How to Avoid Dropshipping Delivery Delays During Chinese New Year 2023

Chinese New Year (January 21 to January 27, 2023), also known as Lunar New Year or Spring Festival, is a traditional festival in China. People will enjoy a 7-day public holiday during this period.

However, this time of year is extremely challenging for dropshippers who are sourcing from China, as Chinese workers will leave their work to celebrate the Lunar New Year with their families. That means most logistics will stop working during the Spring Festival. And Chinese manufacturers will also stop product production and supply ahead of schedule.

Even if you have experienced this situation before, it is important to note that the Chinese New Year in 2023 is 10 days earlier than in 2022. And recently, China is making changes to its zero COVID policy, the epidemic has brought forward the challenges of production shutdown and delivery delays, which are gradually affecting the entire dropshipping supply chain. It's time to prepare ahead of time.

Most dropshipping businesses mainly rely on shipping and manufacturing businesses in China. And for dropshipping sellers, how to ensure sufficient product supply and avoid delivery delays during the Chinese New Year Shutdown is a difficult problem. To that end, this article will give you some top tips to help you minimize the impact of the Chinese New Year on your dropshipping business.

How Does Chinese New Year Affect Dropshipping?

To be fully prepared, it is important to understand what the Chinese New Year shutdowns are and how they may affect your dropshipping supply chain.

Product Production Shutdown

According to SourcinBox's experience last year, Chinese product manufacturers will gradually stop production one week before the Spring Festival, until the end of the holiday, which lasts at least two weeks. But what's worse is that affected by the pandemic, some products are already out of stock early due to the shortage of manpower at some manufacturers.

So, once your product suppliers or manufacturers shut down early, your products will face the risk of out-of-stock and delivery delays. And you're going to have a hard time contacting the original manufacturer or finding a replacement during the holidays.

Shipping and Delivery Delays

The current shortage of manpower caused by the pandemic in China has already partially affected production and logistics capacities. According to the experience of SourcinBox last year, most shipping companies will stop working a few days before the Spring Festival, including stopping picking up packages, shipping, and delivering. And they won't return to work until at least after the holidays. Only a few shipping companies still continue to work during the holidays.

Therefore, your order shipping and delivery times may be affected from now on. As Chinese New Year approaches, you may have to switch to a more expensive shipping method to ensure delivery.

Slow Production Recovery After The Shutdown

After the Spring Festival, most workers will resume work and gradually resume production, but there may still be insufficient manpower in a short period of time.

At that time, manufacturers will face a large number of orders accumulated during the shutdown period, and the overall delivery time may still be delayed.

SourcinBox - Chinese New Year Holiday Schedule 2023

If you are using SourcinBox for dropshipping, understanding our 2023 Chinese New Year holiday schedule will help you make full preparations for your business in advance and avoid out-of-stock and delivery delays to the greatest extent.

You can also refer to the following Chinese New Year Holiday timelines based on experiences:

 • Early and mid-January: Manufacturers will start to stop production.

 • Mid-January: Logistics began to gradually shut down.

 • January 21: New Year's Eve, almost all workers stop work.

 • January 22: Lunar New Year.

 • Late January/ early February: Workers gradually return to work and logistics resume.

 • February 11: Most manufacturers resume production.

 • February 18: Everything returns to normal.

What to Prepare in Advance？

So in the face of so many uncertainties and force majeure, what preparations should you make in advance to avoid or minimize the possible impact of the Chinese New Year shutdown on your dropshipping business?

Plan Early

Now is the perfect time for you to plan ahead, including creating sales plans, inventory plans, marketing plans, and more. From the beginning to the end of the Spring Festival holiday, it is necessary to estimate sales at least one month in advance. If you have a sufficient budget, we recommend that you purchase some inventory from your suppliers or dropshipping agent in advance according to your sales plan. We will tell you how to do it below.

Since receiving a large number of customer orders during the Spring Festival shutdown will increase the possibility of out-of-stock and delivery delays, you may consider reducing the advertising and marketing budget during the Spring Festival to appropriately reduce the sales. That is a great option for sellers on a tight budget.

Communicate with Your Supplier

Effective communication with your suppliers is the first step in implementing your plans, and you should confirm product availability and remaining inventory with your suppliers as soon as possible. Since some private dropshipping suppliers will stop accepting orders before the holidays, we recommend that you find multiple suppliers as alternatives or work directly with dropshipping agents to improve efficiency and reliability.

If you are working with SourcinBox, then please check with your customer manager about product availability and the shutdown time of the manufacturer for the product you are selling. If unfortunately, your product is out of stock, don't stress too much, we still have the opportunity to help you find an alternative manufacturer to save your business. Just to be sure, it's a good idea to buy some inventory ahead of time.

Prepare Inventory in Advance

It is risky for dropshipping businesses to keep inventory, but compared to losing customers due to out-of-stock delays during the Spring Festival shutdown, it is very necessary to buy some inventory in advance. In addition to preparing inventory for your best-selling items, including products you plan to sell next year, you can also prepare a small amount of inventory for some products with lower sales.

You are able to enjoy free warehousing service if you work with SourcinBox. You only need to purchase the product inventory you need on our APP, and we will purchase the corresponding quantity of products from the manufacturer. Then store them in our warehouse for free after checking the quality. In addition, we have cooperated with almost all major shipping companies to ensure that your orders can be shipped and delivered on time during the Chinese New Year shutdown.

If you are sourcing your products from AliExpress or other similar sites, the way to keep inventory might be difficult for you as you do not have your own warehouse and manpower to process orders and deliveries. In this regard, we recommend that you find a dropshipping agent as soon as possible, or you can try to use SourcinBox to fulfill your order, we can offer better prices and faster delivery than AliExpress.

Consider Alternative Shipping Options

We've mentioned that some shipping companies will still work as usual during the Spring Festival. To minimize delivery delays, you may want to consider alternative shipping options that are still available during the holidays. You might pay more for it, but it's more important to avoid delays and gain the trust of your customers.

At SourcinBox, you can ask your customer manager or refer to our Chinese New Year holiday schedule for information on available shipping methods.

Strengthen Your Customer Support

During the special period of the Chinese New Year shutdown, it is very important to strengthen store customer service. Because customer feedback and after-sales problems will inevitably increase. And what you have to do is to take care of every customer's emotions as much as possible and give them a sincere solution.

Be sure to stay in close contact with your supplier to be the first to know about the status of your orders. For unavoidable out-of-stock and shipping delays, you should change the inventory information, shipping method, and delivery timeliness shown in your store in advance, and notify your customers via email or social media with an apology.

In addition, you can provide detailed return and refund policies and after-sales support contact information in the store to deal with customer problems as soon as possible.

Final Words

If you are working with us, please be sure to stay in touch with your customer manager for the latest information and to resolve potential issues in a timely manner. Even during the holidays we will respond to you and try to help as much as possible.

We hope this article can help more dropshipping sellers sourcing from China through this stressful time. If you want to start dropshipping and buying inventory with SourcinBox now, please sign up for free and contact us to enjoy 1-on-1 customer manager service. We will do our best to escort your Chinese New Year dropshipping.