In most markets a distributor orders when stock runs low. In Greece, hospitality buyers order against a date: the day the property opens. That single difference changes how the whole order should be planned.
Plan backwards, not forwards
Start from the opening date and work back through installation, delivery, customs, transit and production. Every one of those steps has a range rather than a fixed number, and the ranges add up. Ordering "as early as possible" is vague; ordering "so it is installed two weeks before opening" is a plan.
Why the season compresses everything
Everyone in the region orders in the same weeks. That affects production sequence and your forwarder's capacity at the same time. The distributors who never seem to have a problem are simply the ones who placed the order in winter.
What hospitality buyers ask for
- Height that screens a seated guest's sight line, not just the boundary
- A surface that looks finished on day one — this is the whole reason artificial screening wins here
- Consistency across a property, so a repeat order in year two matches year one
- Fixing that survives coastal wind without a visible wave along the top edge
That last point is worth a sentence: coastal exposure is where installation quality shows. Fix along the top, middle and bottom line, and keep tension even rather than tight.
Customs
Greece sits inside the EU customs union with Türkiye for industrial goods, so goods normally travel on an A.TR movement certificate. Confirm the treatment for your tariff line with your own broker. The document set travels with the goods: invoice, packing list per line, A.TR and CMR.
Repeat orders and colour matching
If a property expands in year two, the customer expects the new run to match the old one. Say this in the first order rather than the second: tell us it is a multi-phase project and we will note the specification so the repeat is built to the same sheet.
