A 90-Day Sprint: Planning Double 11, Black Friday, Christmas and Spring Festival

Key dates

On October 12, JD.com starts selling Double 11 inventory. On October 15, Tmall begins deposit payments and Douyin Mall launches. On October 20, Tmall collects final payments and simultaneously starts selling inventory. Double 11 concludes on November 11. November 26 is Thanksgiving in the United States. November 27 is Black Friday. November 30 is Cyber Monday. December 25 is Christmas. December 26 is Boxing Day. Spring Festival falls on February 6, 2027.

From October 12 to February 6, there are 117 days, including six sales peaks and one full logistics peak season. The window actually available for production must also exclude the shutdown periods around New Year’s Day and Spring Festival.

Why This Year Is Tighter

The first reason is that Double 11 has moved earlier overall. JD.com has brought forward the start of spot sales to October 12, while Tmall has moved deposit payments to October 15, so the entire shopping festival begins earlier than in previous years.

The second reason is that Spring Festival is earlier. Spring Festival falls on February 17 in 2026 and February 6 in 2027, 11 days earlier. Those 11 days matter: they remove full production weeks available before factories shut down. Based on previous years, most food factories close around the twentieth day of the twelfth lunar month. The practical shipping cutoff usually falls in mid-January or even earlier.

Together, these factors mean that only about two months of effective time remain between the end of Double 11 and Spring Festival, while shipments for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas must also be processed.

Import and Export Schedules Collide

Late October through November is the tightest resource period of the year. Domestic Double 11 shipping demand and overseas Black Friday inbound demand peak at the same time, competing for the same ocean freight capacity, air freight pallet positions, bonded warehouse and overseas warehouse capacity, and customs brokers’ document-review capacity.

The most common scheduling mistake is to focus entirely on the ship date. The first date to set is the inbound date when inventory becomes available for sale. Then work backward by channel through transit, customs clearance and last-mile delivery. For Black Friday, the common industry recommendation is to complete inbound delivery to the destination-country warehouse and make inventory available for sale by November 10. Christmas inventory is recommended to be in the warehouse by December 5.

A delay of one week essentially means missing the entire sales event.

Use Buffers Correctly

One point is easy to confuse and must be addressed separately.

On the import side, the applicable measure is the 1210 return rule: for cross-border e-commerce retail imports, if a consumer applies for a return within 30 days from the release of the declaration list and returns the goods in their original condition to a customs special supervision area or bonded logistics center within 45 days from release, the corresponding taxes are not collected and the consumer’s annual transaction quota is restored. In addition, for bonded e-commerce imports that have been declared into the area or center, enterprises may apply for return shipment or destruction procedures for goods unsuitable for domestic sale because they are past their shelf life or validity period, or because the goods or packaging are damaged or do not comply with domestic regulatory policies.

The export side follows a different set of rules. From April 2026, cross-customs-area returns of cross-border e-commerce retail export goods will be rolled out nationwide, allowing enterprises to choose any customs port in the country to process return shipments. Announcement No. 16 of 2026 issued by the Ministry of Finance, the General Administration of Customs and the State Taxation Administration also provides that, from January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2027, goods declared for export under regulatory codes 1210, 9610, 9710 and 9810 that are returned in their original condition within six months of export because of slow sales or customer returns are exempt from import duties, import-stage value-added tax and consumption tax.

However, note one critical limitation: the export return duty exemption explicitly excludes food. Supplements are outside its scope, so it cannot be counted as a cost buffer when preparing the plan.

Three-Stage Inventory Plan

Shipping the entire peak-season volume at once concentrates risk in two places: if sales underperform, all inventory becomes excess stock; if sales outperform expectations, there is no room for replenishment. A more stable approach is to ship in three batches.

Base inventory should represent the majority of expected peak-season sales and move by ocean freight to cover predictable regular demand. Buffer inventory should account for a smaller share and use more reliable transport capacity to absorb demand above forecast. Flexible inventory should move by air freight or international express and be used only for urgent replenishment. Its cost will consume a significant share of margin, so it should not be treated as a solution of last resort.

For cross-border supplements, add one more factor: build inspection probability directly into the schedule. When ocean freight is selected for inspection, the vessel can wait, but the shelf cannot.

One-Page Backward Plan

Complete three tasks in October: lock in production schedules and ordering windows before Spring Festival; calculate each batch’s ship date backward from the date when inventory must enter the warehouse and become available for sale; and confirm that every SKU has all required certificates in place before peak season, rather than trying to complete documentation while selling.