On average, standard warehouse containers leave an estimated 10-15% of their space unused. It’s a loss most businesses accept. But why? Especially when that loss compounds, shipment after shipment, adding up to significant losses in freight costs, warehouse storage space, and higher handling frequency over the course of the year.

This volume inefficiency is eroding your margins, and you don’t have to accept it.

You can go custom. You can have containers designed to fit your specific product requirements, optimizing cubic utilization and improving your bottom line. Let’s get into how.

WHAT IS CUBE UTILIZATION AND WHY DOES IT MATTER TO YOUR BOTTOM LINE

Cube utilization is the percentage of available container volume that is actually filled with a product. In simpler terms, it’s the measurement of how much stuff you can fit into your container. The more you can fit into a single container, the more efficient your storage becomes for shipping and within your warehouse.

While the industry accepts 10-15 % of unused space per container, at RollerPlast, we know that with custom totes, you can do better.

Let’s look at some easy numbers: Your shipping truck fits 100 totes. By going with custom totes, we reduce the wasted space in your totes to even 5%. That increased packing efficiency means you could pack 5-10 more totes worth of product on that same truck.

That means fewer trucks you have to use over the course of the year to transport your product, resulting in less transport expenses overall, to name just one benefit.

HOW STANDARD-SIZED TOTES ARE COSTING YOU MONEY

Standard totes have become the go-to because of convenience and easy availability. But that does not make them the most effective choice. With the excess void space—not to mention poorer long-term performance and increased replacement costs—standard totes are costing you more in the long run. Here’s how:

• Increased freight expenses. Less efficient containers mean higher volumes of transportation, which equate to higher costs in fuel and manpower
• Underutilized warehouse space leads to inflated storage costs.
• Increased container cost. With less usable space, you need more containers to store your product.

Each of these increased costs adds up over the course of a year to seriously impact your bottom line. Custom containers may have a greater upfront cost, but the amount they save you in wasted space increases their value and makes them a smarter spend in the long term.

HOW SHIPPING AIR HURTS YOUR SUSTAINABILITY EFFORTS

Many of our clients are working towards sustainability initiatives. Are you?

Whether it’s to meet personal goals or government-mandated requirements, standard totes are hurting your efforts.

The US Environmental Protection Agency lists transport as one of the largest contributors to supply-chain emissions, and the SmartWay program encourages improving load efficiency and reducing underutilized space as a means of tackling this problem.

This means, if your company is working towards a greener infrastructure, switching to custom totes can help you achieve those goals.

HOW CUSTOM CONTAINERS CREATE EFFICIENCY AND REDUCE COSTS LONG-TERM

The logic is pretty straightforward here. Standard totes are designed to suit the masses, and by doing so, don’t work for most. The available sizing tends to leave 10-15% of wasted space, the inefficiency of which is costing you money.

Custom totes, on the other hand, are designed for your specific needs and measurements. By going custom, you get totes made to fit your products, thereby:

• Offering better cube utilization
• Allowing you to fit more units per container
• More efficient transport, which equates to fewer shipments required
• Removing wasted volume without a major overhaul to systems, SKUs, or workflows
• More efficient warehouse storage

The upfront cost of custom containers may have had you hesitating, but the long-term savings firmly outweigh the costs, making custom the better operational choice.

CASE STUDY: AMER SPORTS

Standard totes just didn’t work for our client, Amer Sports (Arc’teryx). Their product simply didn’t fit into any readily available totes on the market. They needed a custom solution, and luckily, they found us. Our team was able to create automation-compliant totes, larger than anything on the market, that perfectly fit their product.

By upgrading their totes to a size that properly fit their product, Amer Sports was able to optimize their system in both size and capacity.

You might think that the standard 10-15% of air space in your totes doesn’t have a big impact on your business, but this case study proves just how hard this inefficiency is hitting your bottom line.

STOP PAYING TO MOVE EMPTY SPACE

Shipping costs are driven by how efficiently you use the space you’re paying for. When standard containers leave 10–15% of their volume unused, that “air” quietly compounds into higher freight spend, wasted warehouse space, and unnecessary expenses.

Switching to custom containers doesn’t require changing your product, your processes, or your systems. They simply remove inefficiency that should never have existed in the first place. If you want to protect your margins, improve cube utilization, and stop paying to move empty space, the solution isn’t shipping harder. It’s shipping smarter.

FAQs

How much unused space do standard containers typically have?
Many standard containers leave approximately 10–15% of their internal volume unused because product dimensions rarely align perfectly with off-the-shelf sizes. While this may seem minor at the container level, the inefficiency compounds across pallets, truckloads, and annual shipments.

How does poor cube utilization impact freight costs?
Poor cube utilization reduces the number of units that fit per container, pallet, and trailer. This leads to more pallets and more truckloads being required to move the same volume of product, increasing fuel costs, labor, and overall freight spend over time.

Can improving cube utilization reduce warehouse costs?
Yes. Better cube utilization increases storage density, allowing more products to fit within the same warehouse footprint. This can reduce the need for additional racking, overflow storage, or facility expansion, lowering long-term warehousing and inventory handling costs.

Why are custom-sized totes more efficient than standard containers?
Custom-sized totes are designed to match specific product dimensions and operational requirements. This reduces internal void space, improves pallet density, and increases transport efficiency. Unlike standard containers, custom totes remove wasted volume without requiring changes to products, SKUs, or workflows.