Please confirm the lead time.

交期 (jiāo qī) is one of those compressed Chinese business terms that packs a lot into two syllables. 交 (jiāo) is short for 交货 (jiāo huò, to deliver goods), and 期 (qī) means “period” or “scheduled time.” Together: delivery lead time — the window between order confirmation and goods being ready. It’s the word you’ll hear in every factory office in China, and it’s what your supplier types in WeChat when you ask about timing. The full term 交货日期 (jiāo huò rì qī, delivery date) exists for formal documents, but in conversation, 交期 is standard.

Confirming lead time is not a one-and-done question. It’s a recurring checkpoint in the production cycle. The first time you ask — 交期大概什么时候 (roughly when?) — you’ll get an estimate. The second time — after the deposit is paid — you should get a firmer date. The third time — when production is supposed to be halfway done — is when you find out if the date is actually holding. The phrase 交期没有变吧 (the lead time hasn’t changed, right?) is worth sending periodically; it’s polite but keeps the supplier aware you’re tracking dates.

Chinese factory lead times are affected by factors that Western buyers don’t always anticipate: national holidays (Chinese New Year effectively shuts down production for 2-4 weeks), peak production seasons (the months before Christmas are factory crunch time), power rationing (in some regions, factories operate on restricted schedules in summer and winter), and raw material shortages. A savvy buyer asks not just about the lead time but about the factors that might change it: 最近原材料供应怎么样 (how’s the raw material supply lately)? 工厂最近忙不忙 (is the factory busy right now)? These questions get you better information than just asking for a date and hoping it holds.