Why ocean is the default
Intimates are close to the ideal cargo: dry, non-hazardous, light for their volume and tolerant of a few weeks at sea without complaint. There are no battery restrictions to design around and no liquid limits, so air freight is available whenever urgency pays for it, and express courier at 5-8 days door to door covers samples and top-ups between orders. Bulk, though, moves by sea - and the difference between a smooth shipment and a painful one is decided in planning made weeks before the container arrives: the carton specification, the cube arithmetic, the documents and the calendar. Those are this note's subjects, in the order a program meets them.
FCL and LCL
The first choice is between a full container and shared space. FCL - a full container load - is sealed at the plant and opened at destination: fewer hands on the cartons, a schedule organized around the vessel, and the whole box working for one program. LCL - less than container load - buys space in a shared box: the goods move through a consolidation warehouse at each end, gaining flexibility and losing control at the margin, because the container's calendar is a compromise among every shipper inside it. Small first programs, top-up orders and mixed consignments suit LCL; full-range programs with tight calendar commitments suit FCL. The trade in one sentence: LCL trades handling and schedule certainty for the ability to ship small; FCL trades minimum volume for control. Where a program's quantity sits near the boundary, the desk quotes both, because the boundary moves with the lane and the season.
Carton and cube planning
A container sells cube and weight, and intimates sell mostly cube - the garments are light, so the box fills before it weighs out. Cube is decided upstream at the pack decision, which is why the note on intimates packaging treats pack choice as a freight decision: a boxed bra occupies a multiple of its polybagged cube, and a container of boxed bras ships a fraction of the pieces. The arithmetic happens before the purchase order, not at the port: carton dimensions, cartons per layer, layers per container, with the carton map written into the packing list. Carton marks make each box readable at every hand-off - purchase order, style, color, size ratio, box number of total, destination port - and the pallet decision belongs to the same conversation, because pallets consume cube on purpose: palletized for automated receiving, loose for maximum fill, and never one by accident.
Transit references and the calendar
Planning references for the lanes the desk ships most:
| Lane | Typical reference | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| US West Coast | 15-25 days port to port | Add inland legs to the warehouse |
| Europe | 30-45 days port to port | Add terminal and inland time |
| Express courier | 5-8 days door to door | Samples and top-ups between orders |
These are references, not promises for a specific booking; every figure is confirmed at booking. The working use is the calendar: bulk lead time, then inspection, then booking lead and port cut-off, then the water, then destination legs. A program that must land by a date runs backward through that chain from the date. The production half of the chain - sample and bulk ranges - sits in the note on OEM and MOQ explained, and the two halves meet at the inspection in the note on pre-shipment inspection.
The document set
A shipment is also a folder of documents, and the folder matches the goods line by line or it causes trouble at customs. The core set is short. The commercial invoice states the goods and the transaction. The packing list mirrors the carton marks, box by box, so the container can be read from outside. The bill of lading - or sea waybill - is the transport contract and, in its negotiable form, the title document. And the certificates the destination market requires for the program travel alongside: the material paperwork, the lab reports the purchase order named. The desk's habit is a document pack assembled against the purchase order before the container is stuffed, because a discrepancy found at stuffing is an email, and the same discrepancy found at destination is a delay with a fee attached.
HS reference and customs
Customs classifies the goods under the Harmonized System, and intimates sit in a compact corner of it: 6212 covers bras and similar support garments, while 6108 and 6109 cover knitted panties and nightwear. The reference matters because duty schedules and import paperwork hang off the code - but the desk does not classify. The buyer's customs broker owns the classification and confirms the code for the destination market in writing, per shipment type. What the desk owns is making the paperwork support the classification: fiber content, garment type and value stated consistently across the invoice, the packing list and the labels, so the broker's file and the container agree without explanation.
Planning backward from the warehouse date
The calendar discipline that keeps freight from eating a program is simple to state and easy to skip: start at the date the goods must be in the warehouse and walk backward. Destination legs and customs clear first, then the ocean leg, then booking and port cut-off, then inspection, then bulk. Each step has a length, each length has a range, and the ranges are the honest ones published on the MOQ and lead time page. What the walk exposes is buffer. A program that needs the full bulk range plus the full ocean range has no slack, and a buyer who sees that early can still move quantity between colors, ship a first tranche by LCL while the balance follows, or air a top-up - decisions that exist in week one and do not exist in week nine.
Risk and insurance
Cartons at sea are insurable, and the practical questions are whose policy and for what value. Cargo insurance is arranged per shipment at a stated value, and the desk confirms with the buyer who carries it - the buyer's own policy, a desk-arranged cover, or the forwarder's liability, which is a limit rather than an insurance and should never be mistaken for one. The other risk layer is handling: LCL moves through more hands than FCL, which is why the carton specification and the marks earn their keep on shared boxes. Neither risk argues against ocean freight; both argue for writing down who owns which risk before the vessel does, in the program sheet rather than in a claim.
Where the desk fits
The desk coordinates bookings with partner forwarders, assembles the document pack against the purchase order and keeps the shipment file beside the inspection report in the program file. A brief through the quote form that states the destination and the in-warehouse date is enough for the desk to return the calendar, the lane references from the logistics and shipping page and the choice set between FCL and LCL - before the deposit, while every option still exists. The sequence this closes is the one walked through in the note on sourcing intimates from China: brief, plants, samples, bulk, inspection, container - and the last step goes best when it was planned first.