An export shipment involves many checks, from documents and labels to packing and cargo securing. Paperwork such as invoices, packing lists, bills of lading, and certificates of origin is important, but many document mistakes can still be corrected before or during the shipping process.
Cargo securing is different. Once the container is sealed and loaded onto the vessel, fixing a poor securing job becomes difficult or impossible. That is why this checklist starts with the items that have the biggest effect on cargo safety, followed by the remaining packing and documentation checks. It is designed to be used in order on the packing floor before the container leaves.
Preparing Before the Container Arrives
Confirm Cargo Details:
- Actual gross weight of each unit — weighed, not taken from the drawing
- Dimensions including packaging and any overhang
- Centre of gravity marked on anything heavy or asymmetric
- Special handling needs: temperature, orientation, chemical compatibility
- Total consignment weight against the container’s payload and against road axle limits at both ends
The axle limit catches people out. A 20 ft container legally holds around 28 tonnes; the truck taking it to the port often can’t.
How to Choose and Book a Shipping Container
- 20GP, 40GP or 40HQ based on weight-to-volume, not habit
- Heavy dense cargo goes in a 20 ft — a 40 ft filled with dense goods hits the weight limit at half volume and you’ve paid for air
- Confirm the booking, cut-off times, and the VGM submission deadline
Preparing Your Cargo Securing Materials
- Strap width calculated for the load and route — not selected from what’s on the shelf
- Buckles matched to strap width, galvanised for sea freight
- Anti-slip mats on hand for every heavy item
- Corner protectors for every hard edge
- Dunnage bags sized for the gaps you expect, or timber for gaps over 300 mm
- Tensioner inspected: gripper teeth clean, no play at the pivot
Checking the Container Upon Arrival
Container Inspection Checklist
This takes four minutes and it’s the check most often skipped.
- Floor: no oil, no protruding nails, no soft or holed boards
- Walls and roof: no daylight visible with the doors closed. Look up
- Doors: gaskets intact, locking bars operate freely, hinges sound
- CSC safety approval plate present and in date
- Lashing rings: count them, check none are bent or torn. Note the rating
- Smell: previous cargo residue transfers, especially to food and textiles
- Photograph the empty container, interior and the CSC plate
Reject a container that fails any of these. A dispute at the depot costs an hour. A wet cargo claim costs a season.
Best Practices for Loading Cargo
Stowing Cargo Correctly
- Heavy items on the floor, centred within the middle half of the container length
- No more than about 60% of total weight in either half
- Anti-slip mats under every heavy item — this is the cheapest securing force available and it can halve your lashing requirement
- Tier heights matched so the top face is flat
- Nothing incompatible loaded adjacent
How to Secure Cargo Safely
- Multi-piece loads bundled with cord strapping before they go in — you can’t reach the middle of a packed container
- Voids under 100 mm filled with void material
- Voids 100–300 mm filled with correctly sized dunnage bags, inflated to about 75% of rated capacity
- Voids over 300 mm braced rigidly with timber or steel
- No void at all at the door end without a proper gate or bulkhead
- Lashing to rated points only — floor rings and side rails. Never the door frame, hinges, vents, or wall corrugations
- Straps flat, no twists, corner protectors on every hard edge
- Tension applied at 10–15% of system strength, sequenced from the centre outward in two passes
- Every buckle hand-pull tested: grips harder, doesn’t slip
- 40–50 mm tail past each buckle
Verifying Your Cargo Load
- Push test. Firm shove by hand on every accessible face. Anything that moves under your hand moves a great deal more at 0.8 g
- Re-tension after 30 minutes. The load settles fastest in the first half hour. Come back and check every strap
- Photograph everything: wide shot of the loaded container, then close-ups of each securing point, each lashing ring in use, and the door face before closing
Those photographs are the single most valuable claims document you will ever produce, and they cost two minutes.
Required Shipping Documentation
The set that travels with almost every ocean shipment:
- Commercial invoice — description, quantity, unit price, total value, Incoterm
- Packing list — package count, marks, gross and net weight, dimensions per package
- Bill of Lading — must match the invoice and packing list exactly
- Certificate of Origin — where the buyer’s duty treatment depends on it
- Export customs declaration / shipping bill
- Insurance certificate
- Product-specific certificates — phytosanitary, fumigation, test reports, inspection certificates
- ISPM-15 treatment marks on all timber packaging and dunnage, stamped and visible
The rule that prevents most delays: the weights and package counts must be identical across the invoice, packing list, bill of lading and VGM. Not approximately identical. Identical. A 20 kg discrepancy between documents is enough to hold a container at a port that’s having a strict week.
VGM and Container Sealing Requirements
- Verified Gross Mass submitted before the carrier’s cut-off. This has been mandatory under SOLAS since 2016 and a container without a VGM does not get loaded
- Weigh the packed container, or calculate from weighed cargo plus tare — either method, but document which
- Seal the container with the correct high-security bolt seal
- Record the seal number and put it on the bill of lading and the packing list
- Photograph the applied seal with the number legible, and the closed doors
Common Export Shipping Mistakes to Avoid
- VGM submitted late, or calculated from estimated cargo weights
- Weight or package count mismatched across documents
- Timber packaging without ISPM-15 marks — the container gets refused at destination and fumigation happens at your cost
- Container defects noticed after loading, not before
- Seal number recorded incorrectly or not at all
- Securing done “after the paperwork’s sorted,” by whoever is still on shift
- No photographs, so every claim becomes your word against the surveyor’s
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s VGM and who is responsible for it? Verified Gross Mass — the total weight of the packed container including tare. Under the SOLAS amendment in force since 2016, the shipper is responsible for submitting it before the carrier’s cut-off. No VGM, no loading. You can weigh the packed container or add weighed cargo to the tare weight, but you must document the method.
Do I need ISPM-15 marks on dunnage as well as pallets? Yes. Any solid wood packaging material entering most countries needs ISPM-15 treatment and marking, including bracing timber and dunnage. This is one reason exporters shift toward composite strapping and bracing where possible — no wood, no treatment question.
How many photographs should I take? More than feels necessary. A wide shot of the empty container, the CSC plate, the loaded container at each stage, close-ups of every strap and lashing point, the door face, and the sealed doors with the number readable. Ten to fifteen images. Store them against the shipment reference.
Who is liable if cargo is damaged by poor securing? Generally the shipper, as the party responsible for packing and securing the CTU under the CTU Code. Carriers and insurers routinely decline claims where securing was inadequate — which is exactly why the pre-dispatch photographs and a documented securing calculation matter so much.
Can I compress this checklist for repeat shipments? Yes. For a cargo configuration you ship regularly, do the securing calculation once, write it into a standard packing instruction, and reduce the per-shipment check to verification rather than decision-making. The container inspection and the photographs stay on every single shipment.
Summary
Do the irreversible things first and document them. Inspect the container before you load it, secure the cargo properly while you can still reach it, photograph everything, and make sure the numbers match across every document. The paperwork can be fixed by email. The load cannot.
Want this as a one-page floor checklist for your packing team? Ask us and we’ll send it with your samples.
Amass Strapping Solutions manufactures composite cord strapping, container lashing strips and matched galvanised wire buckles from Rajkot, Gujarat since 2012. Widths from 13 mm to 32 mm, rated as a strap-and-buckle system, supplied to exporters who’d rather check the load than argue about it later.
Request a sample roll and the pre-dispatch checklist card → amass-strap.com