Be Ready for 2023 Chinese New Year: Prepare Your Dropshipping Stores

What & When Is Chinese New Year 2023

Chinese New Year 2023 will start on 22 Jan 2023.

Chinese New Year is a prominent traditional festival in China and other nations with sizable Chinese populations, such as Singapore and Malaysia. It’s sometimes referred to as Lunar New Year or the Spring Festival. It celebrates the beginning of the lunar calendar and is traditionally observed over 15 days, with New Year's Eve and New Year's Day serving as the focal points.

People often spend time with family and friends during Chinese New Year, exchange presents, and adorn their houses with red lanterns and other items. In Chinese culture, the color red is seen as auspicious and is believed to fend off bad luck and evil spirits.

Traditional delicacies, including dumplings, seafood, and rice cakes, are offered throughout the festival, and food plays a key part in the festivities. During Chinese New Year celebrations, it's not uncommon to witness fireworks as well as lion and dragon dances.

Since Chinese New Year is based on the lunar calendar, the precise date varies every year, but it typically occurs between January 21 and February 20.

Statistics about Chinese New Year 2023 that DropshippersDropshipers should Know

Here are some Chinese New Year statistics that you should know:

• Retail sales over the Chinese New Year holiday generated £92 billion in revenue in 2021, and sales in prior years were significantly greater.
• The People's Bank of China's clearinghouse platform handled online payment transactions totaling RMB 4.2 trillion (USD 660.3 billion) over the first five days of the Spring Festival vacation, an increase of 11.6% from the previous year.
• Leading Chinese online retailer JD.com also reported a more than 50% year-over-year gain in sales over the first six days of the vacation.

How Does Chinese New Year Affect Your Dropshipping Stores

China has long been regarded as one of the major nations for manufacturing and exporting goods. Given that the Chinese New Year will be observed for around 16 days, many vendors must close their doors to make room for the celebration. This fact will have a significant impact on many vendors that dropship from China:

• Late delivery: Shipping from China during the Chinese New Year will take longer. You are aware that shipping errors or delays have a direct impact on how consumers respond. In general, it can endanger the resellers' operations.
• No new orders: Even a few weeks before the holiday, no new orders are taken. Because of the preparations for the Chinese New Year, many Chinese suppliers could be unable to fulfill new orders.
• Chinese suppliers can be closed for a month: Many businesses closed for the event two or three weeks before it began. After then, it takes 1-2 weeks until your purchases are processed. Orders placed during that period cannot be fulfilled.
• Slow production after the festival: Other establishments may have already resumed operations after the event, although most stores have production delays since there aren't enough customers or workers available.

In light of the festival's effects, dropshippers who primarily source their products from China are severely impacted. Because of this, every drop shipper needs a backup strategy to maintain their business during this period.

Should You Close Your Dropshipping Store during Chinese New Year

No. You don't have to shut down your online dropshipping store for the Chinese New Year. During Chinese New Year, several websites and Facebook groups may dramatize delays. Some go so far as to claim that suppliers go out of business for a whole month, but this is untrue.

The Chinese New Year indeed has an impact on business. Suppliers often take a week or two off. Will the Chinese New Year have an impact on your shop? Yes, but only for a few short weeks. To avoid delays, conceal the products from your store a week or two before the dates the supplier will be closed if they want to take more than a few weeks off.

You'll frighten off your consumers, which is another crucial reason why you shouldn't close your business around the Chinese New Year. Think about placing an order from a shop, and a week later, the shop shuts down. Customers who still haven't gotten their orders will panic.

How to Prepare Your Dropshipping Stores for the Incoming 2023 Chinese New Year

Now let’s take some actions to prepare for your online dropshipping store during Chinese New Year 2023.

Plan and Forecast a Possible Timeline for the Chinese New Year

You might wish to start speaking with vendors in November. Orders should be planned as early as December. Start delaying particular orders in January. A minimum of two weeks following the Chinese New Year, you should review your orders.

Similar to any other firm, your sector of work might benefit significantly from forecasting or planning forward. To make informed decisions for your organization, forecasting uses data from previous years. Your data can be used to identify goods that could experience delayed shipping.

