peak season.

A responsive sales manager.

As a customer-oriented order fulfillment company in China, ChinaDivision is dedicated to help global e-commerce business owners to avoid troubles brought by language barriers, culture differences, long distance, etc, which makes ChinaDivision an ideal cooperation partner during Chinese New Year or other holidays.