Buying guide
Planning a Christmas dog toy range
A seasonal range is the only kind of order where the delivery date cannot move, because the shelf date is set by the calendar and not by the buyer or the factory. That single fact changes how the whole project has to be planned: every stage is scheduled backwards from a fixed point, and the decisions that are usually allowed to drift have to be made early instead. This guide covers what to decide, in what order, and what a late decision actually costs.
First
What makes a seasonal order different
Three properties separate a Christmas range from a year-round one, and all three push work earlier in the calendar rather than adding cost.
The date is fixed and it does not negotiate
On a year-round order, a production delay is absorbed by shipping a little later. On a seasonal order it is not, because the goods have to be on shelf before the season starts and the season does not move. Everything else in the plan has to flex around that one constraint.
There is no reorder to correct a shortfall
If the range sells well in week one, there is no time to make more — it will not arrive while the season is still running. The first order is the only order, so the quantity decision carries all the risk and cannot be topped up later.
What does not sell becomes next year's decision
A seasonal SKU left in the warehouse is not dead stock — it is a 2027 problem, because the same design may sell again next year or may look dated. Planning the range with that carryover in mind is part of planning the range.
The calendar
Working backwards from the shelf date
We do not publish cut-off dates, because the sequence that matters is yours rather than ours: it starts when your shelf date is and works back through your own approval process. What we can set out is the order of the stages and what a late decision costs at each one.
| Stage | What has to be decided | What a late decision costs |
|---|---|---|
| Range plan | How many SKUs, which constructions, how many sizes, how many colourways, and how much of the range is new rather than a repeat of last year. | The whole schedule is built on this. Under-planning leaves the development calendar with no slack, and adding a SKU later pushes everything after it. |
| Artwork and brief | Character or motif, colourways, branding application, and the packaging format the range will share. | Artwork drives both the sampling brief and the packaging print, so a change here re-opens two schedules rather than one. |
| Sampling | Which construction each SKU uses, and any adaptation to it. Approve the sample that bulk will be produced against. | Each revision round is a fixed increment of calendar time. On a seasonal order the number of rounds is the variable that decides whether the date is met. |
| Packaging approval | The card or tag artwork, the shopper-facing copy, the barcode and the language set, signed off against the dieline. | Packaging is a separate print job with its own lead time. It is the single most common reason a seasonal range ships finished and unpacked. |
| Bulk production | The signed sample and specification sheet are locked, and the packaging is with the printer. | A change after bulk starts is a rework or a replacement run, and on a seasonal order neither can be absorbed by shipping later. |
| Shipment and retail intake | The shipping method, and the date the goods have to reach the retailer's intake or your own warehouse. | Air freight is the only lever left, and it is the most expensive way to buy back time. It is cheaper to move a decision earlier than to move goods faster. |
If you have a shelf date, send it and the stages above come back as a sequence of dates with the decision points that produce them. That is a more useful answer than a published cut-off, because it accounts for your review process rather than only ours.
The range
How many SKUs, and how new each one should be
A seasonal range usually sells as a set rather than as individual products, which means the composition matters as much as any single design. These are the questions that decide it.
Repeat, adapt or develop
A repeat of last year's construction is a private label order with new packaging; an adaptation is a recollection or re-detailing; a development is a new shape. Ordering them in that sequence across the range keeps the calendar achievable, because only part of it carries development time.
Breadth against depth
A range that is six designs deep in one construction is a different proposition to six constructions carrying one design each. The second is more interesting to a shopper and harder to schedule, because each construction has its own sampling and its own minimum.
Price architecture
Seasonal buyers often shop to a gift price point rather than a category. Deciding the price tiers before the range is planned is what determines sizes, fill weights and packaging formats — and it is cheaper to decide it now than to re-size the range later.
Carryover from last year
Where last season left stock, the decision is whether to re-list it, re-package it in this year's card, or hold it. That decision changes what the new order has to cover, and it belongs in the range plan rather than after it.
Channel and packaging format
A range going to a retailer's own planogram has one packaging requirement; one going to a marketplace has another; one going to a wholesale customer may need a third. Two formats in one range is two print jobs on one schedule.
How dated the design should be
A strongly dated design sells well in its season and carries over poorly the next year. A motif-led design that reads as seasonal without a year on it can be re-ordered. This is a merchandising decision with a production consequence.
Packaging
The part that is planned last and should be planned first
On a seasonal range the packaging does more work than usual: it is what makes a set of products read as one gift range, and it is what carries the seasonal signal. It is also a print job that cannot start until the artwork is signed.
One format across the range
A single card or tag format covering every SKU is one dieline, one print job and one assembly operation. It also makes the range look like a range on a shelf, so the commercial argument and the manufacturing argument point the same way.
Approve it with the sample
Where the packaging artwork is approved in the same round as the product sample, both are signed at once. Where it is approved afterwards, the print job starts on a date the product schedule has already committed to.
Settle the language set
Which languages the card carries, and which warnings are required, depends on where the goods ship. Adding a language after the artwork is signed is a new plate, not an edit.
Decide whether the range ships as a set
A multi-pack or a gift set is one SKU for shipping and several for production. It changes the carton configuration and the minimum, so it belongs in the range plan rather than in the packaging phase.
Common mistakes
Five things that cost a season
None of these is a mistake of effort. They are all cases where a decision that feels small turns out to be on the critical path, and where the consequence is measured in a season rather than a shipment.
Planning the range in the season you are selling it
By the time the season is visible it is too late to develop anything for it. A seasonal range is planned in the quiet months, which is a scheduling habit rather than a manufacturing one.
Leaving packaging to the end
The product is the part buyers think about and the packaging is the part that delays the shipment. Approving both in the same round is the cheapest control available.
Assuming a revision round is free
Each round is a fixed amount of calendar time, and on a fixed date that time has to come from somewhere else. Rounds are the variable that decides whether the shelf date is met.
Ordering too few to fill the season
There is no top-up on a seasonal order. Ordering to the bottom of an estimate means the range sells out in the middle of its window, which is the point at which the demand was highest.
Ordering a range that cannot carry over
Over-ordering a design that is dated to one year converts the overage into a write-off. Over-ordering a design that reads seasonally without a year converts it into next year's opening stock — a decision worth making before the quantity is set, not after.
Treating the reorder as the same as the first order
A range that repeats needs the specification sheet and the signed sample to repeat from. Where those were not kept, the second year starts from a photograph and a memory.
Next
Where this guide leads
A seasonal range is mostly a scheduling problem on top of an ordinary order. These are the pages that cover the ordinary order.
The collections themselves
The three seasonal collections we hold, the calendar in full, and what the range can be built from without new development.
The brief that starts it
What to state so the sampling brief is right first time, which on a fixed date is the difference between two rounds and four.
Which route keeps the date
Private label, adaptation and full development compared on the time each one takes to reach a signed sample, and why a dated range often uses more than one of them.
Send the shelf date and the range plan
You will get back a sequence of dates from artwork to shipment, the decision points that produce them, and the sampling date that follows from your shelf date rather than from ours. Related reading: all buying guides and the seasonal collections page.