2011 Christmas is Just Around the Corner

I am sure you are seeing more and more websites and shops starts to mention “Christmas” in their sales. Here in Shenzhen, the manufacturing industry has long started the preparation for upcoming peak season. Stocks are harder to get, factories are complaining about lack of necessary parts, delivery time is taking longer than usual, etc. All of these are signs that remind us the 2011 Christmas is just around the corner.

So please check our knowledgebase article: Last guaranteed delivery date for Christmas 2011

We love it and we are already well prepared, but each year is bound to have its own challenges. Like last year, our purchase team has to practically beg our supplier for a few extra thousand android tablets to meet its hot demand in mid December. The level of demand for it went way beyond our expectation.

One of the old topics of Christmas peak season is logistics. Frankly it is one area that Chinavasion is pouring a lot of energy and resources into, but the solution is still far from our satisfaction. Chinavasion is the ONLY China wholesale store that guarantees to have stock on every product advertised online, while others in general don’t keep any stock at all. 92% of our orders are shipped out within 24 hours because whatever you have ordered we have it in warehouse waiting to be packed right away.

So why is my orders taking longer than usual? In most cases they do not. Most orders do arrive on time. Our logistic partners such as DHL, UPS and HK Post are very efficient and good at keep their delivery promise. Every peak season, they always prepare some extra capacity to accommodate the increased load. Our orders arrive at destination country in as short as 48 hours.

A typical route map for your goods from Chinavasion goes something like this: packaged at our Shenzhen office, then trucked to Hong Kong, before it gets loaded onto a plane, that takes off in the middle of the night, gets refueled somewhere and lands at the closes distribution center to (most likely inside) your country 18 hours later, your goods gets re-distributed, gets on the truck and ride for anywhere between 8 to 48 hours before landed at your local courier depot, and gets thrown into a courier van, and finally delivered to your door. That is a long way to travel and it will probably cost you a fortune to do similar travel.

Believe or not, most of the delay happens after your order arrives in your country. This is especially true for the Christmas peak season. From our statistics of Christmas last year, 76% of orders are either waiting at destination custom check point or the local courier depot at the time of enquiry waiting to be delivered. Everything is getting delayed due to the sheer volume of work for custom officer and courier.

So our advice this year is simple: place your order early to avoid the big traffic jam. Because once your order gets stuck in it, there is very little we can do to help. So avoid it is your best bet. If you want to know how to track your orders and our latest advice on logistics, please check out our Shipping and Delivery Knowledgebase.