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Air freight costs far more per kilogram than ocean, and it is still the right decision more often than sellers expect. When a ranking product is about to go out of stock, the freight premium is smaller than the revenue and rank you lose sitting at zero inventory.
Three cases justify air almost every time: the launch batch, where speed to first sale compounds into rank; an emergency restock on a product that is ranking and selling; and high value, low volume goods where freight is a small share of landed cost. Everything else usually belongs on a vessel.
The mistake is treating air as a permanent mode because the first shipment went well. Sellers who plan properly run ocean as the baseline and hold an air lane in reserve, which keeps the average landed cost down while protecting against stockouts.
Airlines bill on chargeable weight, which is the greater of actual weight and dimensional weight. A light, bulky carton is billed on the space it occupies. This catches first time shippers constantly, and it means how you pack in India directly changes the invoice.
Before you book, it is worth running the cartons through the numbers. Tighter cartonisation, removing void fill, and flat packing where the product allows can move a shipment down a weight band. On repeat restocks that saving compounds.
Cheapest per unit for steady restocks, 35 to 50 days door to door.
Better per unit economics once you fill half a 20 foot container.
India pickup, the main leg, US customs, our own Texas warehouse, and marketplace prep at $0.75 per unit.
21 steps from idea to first US sale. Free PDF.