SUPPLIERS: Sour Holiday Prep -

As the holidays approach, many of us are thinking, how are we going to be ready?

We’ve seen over the past few years what supply chain issues can look like What will be our big seller? What are we going to make for family and friends? Like the fflakes of 2020 or the gnomes of 2021, what will be the money-maker for holidays 2022?

The truth is, it can be a crapshoot. Trends are not predictable, until they are, and you are putting in crazy hours to keep up with no sleep and no family or me time. So, whether you are trying to prepare for your business or cover gifts for family and friends, here are ways you can be prepared as we head into the largest quarter of the retail and crafting industry

Get to know your supplier Alibaba and DHGate are mentioned several times a month in forums

However, these sites come with a lot of uncertainty for the buyer. A domestic supplier navigates and bears the responsibility for these uncertainties such as ability to return products that are not up to quality standards, large minimum order quantities (MOQ), long production or shipping timelines, long factory closures for holidays or COVID, customs and duty fees, fluctuating port fees and layover charges, insurance, etc Many large domestic corporations such as Hobby Lobby, Home

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Depot, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and Aldi may have cool products or good sales, but if you want to establish a consistent product line, find a small business supplier you can build a relationship with or invest a year into establishing a product line with a factory

Melody Thornton with Custom Made Better shares, “As customers who make finished goods and products for the holidays, I think the best thing you can do to be prepared is to find a supplier you can trust to be a part of your team and a backbone to your business. A good supplier will go out of their way to make sure you have what you need when you need it In addition, communicate your needs with them- as a supplier I WANT to hear from my clients what they want and what their clients are telling them they want so I can make sure we're ordering and manufacturing these things ”

Plan ahead. On the supplier side, lead times can be anywhere from 4 weeks to 2 years. For suppliers that are importing from overseas, production schedules can span out more than 2 years. Kristi Wildman with KW Supplies shares their “lead times are 46 months” and Casey Cruise with Smokey Hills Designs said “for Holidays 2022, we are prepared with over 200,000 lbs of inventory and we’ve already submitted through to quarter 2 for 2023 orders For preparedness, our production calendar is forecasting into Holidays 2023 " Thornton is preparing for 2023 spring & Valentine’s Day and will start gearing up for Holidays 2023 immediately after December 25, 2022