China Sourcing

Air & Sea Freight Shipping

Once goods are made they have to move, and the choice between air and sea is a cash decision disguised as a logistics one. Sea is cheaper per unit and ties up your money for weeks longer. Air costs more and frees the capital sooner.

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What you get

Air, sea and combined routings
Quoted against your real cartons and weights
Customs documentation prepared, not improvised
Delivered into the warehouse that will ship it

The operational problem

The real trade-off

The comparison people make is freight cost per unit, and on that measure sea wins almost always. The comparison that matters includes what the stock costs you while it is in transit: capital committed, storage at the far end, and the sales you cannot make because the product is on the water.

	Air freight	Sea freight
Cost per unit	Higher	Lower
Transit time	Days	Weeks
Capital tied up	Shorter	Longer
Suits	First runs, restocks, high value	Bulk, heavy, planned volume
Minimum sensible volume	Low	Higher
Risk of a stockout	Lower	Needs earlier planning

Where mixing the two makes sense

The default assumption that a shipment must be entirely one or the other costs money. A common and better pattern is splitting a production run: enough by air to keep selling while the rest travels by sea.

That way the launch is not gated on a vessel schedule and the bulk of the volume still moves at sea cost. It is worth modelling against your own margin rather than accepting either extreme by habit.

Documentation and landed cost

Freight quotes are frequently compared without the parts that determine what you actually pay: duty rate, VAT or sales tax treatment, customs clearance, and delivery from the port or airport to the warehouse. A cheap sea quote and an expensive air quote can invert once those are included.

So we quote what lands in the warehouse, not what leaves China. Where goods are coming into a warehouse that will then fulfil your orders, freight and receiving are planned as one movement rather than handed between two parties.

Questions

Air & Sea Freight Shipping FAQs

Air or sea for a first production run?

Usually air for at least part of it. A first run is the point of maximum uncertainty, and weeks of sea transit before you know whether the product sells is an expensive way to find out. Splitting the run is often the better answer.

How is freight quoted?

Against your actual cartons, weights and destination, and quoted as landed cost including clearance and delivery to the warehouse, not as a port-to-port figure that omits what you will still owe.

Do you handle customs clearance?

Yes, including the documentation. Most clearance delays are paperwork rather than inspection, which makes preparing it properly the cheapest part of the process to get right.

Can freight go straight into the warehouse that fulfils my orders?

Yes, and it should. Delivering into the warehouse that will ship the goods removes a handling leg and means receiving and inspection happen once rather than twice.

Ready to hand over fulfillment?

Tell us your daily order volume and main markets. We come back with the routes and the per-order price your actual profile needs.

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