Home / Delivery timeline
Wholesale delivery timeline, stage by stage
A wholesale crochet order moves through six dated stages, and only some of them are under the supplier's control. This page lists each stage with the days it consumes, so a buyer can count backwards from the date stock has to be on shelf instead of forwards from the day the order was placed.
The six stages of a wholesale crochet order
A delivery date is not one promise, it is six dates stacked on top of each other. Each stage below has its own clock, and only some of them are under the supplier's control.
| Stage | Working days | What you receive at the end of it |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Quotation | 24 hours | Unit price at your volume, with freight and landed cost broken out |
| 2. Sampling — new design | 5–7 days | Pattern drafted, first piece crocheted, photographs for approval |
| 3. Sampling — colour change | About 1 day | The approved pattern re-run in a new yarn |
| 4. Bulk production | 15–30 days | Yarn booked, work distributed, three QC gates passed |
| 5. Inspection, packing and handover | Fixed weekly day | Cartons consolidated in the Yiwu centre and released to the forwarder |
| 6. Transit and clearance | Quoted per lane | Goods delivered door-to-door, duty paid on DDP terms |
Stage 4 is the one buyers watch, but stage 6 usually moves the final date more. A sea lane quoted at six weeks and an air lane quoted at five days differ by more than any production adjustment inside the 15–30 day band.
Counting backwards from the shelf date
Forward planning from the day an order is placed produces optimistic dates, because it ignores the weeks that pass between approval and yarn booking. Backward planning from the shelf date produces usable ones. Worked example, with the transit figure replaced by the lane actually quoted on your order:
| Step | Illustration |
|---|---|
| Shelf date the retailer has fixed | 15 November |
| Minus door-to-door transit on the quoted sea lane | −35 days → goods must leave by 11 October |
| Minus handover and packing slack | −5 days → production must finish by 6 October |
| Minus the long end of bulk production (30 days) | → production must start by 6 September |
| Minus sampling, if the design is new (7 days) | → brief and deposit needed by 30 August |
The illustration uses the long end of every range on purpose. A plan built on the short end of each range has no room for a single re-dye or a late artwork approval, and those are the two most common reasons a wholesale order arrives late.
Where wholesale orders lose days
- A seasonal shade that has to be re-booked. When a colourway is discontinued or dyed to order, the mill's schedule enters the timeline and no extra hands can recover it.
- Late artwork approval. Labels, hangtags and printed packaging inserts cannot be ordered until the buyer signs off, and a week lost here lands directly on the handover date.
- Purchase order revisions after yarn is booked. Changing quantity or colour after booking restarts the booking, which is why a confirmed quantity matters more than a provisional one.
- An unbooked peak slot. The weeks before a retail season fill first. An enquiry made in those weeks can be quoted but not always scheduled.
- A late change of freight mode. Switching from sea to air at the last minute buys transit days at a freight cost that often outweighs the delay it was meant to fix.
The replenishment rhythm
For a retailer or wholesaler running repeat programmes, the useful property of the schedule is not speed but regularity. Handover happens on a fixed weekday, so cartons leave on a predictable cadence rather than whenever a run happens to finish.
Repeat orders are also structurally faster than first orders. With 8,000+ designs already patterned, a reorder of the same piece in the same yarn skips sampling entirely and goes straight into the bulk queue. A reorder that changes only the colour needs about one working day for a new sample rather than five to seven.
That is the argument for keeping the specification stable across seasons: the second order of a proven piece is both quicker and easier to price than the first.
What can be compressed, and what cannot
| Lever | Effect | Honest limit |
|---|---|---|
| Colour-change sample instead of a new pattern | Saves about five days | Only works on an existing, approved pattern |
| Booking before peak season | Protects the production start date | Requires a confirmed quantity and deposit |
| Air freight | Shortens transit by weeks | Raises freight cost sharply on bulky goods |
| Vacuum compression packing | Reduces shipped volume and therefore freight | Changes cost, not the production calendar |
| Asking a factory to skip laboratory testing | Nothing | EN71 and ASTM F963 run on the laboratory's schedule; no factory can compress it |
What travels with the goods at handover
- Test reports for the destination market — EN71-1/2/3 for the EU, ASTM F963 for the United States, with CE and UKCA marking where the market requires it
- OEKO-TEX Standard 100 confirmation for the yarn used in the run
- TÜV Rheinland audit reference and 90N pull-force QC records for the batch
- Commercial invoice and packing list, with the HS code stated per line and carton dimensions recorded
A wholesale buyer assembling a compliance file for a retailer will usually be asked for the first two items before the goods land, so it is worth requesting them at the sampling stage rather than at handover.
Minimums, colourways and the sampling route are on the low minimum order page and the custom colourways page; certification detail is under OEKO-TEX certified yarn.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a wholesale crochet order take?
Bulk production runs 15–30 days after the sample is approved, and transit is then quoted per lane. A first order with a new design should allow five to seven additional days for sampling, so the whole cycle is usually planned at six to ten weeks door-to-door by sea.
Can I get a sample faster than five to seven days?
Yes, if the piece already exists in the pattern library and you only change the yarn. A colour-change sample takes about one working day. A genuinely new design needs the full five to seven days because the pattern has to be drafted and worked first.
Do repeat orders need new sampling?
No, provided the design and the yarn are unchanged. With 8,000+ designs already patterned, a straight reorder goes directly into the bulk queue, which is why keeping a specification stable across seasons pays off.
What is the minimum order for wholesale?
100 sets for plush figures and 200 pieces for floral and decorative work. Volume also drives the unit price, so the quotation is always built against a stated quantity.
Can an order be expedited?
Three levers exist: a colour-change sample instead of a new pattern, splitting a large run across several production bases, and air freight instead of sea. Production cannot be compressed below the hand-work content of the design, and laboratory testing runs on the laboratory's schedule.
Which certificates arrive with a wholesale order?
EN71-1/2/3 or ASTM F963 test reports depending on the market, CE and UKCA marking where required, OEKO-TEX Standard 100 confirmation for the yarn, and the TÜV audit reference with 90N pull-force records for the batch.
Working backwards from a shelf date? Send the date, the destination and the quantity, and the timeline will be returned with the production start date that date requires.
Email bianhaitao@kivastitch.com · WhatsApp +44 7796 847136 · more answers on the FAQ page
Related: peak season cut-off dates for crochet production.
Related: packing and compression — how carton volume decides freight cost.