Ocean freight
Ocean freight moves goods by container ship, the workhorse mode for intercontinental trade. Capacity is measured in TEU (a 20-foot container; a 40-foot box counts as two), and shippers book either a full container (FCL) or shared space in a consolidated one (LCL). It is by far the cheapest way to move heavy intercontinental volume and the slowest, with port-to-port transits measured in weeks.
Examples
Ocean vs air: Moving 2,400 kg of enclosures from Ningbo to Chicago costs about $3,100 by ocean (35 days door to door) versus $13,700 by air (6 days). The buyer airs the first 300 units to protect a launch and puts the remaining 9,700 on the water.
FCL crossover: A 16-cubic-meter shipment quotes at $1,990 as LCL but $1,730 as a 20-foot FCL. The full container is cheaper, transits 5 days faster, and skips deconsolidation handling.
Free time blown: A container lands with 4 free days, but a missing customs document delays pickup by 9. Three chargeable days at $185 and two at $310 add $1,175 to a $2,600 move.
Definition
The first booking decision is FCL versus LCL. FCL gives you the whole box, faster handling, and less damage exposure; LCL buys space by the cubic meter in a shared container and suits small, dense shipments. The crossover usually lands around half a container of volume, at which point FCL is cheaper outright.
Pricing is quoted per container by port pair and stacked with surcharges: fuel, peak season, port congestion, plus inland drayage at each end. Once the box lands, the clock matters: free time at the terminal is limited, and demurrage accrues daily when a container sits past it. Most manufacturers book through a freight forwarder rather than holding direct carrier contracts, unless they ship thousands of TEU a year.
The trade against air is cost versus time and inventory. Ocean can run an order of magnitude cheaper per kilogram, but a 4-to-6-week door-to-door transit means more inventory in motion and slower reaction to demand shifts. Schedule reliability is the metric seasoned importers watch: a quoted 21-day transit that actually lands anywhere from day 19 to day 35 forces buffer stock that quietly eats the rate savings.
Related Terms
Full container load (FCL)
Less-than-container load (LCL)
TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit)
Demurrage