With the Chinese New Year officially in the rearview, it’s time to hit the ground running with new projects as Chinese factories begin to fire up  production once again. But before we get too far into how to overcome the inherent obstacles that the Chinese New Year presents from a business perspective, let’s take a minute to better understand the holiday.

The Chinese New Year is usually celebrated during a three week period in February. The celebration consists of parties and fireworks and resolutions for the year ahead, it’s very similar to American customs in that sense. Throughout this time of celebration, most all businesses and factories halt operations while their employees spend time with family and friends. With this in mind, many businesses plan for this holiday far in advance and it’s important to do so in order to keep your own schedule running smoothly and according to plan. However, the major downfall of this holiday for production-based businesses is the amount of backlogged work that builds up during this holiday period.

As many China-based manufacturers try to play catch-up on fulfilling orders, this is a great time to begin planning your next factory-direct project. This busy period allows you an opportunity to strategically plan your orders in advance to ensure that your campaign goes off without a hitch. By ordering factory-direct, you have a wide variety of production capabilities in terms of customization and quality assurance. With the option of ordering product samples (which is highly recommended), you can ensure that the product you order lives up to your branding expectations long before placing your final bulk order. Along with amplified customization capabilities, the primary benefit of ordering factory-direct overseas is experiencing dramatic cost-savings.

The primary drawback of ordering factory-direct is simply the amount of time that it takes to produce and ship your order. Often times, it takes between 90-120 days to get your order in-hand. Additionally, on most overseas orders there are higher product minimums, meaning that you’ll need to order in a more calculated manner in order to make your product selection worth your while. When you think bulk, don’t view that as a negative, rather, think about it as an opportunity to further your physically branded marketing effort. This gives you the opportunity to expand your reach at a lower cost per impression.

When organizations do have the order volume to go factory-direct, Stran takes a blended approach when it comes to sourcing the requested product. This blended approach means that when you need a product with quick turnaround, we use domestic manufacturers to expedite the process. Once that initial need is met, we then go overseas to take advantage of cost-savings as time permits. This is the most effective when clients are seeking greater cost-savings.

Regardless of your product needs, there is surely a solution for you. Whether that solution is going factory-direct overseas to gain additional cost-savings or using strictly domestic suppliers, we will identify and execute the best solution to fulfill your order at the lowest possible cost.