The cargo weight and cube influence the size and number of containers needed for an order. The term cube refers to the cubic measurement of cargo.

From the analysis in the Case Sample: Container Selection (1) below, it is obvious that not all 1,500 cartons (2,250 cu. ft. or 63.713 CBM) will fit into two 20' containers or one 40' standard container. A solution is to request the importer to adjust the order to 1,365 cartons (2,047.5 cu. ft or 57.979 CBM) to make one 40' FCL (full container load), in case the high cube container (the hicube) is not available. The alternate solution is to use a 40' hicube. However,
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not all shipping companies and sea routes have the hicube,
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there are legal limitations to the overall height of a vehicle in certain areas (e.g, tunnel and underpass) and countries, and
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the FCL (full container load) freight rate of hicube is higher than the standard container.
Some of the shipping companies having high cube containers include:
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APL (U.S.A.)
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Evergreen (Taiwan)
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Hanjin (South Korea)
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Hapag-Lloyd (Germany)
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"K" Line (Japan)
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Maersk (Denmark)
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NYK (Japan)
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OOCL (Hong Kong-Taiwan)
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Sea-Land (U.S.A.)
Case Sample:
Container Selection (1)

An importer orders 1,500 cartons of product DX. The gross weight of each carton is 10.5 kilograms and its length-width-height is 1.5' x 1' x 1' (1.5 cu. ft. or 0.04248 CBM). The nature of product DX demands the stowage of cartons in upright position.
The cargo gross weight of 15,750 kilograms suits a 20' or a 40' container. The total cube is 2,250 cu. ft. (63.713 CBM).

The capacity of a 20' container is about 1,170 cu. ft. (33.131 CBM) and a 40' is about 2,385 cu. ft. (67.535 CBM). It seems that all 1,500 cartons will fit into two 20' containers or one 40' standard container, but the figure is misleading. It is important to consider the excess, but unusable, space generated from the stowage of odd sized cartons.

Analysis on some possible methods of stowing product DX and the total number of cartons that will fit into a container, based on the internal dimension of the general purpose container and the Diagram: Package Orientation, is as follows:

Method of Stowing
(A)	Stowing the front (length) of all cartons parallel to the side (length/deep) of container.
(B)	Stowing the front (length) of all cartons parallel to the end (width/wide) of container.
(C)	Crosswise stowing---alternate each row in the wide (shown below) using the methods (A) and (B), that is, a row of CA alternate with a row of CB presented below.