The dates move each year with the lunar calendar, which is the first trap: a plan built on last year's dates will be wrong. The second trap is assuming the disruption equals the holiday.
What actually happens
- Before. Capacity tightens as everyone tries to ship before the break. Prices firm up, and your order joins a queue.
- During. Factories close. So do the component suppliers, the logistics companies and the customs brokers.
- After. The slow part. Workers return gradually, and some do not return at all — lines restaff and quality takes time to stabilise.
How to plan around it
Work backwards from the break rather than forwards from today. Decide what must ship before it and treat that as a hard date. For anything landing just after, expect quality variation on the first runs and inspect accordingly.
The same logic applies to Golden Week in October, at a smaller scale. Any plan that treats the Chinese calendar as background noise will slip.