The 2016 Chinese New Year falls on February, 8th. The official celebration runs from the 7th through the 13th.
Last winter I read a very informative and lengthy post by a Chinese citizen which shed some light on why orders from the China sites can become such a cluster cluck this time of year. The following is my recollection of pertinent information from that post.
Almost all manufacturing in China is concentrated in a few major cities and most of the work force is employed on a contractual basis. Many if not most of these contracts include meals and housing and are structured to end near the CNY.
The nature of these contracts draw workers from throughout the rural areas of China. They may work for the duration of their contract without an opportunity to return home for visits.
When CNY rolls around the factories shut down and there is a mass exodus from the cities out into the hinterlands. This exodus swamps the transportation systems, so some will leave on the days leading up to CNY to beat the rush, resulting in a slowing of production as it approaches.
After the week long celebration the transportation system is again swamped but to a lesser degree as many workers will not immediately return and establish a new contract. It may take weeks for all the returning and new workers to trickle back into the cities and production to ramp back up to full capacity.
The practical effect for us, the voracious consumer, is we must consider the difficulties our chosen vendor may encounter in getting packages to the export hubs via the chocked transportation arteries surrounding the cities and possible delays in them receiving the items to ship out.
Personally I consider this the last week to order any items not “in stock” and next week the last for “in stock” items. I do not expect the usual 8-15 days from date of shipment to receive any items ordered in February. Things will likely be back to normal come March.
This can also affect receiving the more popular made in China items regardless of the vendors home country.
Happy CNY
ENJOY
Last winter I read a very informative and lengthy post by a Chinese citizen which shed some light on why orders from the China sites can become such a cluster cluck this time of year. The following is my recollection of pertinent information from that post.
Almost all manufacturing in China is concentrated in a few major cities and most of the work force is employed on a contractual basis. Many if not most of these contracts include meals and housing and are structured to end near the CNY.
The nature of these contracts draw workers from throughout the rural areas of China. They may work for the duration of their contract without an opportunity to return home for visits.
When CNY rolls around the factories shut down and there is a mass exodus from the cities out into the hinterlands. This exodus swamps the transportation systems, so some will leave on the days leading up to CNY to beat the rush, resulting in a slowing of production as it approaches.
After the week long celebration the transportation system is again swamped but to a lesser degree as many workers will not immediately return and establish a new contract. It may take weeks for all the returning and new workers to trickle back into the cities and production to ramp back up to full capacity.
The practical effect for us, the voracious consumer, is we must consider the difficulties our chosen vendor may encounter in getting packages to the export hubs via the chocked transportation arteries surrounding the cities and possible delays in them receiving the items to ship out.
Personally I consider this the last week to order any items not “in stock” and next week the last for “in stock” items. I do not expect the usual 8-15 days from date of shipment to receive any items ordered in February. Things will likely be back to normal come March.
This can also affect receiving the more popular made in China items regardless of the vendors home country.
Happy CNY
ENJOY
This is what causes the extra few weeks delay on popular items.
