Global freight, managed from New York.

We arrange the international movement of goods. That covers selecting the mode and routing, booking capacity with carriers, preparing and checking the documentation, coordinating customs clearance through licensed brokers, and managing the collection and delivery legs at each end. We plan and control the movement across whichever carriers suit it, without owning aircraft, vessels or trucks.

Work from the delivery date backwards and compare total landed cost. Ocean is cheapest per unit and slowest. Air is fastest and most expensive per kilogram. Rail sits between the two on the corridors where it runs, particularly China–Europe. The right answer also has to price in inventory holding cost and, for fast-depreciating goods, the value lost during a longer transit.

As a working threshold, above roughly 13 to 15 cubic metres a 20-foot container usually wins on total landed cost, because LCL is billed per revenue tonne and adds destination CFS charges. Below that, consolidation is normally cheaper. Fragile or high-value cargo can justify a full container earlier, since it avoids being stripped and re-handled with other shippers' freight.

Airlines bill on chargeable weight: the greater of actual gross weight and volumetric weight, where volumetric weight is length × width × height in centimetres divided by 6,000. Light, bulky cargo is billed on volume. We calculate both figures at quotation and quote against the higher one, so the invoice matches what you were told.

Demurrage accrues while a container sits inside the terminal past its free days. Detention accrues once it has left the terminal and has not been returned by its due date. They are separate charges from different parties. Avoiding them is a sequencing problem: clearance and the delivery appointment have to be planned against the free-time allowance, not against the arrival date.