Buying calendar
Order windows close months before shelf windows open.
This is the single thing that catches out importers new to home goods. Timing beats unit price, and it is not close.
Storage, organisation, and refresh categories. Buyers finalise assortment before the holiday quarter consumes everyone’s attention.
The window closes earlier than most first-time importers expect. Miss it and the goods land into a falling season.
Short shelf life on the theme, so quantity discipline matters more than unit price.
The longest lead of the year. Factories quote earliest here and their capacity fills fastest.
Why the windows are where they are
Factory capacity is not evenly available
Holiday programmes are quoted earliest and fill capacity fastest. Arriving in July with a Christmas assortment means competing for whatever slots are left, usually at a worse price and a tighter schedule.
Retail resets are fixed dates
Your buyer’s planogram reset does not move because a container was late. Missing a reset by two weeks can mean sitting out the whole season, which turns a timing problem into an inventory problem.
The specification is the real long pole
Production time is usually the shortest part. The months go into settling the specification, the sample rounds, and the packaging. Starting the spec earlier buys more schedule than pushing the factory ever will.