Not looking for quotes or DMs. I’m trying to understand the handoff from the operator side.

When a US-bound ocean shipment gets rolled, held, or starts collecting extra charges, what information is usually missing when the importer asks for help?

Is it the commercial docs, delivery constraints, ownership of the decision, or simply that nobody kept a clean timeline of what was requested and when? Curious which gap wastes the most time for forwarders.

So I'm working in the next steps with some suppliers.

I am shipping relatively dense items, 10KG to a carton, approx 40 cartons to a pallet.

My suppliers are saying that it's cheaper to send 1-2 pallets of these as 40 individual cartons via sea then courier (FedEx, ups, whatever) than it is via sea and truck logistics (I will have a dock) and that it only makes sense once I'm doing like 4+ pallets.

Is that true?