What is the Chinese New Year?
Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year is the celebration of the New Year in the traditional Chinese Calendar. It can last a total of 23 days and starts on the 12th of February this year.
Starting at the end of January factories and production shuts down and can become a nightmare for most importers.
How does it affect my imports?
To give employees time to return home to their families, most Chinese companies close one to two weeks before the actual date. In addition to closing early, they often remain closed for an additional two weeks after the specific Chinese New Year date.
The later your orders are submitted, the further back in the production queue your order will land. As companies face bottlenecks as a result of this holiday, one month’s worth of orders end up getting tackled later and the first orders that were received will be the first orders processed. Many Chinese companies will process orders from preferred partners before handling any others.
Don't Panic! Prepare
Planning and coordination are keys to ensuring your supply chain continues to run smoothly during the Chinese New Year and you have enough merchandise for your customers. Know when the dates are and plan around them.
Make changes to your production and shipping schedules to ensure you have enough goods to get you through the trouble caused by the factory closures.
Make sure you have enough inventory until the factories are up and running again. China’s entire transportation system is taxed nearly to its limits during this time. Everybody usually experiences problems with container and truck availability when shipping goods close to the Chinese New Year. The ports do stay open for most of this period, however.
It can also help you to forecast what your expected orders will look like, share this information with your logistics provider. It is in your best interest to inform them about whatever shipments are a priority in case there is limited space.
Contact us today to talk about how to best prepare for this logistical challenge in an already challenging time.
Thanks ffor sharing