BizGifts and Chinese New Year Part 2

The production side of the BizGift business is rather similar to any other consumer product manufacturing. There is one huge difference though. Often the timing is essential in case of tailor made projects. There is simply no room for delay. Some time few thousands or few tens of thousands of relatively cheap gift are part of multi-million advertising and promotional campaign and no one wants to face the damages for messing such a campaign up … So very careful planning is of essence. Any planning should take into consideration the Chinese New Year holidays …

Whether we like it or not the promotional products business relies heavily on outsourcing. The more valuable corporate gifts still often originate in Europe, United States or Japan but the cheaper stuff inevitably comes from China and on a lesser scale from India, Turkey and some other South East Asian or Latin American countries. China is however the major source.

The growing Chinese economy can only function thanks to their army of migrant workers. They come from all over the country and sometime travel thousands kilometers to find a job in the booming manufacturing areas in the South of the country or along the east coast. When they travel from home, they however also need to travel back some time. And here lies the problem. Due to all sorts of reasons, but mainly the distance, time and money, the migrant workers take that long trip home only once a year - during the most important Chinese festival - The Chinese New Year.

To facilitate their long journey home (and then back to factories) all of the factories pretty much shut down for 2-3 weeks. Even if they do not want shut down they have no choice, without the manpower, nothing can be done anyway . The whole country moves but at the same time comes to a standstill. What are the consequences ?

• In the weeks prior to the holidays the production facilities are full and rarely there is a room for any urgent new order to be slotted in.

• The last couple of weeks before the holidays the shipping space (vessels, aircrafts) is very booked up and difficult to secure. Even if you manage to have the goods produced, you may not have a way to get them going…

• After the holidays, the workers do not return all at once and on time, some do not return at all, some return but go to another factory. The actual situation is often big unknown for the factory owners and it may take few weeks before the factories are up and running as usual.

So what are the possible scenarios here ?

• You are lucky and you order your things well in advance, productions is completed and shipped out before holidays, everybody happy

• You are a bit less lucky, you have the goods finished but can’t find shipping space. You loose about 2 weeks waiting for holidays to pass and get the goods going right after holidays.

• Your are quite unlucky, you order too late and have no chance to have the goods produced before holidays. However, there is still enough time for the factory to purchase and prepare all the materials and parts and once the holidays are over your goods can go straight to production. You loose “only” 1 month and still consider yourself lucky.

• You totally ignore the fact that there are serious holidays somewhere half way around the globe, place order a week before holidays and then freak out when you find out that you will miss your deadline by about 2 months .

This year the Chinese New Year holidays start on February 7, 2008. If your order gets to factory on February 5th for example, you can expect the shipping date by end April if the order is not too big and if you (or your supplier) have good relationship with the factory. If your order is bigger and requires some pre-production preparations, end May is what you can count on. If your order requires pre-production sample production and approval, then add 2-3 weeks on top of that. Add up the shipping time and in a worst case you may only see your merchandise by late June or early July …

If you do not want to create trouble for yourself, your customer and your supplier, do your homework and do think about the Chinese New Year holidays …

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