A buyer in Lagos once told me he was promised 720 sheets of 18mm board per container. Only 640 arrived. He thought he’d been cheated.
He hadn’t. Nobody explained the packaging math to him.
The real numbers
A standard 18mm melamine plywood sheet is 1.22 × 2.44 meters. Stack them bare into a 40HQ container and about 980 sheets would fit. But no factory ships them bare.
Every bundle gets wrapped in protective plastic. Then bundles go onto wooden pallets. If those pallets are 10cm high, you’ve just lost 60 to 70 sheets of space. Extra corner protection, thicker wrap, moisture barriers — each layer costs you capacity.
The industry reality: between 700 and 800 sheets of 18mm per 40HQ, depending on packaging.
Three questions to ask before you sign anything
- How many sheets per bundle?
- How many bundles per pallet?
- How many pallets fit in the container?
Multiply those numbers and you have the real figure. If a supplier won’t break it down for you, that’s a red flag.
Don’t forget pallet fumigation
One thing that bites importers in Africa and Latin America: wooden pallets must carry ISPM-15 certification. Without it, customs can hold your container for weeks — and demurrage charges eat your margin fast.
We send the full packing list with these numbers before loading, plus photos of every pallet with measurements. Our customers know exactly what’s coming before the ship leaves port.
Twenty minutes of questions now beats three weeks stuck at customs later.