When to Order Seasonal Decor from China — The Whole Calendar

The single most expensive mistake in seasonal decor is not picking the wrong product. It is picking the right product three weeks too late.

Everything about this category runs on a calendar that feels absurd the first time you see it written down. Christmas gets bought in June. Halloween in May. Spring stock is committed while the previous Christmas is still on clearance.

Here is the whole year, with the dates we work to.

The six windows

Look at the gap between the first two columns. It is 80 to 82 days on every single drop — that is not a coincidence, it is the production window, and it is the same whether you order forty styles or four. The full breakdown of where those weeks go is worth ten minutes if you have never had it laid out.

Why the deadlines are real

Most suppliers will tell you an order deadline and then take your order two weeks after it. That is not generosity — it means somebody else’s programme is about to get squeezed, and eventually it will be yours.

Seasonal decor is not a make-to-order business. It is a series of fixed windows that everything has to fit inside, because the same presses, the same coating line and the same painters run all six drops in sequence. A late Halloween order does not delay Halloween. It delays Christmas.

Working backwards, properly

Most buyers plan forwards from today. That is how programmes slip. Plan backwards from the shelf date:

your shelf date
  − DC receiving and allocation
  − customs, drayage, inland
  − ocean transit
  = the FOB date you need
  − 11 to 12 weeks production
  = your order cut-off
  − sampling and approval loops
  = when the conversation has to start

The two stages people underestimate are at the ends. Ocean transit varies far more than the carrier’s quoted figure, particularly into a peak season. And the approval loop — first sample, line review, colour correction, second sample — is entirely on the buyer’s side of the table and routinely takes longer than production does.

What that means month by month

November to January is early-spring and Valentine. It also happens to be when most buyers are least available, which is exactly why Valentine programmes so often end up landing after Valentine’s Day. Note that Valentine has to leave on an earlier container than Easter to make its shelf date, even though both run off the same tooling.

February to April is summer and the start of autumn. Garden centres want spring stock on the floor in March, so spring is already gone by then.

May and June are the two months that decide your whole second half. Halloween closes 12 May, Christmas 15 June. Miss both and there is no recovery inside the same year — the next available window is the following spring.

July to October is when the containers land and the year’s decisions become visible. It is also the right time to walk the showroom for the following year, which is why the sets are built eleven months ahead.

If you are reading this late

You usually are. Everyone is, the first year.

Two things still work when a window has closed. First, ask what is already in the line rather than starting from a drawing — ODM off existing tooling skips most of the sampling stage, which is where the weeks are. Second, tell us the shelf date up front rather than the order date. If it cannot be done we will say so in the first reply instead of three samples later.

The current drop and its deadline is always on the front page, counting down. That number is the honest one.