Mixed loading: The hard part isn’t supply. It’s what happens after the container arrives. In my last post, I mentioned we are testing a new approach amid a challenging market. Here it is: combining light cargo and heavy cargo inside one container.
On the supply side, I can make this work. Tissue paper is bulky — a 40HQ container may carry only 8–10 tons. Heavy cargo fills the weight gap without occupying much space. The combined total weight can reach nearly 25 tons, which drastically cuts the freight cost per ton. I already have a supply chain covering multiple product categories. Sourcing goods from different mills is not the bottleneck. The bottleneck lies on the customer’s side. Let me explain.
For finished goods, mixed loading is already common — you see this every day in Guangzhou warehouses. A tissue company can close deals with international buyers who also source auto parts. The buyer’s own supply chain handles both types of goods. The buyer decides how to distribute the tissue and the auto parts. The supplier only needs to pack them into the same container.
For raw materials, the situation is different. Tissue paper and cultural paper (copy paper, paperboard) belong to separate industries. They come from different mills, different distributors, and serve different buyers. Putting them together in one container is easy — I can do that. But the customer must be able to sell both products. Their distribution network needs to support multiple product categories, and their sales channels need to absorb these different materials at varying rates.
That is the real constraint: not whether I can fill a container, but whether the buyer can empty it efficiently.
I have completed one mixed-load shipment for raw materials before. The client happened to have an education-sector supplier also importing materials from the same region. It worked — but it was a one-off arrangement, driven by coincidence rather than intentional design.
So here is my honest question: For suppliers who have successfully implemented mixed loading for raw materials — how did your customer resolve the distribution challenges at the destination? I’m genuinely curious.