Contact specific suppliers using the same information if they might close on Chinese New Year (for example, local dropship sites). The same knowledge you currently possess should also aid in your search for potential substitute sources.

Schedule Time Away

Setting planned time away, commonly known as "vacation mode," is one approach to informing your customers of impending shipment delays. Every time a buyer enters your listing while this feature is active, they'll get a notice explaining the wait.

While your business is closed, you may set up a personalized automated response for your customers to read. Inform them about the brief delays resulting from the Chinese New Year.

Scheduling time away is different from temporarily closing your store. It willIt’s will keep your customers assured of their orders from your store.

Create Backup Sources for Products

An excellent dropshipper is aware that a product is never restricted to a single provider. The same product may be offered by several providers, but prices may vary. The cheapest price is often offered when dropshipping from China.

However, to have your shop ready for the next Chinese New Year, it is a good idea to search elsewhere for backup supplies from China and modify your pricing in accordance with those sources. This advice can help your online dropshipping Chinese New Year store remain open.

Contact Your Suppliers and Shipping Providers for Working Schedule and Supply Chains

You should ideally write to EVERY provider you have. Of course, this will take some time, but the outcome will be completely worthwhile!

Request information from the sellers on their precise vacation dates and the time they intend to return to work. In this manner, you will have a broad grasp of how you will be working throughout the coming weeks.

You don't have to go into great depth and outline how the Chinese New Year affected your business. This is merely a bothersome piece of unneeded information for your customers. Concentrate on telling them when to anticipate the package; that's all they need to know.

Work with Multiple Suppliers

Working with Chinese vendors is simple and successful. You cannot; however, risk putting all of your eggs in one basket. One thing that will make you vulnerable under these circumstances is if you exclusively work with one supplier (or suppliers from the same area).

For instance, when a holiday is approaching, the supplier closes, temporarily delaying your orders. In addition, natural calamities might make specific sources stop functioning.

Working with various suppliers is crucial when operating a dropshipping business because of this. One source should come from China, and the other from the U.S., to maintain a balance. In this manner, you can always rely on the second supply when one produces issues, allowing your business to continue.

Keep Good Communication with Your Customers

It's customary advice to discontinue all promotional activities and reduce ad spending at this time. However, when discussing how to succeed with a dropshipping business, these actions seem to be not important.

Stopping to respond to your customers' calls, emails, texts, and comments on social media would be a mistake. Continue to speak to your clients with the same vigor as usual, and make sure each new customer is aware of your notification. Send a template email to everyone who purchased something from your website during this time period to make this process easy.

Announce Visitors about Delivery Time

You don't have to go into great depth and outline how the Chinese New Year affected your business. This is merely a bothersome piece of unneeded information for your customers. Concentrate on telling them when to anticipate the delivery package; that's all they need to know.

Read more: Best Practices for eCommerce Shipping During the Holiday Season

Automate Your Dropshipping Store with Dropshipping Tool

There are several ways to automate a dropshipping business, including the use of software and apps, outsourcing tasks, and setting up automated systems. Here are a few examples:

• Order automation: Use software or apps to automatically place orders with suppliers when a customer makes a purchase on your website. This can save you time and reduce the chance of errors.
• Inventory management: Use software or apps to automatically update your inventory levels and pricing based on the availability of products from your suppliers.
• Fulfillment and shipping: Use a fulfillment service that can handle the packing and shipping of your products. Some providers can also handle returns and customer service.
• Customer service: Use chatbots or virtual assistants to handle common customer service inquiries so that you can focus on more complex issues.
• Tracking: Use accounting software to automate your financial tracking and reporting.

All these features are included in DSers - a dropshipping tool for any dropshippers who want to automate their business.

Final Words

You have accomplished everything necessary to be ready for the Chinese New Year since you have made it this far. Grab all your preparation and be ready for one of the biggest eve. Hope this information will be valuable to your online dropshipping store and that you will feel free to utilize it to further your education. Discover more on DSers Blog.