Olga Ponomareva and Maria Girich, experts at the Gaidar Institute, explained in comments for RIA Novosti how the Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) celebrations on February 17 could affect delivery times for goods from the AliExpress marketplace.
According to Olga Ponomareva, expert at the Economic Policy Foundation, production and logistics processes in China are on hold during this period. "It is likely that when ordering from AliExpress directly from Chinese suppliers, delivery times may now be longer. If the order is not shipped by mid-February, it will most likely arrive in the second half of March," she said.
The expert emphasized that the two-week holiday is a planned annual event, not a force majeure. “The Chinese New Year is not a shock to the market, it is more of a stage in the annual cycle that everyone is aware of,” she explained. She added that many companies build up their stocks in advance to avoid problems, which leads to a surge in demand for logistics in November and December.
Maria Girich, Researcher at the Gaidar Institute's International Best Practices Analysis Department, clarified that not all shipments will be affected by delays. An important factor is the location of the warehouse. "If delivery is made from warehouses in China, there may be delays in orders that will be transferred to the carrier until mid-February. If the goods are already in a bonded warehouse in the UAE, Russia (there is currently one in Tatarstan), or in a B2B2C warehouse, for example, AliExpress has a sorting and storage facility in Domodedovo, the goods can arrive without delay," said Maria Girich.
The expert also linked possible delays in cargo delivery to the rush demand for logistics services within China before the holidays, when demand for New Year's goods can increase 40-fold.