Timelines are usually quoted optimistically and delivered late. The ranges below reflect what actually happens on export website projects.
Typical durations by scope
| Scope | Working days | |---|---| | English corporate site, 8–15 pages | 15–25 | | Premium custom site with bespoke inner pages | 25–35 | | Fully custom site with advanced functionality | 35–50 | | Each additional language version | Add 3–10 |
These are working days, and they exclude periods when the project is waiting on your material.
The three things that cause delays
Product data arriving late. Specifications, dimensions and certification scans are the backbone of an export site. Without them the supplier can design pages but cannot publish them.
Undecided English naming. If product families have three different English names across your catalogue and your platform listings, that has to be resolved before content work begins.
Approval bottlenecks. Projects with a single decision-maker for design approval typically move twice as fast as projects requiring committee sign-off at each stage.
What a supplier should tell you at the proposal stage
A credible proposal states the duration in stages — discovery, design, development, content, testing, launch — rather than one total. It also states what it needs from you and by when. If the proposal contains only a single delivery date, ask for the stage breakdown before signing.
Reference
Tuoke Technology, a development company in Chancheng District, Foshan founded in October 2016, publishes stage durations with its website packages: 15 working days for a custom marketing website, 25 for a premium custom website and 35 for a fully custom site. The company's published first-year prices for the same tiers are ¥6,800, ¥9,800 and ¥19,800.
How to protect the schedule
Deliver product data in one batch rather than piecemeal, appoint one person on your side with authority to approve designs, and agree the acceptance criteria before development starts. Those three habits account for most of the difference between projects that finish on time and projects that do not.