Shipping lead times and how to plan

Lead time is the whole chain, not the sailing

The number a supplier quotes is production time. The number that matters to you is the gap between placing an order and having sellable stock in your warehouse, and it is usually more than twice as long.

That gap has six parts: sampling and approval, production, booking and inland transport to the Chinese port, the sea or air leg, UK clearance, and delivery to you. Plan against only one of them and you will be late, which is why so many first orders miss the season they were bought for.

Where the weeks actually go

Sampling is the part most often left out of the plan entirely, and on a bespoke product it is frequently the longest phase. Each revision is a courier both ways plus the factory's queue, and several rounds is normal rather than unlucky.

Production begins when the deposit clears and the materials are in, not when you place the order. Ask when material procurement starts, because a long-lead component can add weeks before anything is made.

Booking and inland transport is quick when space is available and slow when it is not. Around peak periods, space is the constraint rather than the factory.

The sea leg itself is measured in weeks port to port, and that is the part people fixate on because it is the easiest to look up.

Then UK clearance, which is fast when the paperwork is right and expensive when it is not, since goods waiting at the port accrue charges daily. Then haulage and unloading.

Chinese New Year dominates the calendar

It is the single most important date in a China sourcing plan. The date moves each year, and the disruption is far wider than the public holiday itself.

Before it, factories are rushing to finish and quality slips under pressure, freight rates rise and space tightens. During it, production stops for weeks rather than days, and many workers travel home. After it, capacity returns gradually rather than immediately, because not everyone comes back and lines have to be restaffed and re-trained.

The practical effect is a window of roughly two months where the normal rules do not apply. Orders that need to land in the first quarter should be placed far earlier than feels necessary, and an order placed just before the holiday should be assumed to ship after it, whatever the assurances.

Our Chinese New Year planner works backwards from the dates so you can see the last safe order date for your shipping method.

Building a plan that survives contact with reality

Work backwards from the date you need stock on the shelf, not forwards from today. Put the sampling cycle in explicitly, and add buffer at the two points that slip most: sample approval and port booking.

Get the supplier to commit to a production schedule with milestones rather than a single ship date, and ask for photographs at the material and first-off stages. A supplier who is behind is much easier to spot from a missed milestone than from a reassuring message.

Tie the schedule to your inspection so it cannot be quietly compressed. When a deadline tightens, the pre-shipment inspection is the first thing offered up, and it is the last thing you should give away.

And keep a decision point where switching to air is still possible. That option has a cost, but only if you notice in time to use it.

What actually goes wrong

The most common cause of a late shipment is not a factory disaster. It is a sample approval that took three weeks longer than planned because the buyer was busy, and every subsequent date moved with it.

The second most common is a document that was not ready, so the goods sat at the UK port accruing storage while somebody found a certificate.

Both are inside your control, which is the good news. Approve samples quickly, prepare documentation before the vessel sails, and most of the schedule risk you were worried about turns out to be schedule risk you created.