It accounts for more than 80% of global international trade traffic*.

The core advantages are large volume and low cost. If your goods are not sensitive to timeliness, choosing sea shipping can control your shipping costs to the greatest extent.

If your volume of goods is greater than 10CBM (cubic meter = cubic meter, volume unit), or goods with special properties, such as magnetic, liquid, fragile, and high value goods, then I recommend that you make a full cabinet, spread it flat to a lower unit price per cubic meter, and there is no need to share the cabinet with other shippers. If you are making small to medium quantities of foreign trade goods, then you can also choose to combine bulk goods.

However, shipping also has its own disadvantages. There is a big difference in time between express ships and ordinary ships. They are all from China to the US and West. The whole journey is about 15-20 days. Express boats that cooperate with SEND also take 15-20 days (calculated from the day after departure). Because ordinary ships have to line up for lockers at public terminals, the whole process takes 25-40 days. When port congestion occurs during peak season, the whole process is generally delayed by 5-10 days.

The core feature is fast transit time. It only takes 3-7 working days from China to major European and American cities, and the safety is high. If you are making digital 3C products, fresh food, and medical equipment, such high-value, small-batch, and time-sensitive categories, as well as categories that require peak season replenishment and new product testing, then I recommend choosing air freight to avoid losses due to delays in timeliness.

The downside is that it is expensive, usually 4-5 times the price of sea freight. Also, note that air freight will be billed according to the weight (length cm x width cm x height cm ÷ 6000), so the packaging must be lightweight and the volume must be reduced as much as possible. If you are making sensitive goods, such as charged (including lithium batteries), magnetic, cosmetics, liquids, or powders, etc., you should prepare the relevant transport conditions certificate or MSDS (Chemical Safety Technical Specification) in advance to prevent the goods from being able to board the aircraft.

There are two main categories: China-Europe trains and cross-border Qatar Airways.

Let's talk about the China-Europe train first. The door-to-door transit time for regular trains from China to Europe is usually 15-25 days, and some “full schedule” trains can be reduced to about 11-15 days. The price is about 1/4 to 1/5 of air freight. Suitable for 100-1000kg e-commerce goods and industrial equipment.
Then there's the cross border card route. Relying on the TIR Convention (“TIR Convention”, the full name is “International Road Vehicle Transport Regulations” (English: Transport International Routier, TIR) to achieve “one order to the end, multi-country customs clearance”, the normal door-to-door transit time period is 12-18 days. The cost is about 1/3 to 1/5 of air freight. If your goods have certain timeliness requirements and the volume of goods is moderate, then I recommend that you choose the form of land transportation.

However, land transportation also has its own limitations — it only runs on Eurasian routes; it cannot be used to go to America. Furthermore, it is greatly influenced by port policies and geopolitics, and port congestion during peak seasons may cause the time limit to fluctuate.