For most goods the freight decision is about weight. For fabric packaging it is about volume, and that changes the answer.
Why volume dominates
Pouches are light and they do not compress much once packed. A carton of pouches weighs little and takes a lot of space, which means air freight — charged on volumetric weight rather than actual weight — is expensive relative to the value of what is inside.
The number to get early is total carton volume in cubic metres, not just gross weight. Ask for it with the quote. It determines your freight cost far more than the kilogram figure does.
Express courier
Door-to-door, fastest, simplest paperwork, and priced by volumetric weight. Practical for samples and for genuinely small production runs — express door-to-door is offered here for smaller orders. It becomes uneconomic quickly as volume grows.
Air freight
Faster than sea, cheaper than express at moderate volumes, but you handle or contract the customs and delivery legs. Worth it when a deadline has already slipped and the cost of missing it exceeds the freight premium.
Sea freight
The default for bulk packaging programs. Slow, and the transit time is the smaller part of the total — booking, consolidation, port handling and customs all add to it. The economics are strongly in its favour once you are shipping enough volume to justify the fixed costs.
LCL (less than container load) shares a container and suits mid-size orders. FCL (full container) is cheaper per unit volume once you can fill one, and it also means your goods are not waiting on other people's cargo.
Planning around it
The mistake is treating freight as something to arrange after production. Freight mode should be decided while the order is being specified, because it changes packing: a sea shipment wants efficient carton dimensions to fill a container well; an express shipment wants minimum volumetric weight. Those are different packing briefs.
Plan backwards from the date you need goods landed, and include sampling, production, booking and customs in the window rather than only transit. Season matters too — capacity tightens and rates rise ahead of major holidays.