Community supermarket purchasing - Chinese New Year stocking timeline checklist: count back four weeks - nail down vendor blackouts and carrier cutoffs first, lock the gift liquor early, hold the final fresh order for the last two days, and finish three post-holiday tasks before the lantern festival

You are a purchasing advisor for a community
supermarket. Build a "Chinese New Year Stocking
Timeline Checklist," counted back from the
holiday, for the store buyer to execute. Write
every date as "N weeks before / N days before
the holiday" - the calendar dates are mine to
fill from this year's almanac and the local
carrier cutoffs.

Six segments on the timeline, each with "what
must get done / what being late costs / the
proof it's done":

4 weeks out - MAP
- Ask every key vendor for their holiday
  schedule: last order day / last delivery day
  / first delivery back; note carrier cutoff
  dates
- Set the budget: holiday stock-up against
  [cash ceiling] - and this week decide what
  gets cut if the ceiling binds
- Cost of lateness: every later decision gets
  made blind, and by the time cutoffs are
  known it is too late to order
- Proof: a vendor holiday schedule (who stops
  when, who resumes when) posted on the wall

3 weeks out - LOCK THE UNREPLENISHABLE
- Tobacco, alcohol, gift packs: no mid-holiday
  replenishment exists, one commitment covers
  the season - sized on last year's numbers
  where available, conservative where not
- Premium dry goods (gift-format packs)
- Cost of lateness: factory slots queue up
  pre-holiday; late orders pay more or get
  nothing
- Proof: every gift-liquor order confirmed
  with a delivery date

2 weeks out - LOCK THE MOVERS
- Staples, case drinks, cleaning and paper:
  the volume backbone, ordered above everyday
  levels
- Confirm post-holiday returns with vendors:
  what is returnable, deadline when - this
  single line decides how boldly you can
  over-order
- Cost of lateness: this freight is bulky and
  carrier capacity thins in the final week;
  late trucks fail
- Proof: delivery schedule confirmed, backroom
  dock lane left clear

1 week out - FIRST FRESH WAVE AND SELF-AUDIT
- Storage-hardy fresh lands: eggs, gift fruit,
  frozen
- Near-date sweep: work through whatever is
  still short-dated on the shelf before it
  mixes with holiday receipts
- Cost of lateness: greens have their own
  window later, but the hardy wave must land
  this week to catch the peak
- Proof: hardy fresh received and put away

2-1 days out - FINAL FRESH WAVE
- Leafy greens, fresh meat, seafood: small
  rounds, the last buy reserved for the final
  day
- Holiday-opening days get their own count -
  the open days' greens and eggs are the line
  items stores forget
- Cost of lateness: order early and it rots in
  the backroom; order late and the peak shelf
  sits bare
- Proof: last-wave orders confirmed with
  delivery landing on the final day

Post-holiday (all three before the 15th day)
- Gift-pack and seasonal returns: finish before
  each vendor's return deadline; past it, the
  store eats it
- The debrief note: what ran out, what
  stranded, on which day - written down, it is
  next year's buying plan
- Cash reconciliation: every holiday outlay
  matched to a payment

Constraints:
- No calendar dates anywhere (cutoffs differ by
  region); time is always "N weeks / N days
  out"
- No "holiday consumption grows X%" industry
  data; every quantity call runs on last year's
  own numbers or a conservative floor
- Every "cost of lateness" names a concrete
  consequence - "hurts holiday sales" is not a
  consequence
- Parameters I did not provide (cash ceiling,
  vendor schedules) stay [ ] for me to fill

Why it is written this way

The checklist's skeleton is replenishability: gift liquor is unrepayable mid-holiday and locks first; dry goods replenish on a cycle and order on schedule; fresh replenishes daily in small rounds. Every stocking-timeline mistake is ultimately one category's ordering logic pasted onto another category's replenishment reality. Each segment carries a concrete cost of lateness - factory queues, thinning trucks, backroom rot - because a timeline gets followed through consequence-imagining, not reminders; someone who knows trucks fail in the final week does not push the movers into it.

Mapping runs first, four weeks out, because it is the input to everything else: without knowing when each vendor stops delivering, every later "last order day" is a guess. The wall-posted schedule as the proof-of-done gives the mapping a checkable artifact - a round of calls nobody wrote down gets re-made in two weeks from scratch.

The post-holiday trio is the least-executed and highest-value stretch: returns before their deadlines are cash, and the debrief note converts this year's scars into next year's plan - a buyer holding "greens stocked out on day three, gift packs left 30%" orders next January without guessing. "Before the 15th day" rather than "soon after" exists because a debrief without a deadline has never once happened.

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