The only two variables that matter
Value density. What the cargo is worth per kilo. A kilo of consumer electronics is worth a great deal. A kilo of storage boxes is not. Air freight is priced per kilo, so the higher the value density the less the freight matters as a percentage of the product.
The cost of waiting. What it costs you to have the money and the goods in transit for thirty days instead of five. That includes the working capital, and it includes the sale you did not make because the shelf was empty.
Every freight decision is those two numbers against each other. Everything else is detail.
Sea
Cheapest per unit, slowest, and the default for almost everything. A full container is the lowest cost per unit if you can fill it. Groupage is for a first order that cannot.
Groupage carries a hidden cost most importers only discover once: the box has to be de-consolidated at destination, and that step, not the ocean, is where the delays happen.
Air
Four to seven days from Hong Kong or Guangzhou, priced per chargeable kilo, which is the greater of the actual weight and the volumetric weight. Bulky and light cargo is punished brutally by that formula.
Air is the correct answer more often than importers admit. If the alternative is missing a season, the freight cost is small against the discount you would otherwise take in September.
Rail, the forgotten middle
China to Europe by train is twenty to twenty-six days, roughly half the sea transit, at a cost that sits between sea and air. It is unaffected by whatever is happening in the Red Sea, which in recent years has stopped being a footnote.
For a European importer who is three weeks behind, rail usually saves the season without destroying the margin. It is the mode that gets forgotten because nobody's default is a train.
A simple rule
If the freight is under five percent of the landed cost, the mode is a scheduling decision, so choose by the calendar. If the freight is over fifteen percent, the mode is the whole margin, so choose by the cost and plan earlier.
- Value density and the cost of waiting are the only two variables. Everything else is detail.
- Groupage delays happen at de-consolidation, not on the ocean.
- Air is priced on chargeable weight. Bulky and light cargo is punished.
- Rail to Europe is the forgotten middle option and it saves slipped seasons.
