Buying from China - The Christmas cut-off date

Based on your experiences, what would you say is the latest one could purchase from China and expect arrival before Christmas? I'm already feeling pessimistic this late in November.

I'd personally say that this week is cut-off for the main suppliers and that its the week after for the main ebay flashlights shops, such as cyberport888, that usually ship within 48 hours of an order.

There was an announcement from china post what is the latest date sellers can post shipments so it can arrive before Christmas. The date differs for different parts of the globe. There was a thread about it in this forum.

Searched and it was this post.

Although I think it just assures parcels will arrive at the first destination post office before Christmas, not at your doorstep.

Thanks. I would definitely cut off a week from those dates in order to compensate for seller delay. I'm surprised the USA gets one more day than Australia when the Aussies here always seem to get their orders quicker than us.

Transit to local post office may be faster. For example China to our main post office takes about 3-5 days. From main post office to local post office can take up to 15 days or more.

It depends on how fast the seller is in processing the order, I never order presents from DX or KD after the end of October. For faster sellers like hkequipment, dinodirect, manafont, solarforce sales etc I generally tend to place my last present orders before the end of November just to be sure.

It is also necessary to include the time custom takes to process a package, last year I had packages hang for 3+ weeks in custom (At other times they can mostly process the packages in one day).

This is probably mostly a problem in Europe.

It depends on how lucky you are felling :slight_smile: I’d have a backup plan if you are ordering now.

too late now from my experience last year

At this point in the year I wouldn't order anything that I was depending on to be given on or before Christmas Day. I'd certainly have backups. I'm mainly just curious and I don't think I'll be ordering any more Christmas gifts from China but you never know