Weeks 1–2: specification
Decide what you are buying before you ask for a price. For each item that means the material and grade, dimensions, colour reference, packaging format and target quantity. Buyers who send this list get comparable quotations from every supplier. Buyers who send "please quote your best price on microfiber cloths" get numbers that cannot be compared, because each factory has quoted a different product.
Also settle your quantities per item now. MOQ is per item and per colour — typically 3,000 pieces — so a range of eight products in three colours is twenty-four minimums, not one. This is the arithmetic that most often forces a first range to be narrowed, and it is much cheaper to discover it here than after artwork has been commissioned.
Weeks 2–5: sampling
Stock samples arrive in 5–7 days and answer material questions. Custom samples — your size, colour, print or packaging — take 10–15 days and answer commercial questions. Order stock samples first, narrow to a shortlist, then commission custom samples only from the supplier you intend to use.
Test the samples the way your customer will. Wash the cloths twenty times. Leave a sponge wet on a sink edge for a fortnight and smell it. Wring the mop out fifty times and check the pedal. This week of unglamorous work prevents the complaint that arrives six months later when the container is already sold in.
Insist on a retained reference sample: one approved physical piece held by both parties against the order number. Without it, a later quality dispute is two opinions.
Weeks 4–8: artwork and dielines — where programmes slip
This runs in parallel with sampling and it is the stage that overruns most. The sequence is: the factory sends a dieline, your designer works to it, the factory checks print feasibility, a physical packaging prototype is produced, you approve it.
Two things reliably go wrong. Designers work to the visual rather than the dieline, so artwork comes back the wrong shape for the blister. And required regulatory content — barcode, country of origin, material composition, recycling marks, importer address, multilingual instructions — gets added at the end, forcing a relayout. Collect every mandatory element for every destination market before your designer opens the file.
Approve a physical prototype, not a PDF. Colour on coated board, on kraft and on a screen are three different colours, and the one that matters is the board.
Weeks 8–10: pre-production sample
The pre-production sample is the real product, made on the real line, in the real packaging. It is the last point where a change costs nothing, and the moment your deposit converts into a committed order.
Check it against the reference sample rather than against your memory of the earlier one. Confirm barcode scans, verify the pack closes and hangs, and check the instruction insert is the final translated version and not a placeholder. Approve in writing, item by item.
Weeks 10–15: mass production
Budget 25–35 days after deposit and pre-production approval. Repeat orders of an unchanged item run 20–25 days. August to November adds roughly a week across the industry, so a Q4 programme needs its deposit paid before the summer, not during it.
Ask for a mid-production photo update at around 50% completion. It is a small request that catches colour drift and packaging errors while a correction is still possible.
Weeks 15–16: inspection and booking
Pre-shipment inspection at AQL 2.5 is standard. Book third-party inspection — SGS, BV, TÜV — or send your own QC, at least a week ahead; inspection slots are scarce in peak season. A factory that resists inspection access has told you something important, and a factory that does not charge for it is behaving normally.
Container booking and documentation run alongside. Confirm the packing list, commercial invoice, bill of lading details and any certificate of origin or test report your customs broker needs. A missing certificate of origin costs more in demurrage than the certificate ever cost to obtain.
Weeks 16–24: freight and arrival
From Ningbo or Shanghai, expect roughly 30–40 days to Northern Europe, 18–30 days to the US West Coast, 30–40 days to the US East Coast, and 20–28 days to Australia. Add a week for inland haulage and customs clearance at destination.
The four delays that actually happen
Artwork revisions. Adds one to four weeks, and it is the most common overrun by a wide margin. Fixed by collecting all mandatory pack content before design begins.
Colour matching. A Pantone match on a moulded plastic body can take two or three iterations. Adds one to two weeks. Fixed by accepting a stock colour where the shade is not part of the brand.
Chinese New Year. Production stops for two to three weeks in late January or February, and the fortnight either side runs at reduced capacity and quality. Any order that would otherwise be produced in that window should have its deposit paid in November.
Late regulatory discovery. A destination market turns out to require a test report or a pack marking that nobody checked for. Adds two to six weeks. Fixed by naming every destination market in the very first enquiry, so the requirement surfaces in week one instead of week fifteen.
Working backwards from a launch date
For a range on shelf in mid-September, deposit by late April, artwork finalised by early June, pre-production approved by mid-June, production complete by late July, sailing in early August. Miss April and you are launching in the following spring. Almost every buyer who misses a seasonal window missed it in the specification stage, not on the production line.