Maersk’s deal to sell empty container space via Alibaba to Chinese customers may start a process of reducing business available to freight forwarders. Panjiva data shows that there were a total of 699,000 less-than-container shipments from China to the U.S. in the past 12 months. This was equivalent to 18% of all shipments by number (not volume), and growth in LCL shipments has outstripped the total industry until recently.