I just wanted to offer up my thought and current experience with my order from china.
I just received my SS Vamo from OceanVapor. It took along time, but the price was too good to pass up. Took a little over 5 weeks with regular china post. I was getting a bit worried so I did a bit of research.
What I found, is that the beginning of the year is a tough time to order from China because everything shuts down for a month during their New Years celebrations.
What this means to us, is that while they are shut down, all the orders pile up. So, after they return, they start with the earliest orders and work their way down the list. This takes more time.
Further, I came to realize that as all these backed up orders are stacking up, the vendors stock is depleted, and orders to the manufactures are being placed rapidly to accommodate the orders.
Now, the manufactures are trying to keep up with the wave of orders they are receiving, since they too were down for a month. They are running out of the resources they need to create the ordered devices and place orders for the steel tubing and brass and plastics etc.. which other manufactures are waiting to be mined/ created, etc etc. It is a domino effect, that I am sure they are working hard to catch up to.
I was lucky to have placed my order just after they returned from their holiday, so my order shipped from their remaining stock, though after a month of orders stacking up, going by the tracking #, it took 12 days to ship. The longest part of my wait was my order going through customs. each package has to be checked and cleared for shipment out of China. Also as a side note the tracking from China isn't so great, so after it left customs it was never updated. It was showing "waiting for airspace" or something like that even on the day I received my package.
So unfortunately for a lot of us, it is a waiting game. If you are patient , you will have saved a lot money in trade of waiting longer.
Personally, it was worth it to me as currently my budget is very tight. I will order from China again. Just maybe not on something I need right away.