Will the Chinese New Year affect your dropshipping business apart from the coronavirus?
If your store sources products from China, then yes, the Chinese New Year celebrations will affect your dropshipping store.
If your dropshipping business relies heavily on suppliers from China, you and your customers must prepare for the impending hurdles.
Before I outline why Chinese New Year affects dropshipping business, let’s first address some of the issues related to this festival.
Table of Contents
When is Chinese New Year?
Often, the Spring Festival celebrations’ earliest possible date is around January 25- and the latest probable time is February 8, with suppliers lasting anywhere between one to five weeks.
Below is a list of Chinese Lunar New Year:
-2020: January 25- February 8
-2021: February 12-February 18
-2022: February 1-February 7
What we’ve above is merely a rough timeline; a definitive timeline largely depends on a supplier’s timetable.
Traditionally, the holiday celebrations last a couple of weeks, but most suppliers may take a break of up to a month for the festivities.
If unprepared, the hiatus from production will have an adverse impact. Preparations notwithstanding, a month’s worth of business production lost can prove detrimental for a vendor.
Length of Shipment During Chinese New Year Celebrations
Previously, suppliers would begin to slow down production nearly two weeks before the Chinese New Year.
Consequently, orders placed at this time of the year may severely experience delays.
Suppliers ordinarily have a set date on which they cease processing orders and a date on which they start processing orders again.
You’ll have to liaise with suppliers to get precise dates.
You must be aware that if your suppliers do not process orders, you will likely not sell efficiently during this period.
How Chinese Lunar New Year Affects Drop Shipping
Entrepreneurs whose e-commerce store dropship products from China will find it beneficial to grasp how the Chinese Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, impacts businesses, specifically Dropshipping.
1.Effects on AliExpress
Factories typically cease operation a few days before the Spring Festival Factories. However, factories tend to have sufficient inventory in stock, and they sell stock inventory till the week of Chinese New Year.
Remember, it is essential to keep tabs on each of your suppliers to stay abreast.
Some suppliers shut down for a week or two, and some may not fold before the week of Chinese New Year.
To circumvent exasperated customers, you must contact your dropship supplier earlier.
Showcase on your website order delays due to Chinese New Year. Putting up a notice highlighting the delays quells customers’ frustration.
Effects on other Chinese Suppliers
From the early part of January, the new orders have not been accepted.
- Bank and postal services take a holiday.
- Workers retreat to travel and visit families.
- After the Lunar Year, production resumption is slow.
Since some dropshipping suppliers wish to downsize orders earlier, it’s prudent to query your supplier about their timelines.
Although the supplier’s product line may still work, delivery or payment may be delayed due to postal services or banks shutting down.
Both the factories and stores are short-staffed during Chinese New Year, and perhaps production is staggered after the festival.
Staggering production ordinarily is informed by the fact that workers resume output at different time intervals.
Though suppliers fold up their business during the spell, you must endeavor to keep your afloat.
Niches Impacted The Most During Chinese New Year.
Travel Accessories
In the US, late February to mid-April is the most popular period for vacations and traveling, with the spring break season culminating in March.
Customers ordinarily order travel-related items to prepare for their trips in early February.
Sadly, the timing conflicts with the celebration of the Chinese New Year. It’s even worse when you vend Chinese items; you will likely miss your peak season.
Valentine Day
Although Valentine’s may not be your niche, your marketing campaigns may leverage the holiday; thus, you must reevaluate doing so, mainly if you heavily rely on Chinese suppliers.
Items such as accessories, lingerie, jewelry, etc., tend to trend around Valentine’s, and any minor fulfillment malfunction occasioned by the Chinese New celebration means ad spending going down the drain and furious customers to contend with.
Should You Fold Your Store For The Chinese New Year?
Shutting your store during the celebration spell hinges on whether or not you are genuinely dependent on suppliers from China.
In the scenario you are dependent, you’ll need to reassess if the additional work during the Chinese New Year is worthwhile.
One thing for sure is that you’ll need to contend with inundating customer queries about late packages.
It will include, but not be limited to, emailing clients and posting about the impending delay on the product website.
There are documented cases of retailers sourcing merchandise from China reporting torrents of clients’ requests concerning delays during the Chinese New Year celebrations.
On balance, during this period, you want to cut down on ad spending; if not, cease it. The economics will dictate turning off your ads, and that painstakingly is commensurate with low sales and revenues.
The Chinese suppliers typically resume processing orders one to three weeks following the celebrations; some take longer.
The time of production resumption hangs, to a greater extent, on the supplier with whom you partnered.
Concentrate your ad efforts on items whose suppliers would break for a week. If you have non-Chinese dropship suppliers, focus more on promoting these items.
For merchandise whose suppliers break for a month or so, you want to avoid marketing the products; there isn’t value for money.
For instance, if you deal in Prinful’s print-on-demand products, double your effort in vending them.
This way, you’ll generate income for the Spring Festival.
We’ve made a point about cutting down on ad spending, such as Facebook ads, but we do not have to do it definitively.
Though you should limit ad expenditures, you should also take all the necessary steps to keep your brand on top of potential customers’ minds.
Keep posting multiple times on social media platforms daily and blog consistently. This way, you can build relationships with potential clientele while assuaging the current ones you have.
Additionally, upon resumption of processing orders, suppliers will most likely have a backlog of orders that built up during the hiatus, which will, therefore, cause further delays as they embark on processing the backlog.
A Better Alternative
The Chinese New Year presents a challenging and frustrating time for many retailers whose suppliers are based in China.
There will be additional work during this period, which is akin to folding up your store for nearly a month.
Herein are a couple of tasks you should undertake during the celebration timeframe to seamlessly transit with minimal hiccups, if any, for your customers and yourself. You can try out Product Pro.
A Winning Product
In this context, a winning product refers to a product that sells. If you’ve found a winning product, contact your supplier and determine how long they stay shut.
If the supplier is based in China and the festival takes over two weeks, it’s time to contact new suppliers with winning products.
You don’t want to scale up unless you bought inventory in bulk, anticipating the festival. During this time, you need to either maintain or decrease the amount you are currently doing.
During the Chinese New Year, you must offer excellent customer service
You’re bound to get dozens of emails from customers. They’ll want to know the product arrival time.
Armed with decent customer service, you can inform your customers about the shipping delay resulting from the Spring Festival.
Conclusion
So, there you go—a post about the Chinese Lunar New Year or Spring Festival, what it is, when it happens, how it impacts dropshipping, and alternatives to counter-trade it.
We’d like to hear your views and thoughts. What would you do during the Chinese New Year? Share your feelings about the festival; are there any problems?
So, do you think Chinese New Year affects the dropshipping business?
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