Lao Xu sells for an LTL dedicated-line freight company running routes from Foshan to the southwest. Most of his shippers are hardware and plastics factories around Nanhai and Shunde, mixing heavy freight with bulky-but-light freight, and he knows the routine cold. This year the company is opening a collection point in Chaozhou, so he took his usual quote sheet to call on ceramics factories. The first owner he met asked: is breakage compensated by piece or by carton, and does someone come to build the wooden crate at pickup? Lao Xu had no answer — back at the office, he found the contract's compensation clause had been written for hardware parts. Same trunk line, different industrial belt, and customers ask a completely different set of questions.
The Bulk of the Freight Comes Out of Factories
The 2025 National Logistics Operation Report, published in February 2026 by the Economic and Trade Department of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, contains a few figures directly relevant to dedicated-line freight sales:
- In 2025, China's total social logistics value reached 368.2 trillion yuan, of which industrial-goods logistics value was 324.6 trillion yuan — about 88% of the total, by calculation.
- Total social logistics costs were 19.5 trillion yuan, of which transport costs were 10.6 trillion yuan.
- The ratio of total social logistics costs to GDP was 13.9%, down 0.2 percentage points from the previous year.
By value, nearly nine-tenths of the freight on the road is industrial goods, so a dedicated line's customers are mainly inside factories. The cost ratio is still falling, leaving limited room to win business purely by cutting prices — what actually sets one dedicated line apart from another comes down to three things: how close it is to the cargo source, whether it can handle that type of cargo, and how it handles damage compensation.
The Top 20 Counties/Districts: 65,000 Factories with 20+ Insured Employees
LTL dedicated-line cargo sources have to be counted by county/district. A pickup truck can only cover a limited range in a day — usually just a handful of neighboring counties/districts — so which township a collection point is set up in determines how many shipments it can gather each day. Counting factories by province or by city is too coarse-grained for a dedicated line.
I ranked active manufacturing factories with 20+ insured employees by county/district on Tianxia Gongchang. The threshold is set at 20 employees because smaller factories ship sporadically — they might not send out more than a few shipments a month — and can't sustain a salesperson's ongoing follow-up. Nationwide there are 350,162 such factories. The top 20 counties/districts are listed below (Dongguan and Zhongshan have no district-level divisions, so the figures for them are factories registered at the city level):
| Rank | County/District | Factories with 20+ insured employees |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dongguan, Guangdong | 16,800 |
| 2 | Zhongshan, Guangdong | 5,278 |
| 3 | Bao'an District, Shenzhen | 5,114 |
| 4 | Kunshan, Suzhou | 3,813 |
| 5 | Nanhai District, Foshan | 3,538 |
| 6 | Shunde District, Foshan | 3,367 |
| 7 | Longgang District, Shenzhen | 2,891 |
| 8 | Jiangyin, Wuxi | 2,479 |
| 9 | Wujin District, Changzhou | 2,363 |
| 10 | Changshu, Suzhou | 2,019 |
| 11 | Wujiang District, Suzhou | 1,952 |
| 12 | Longhua District, Shenzhen | 1,928 |
| 13 | Cixi, Ningbo | 1,826 |
| 14 | Yueqing, Wenzhou | 1,814 |
| 15 | Songjiang District, Shanghai | 1,785 |
| 16 | Guangming District, Shenzhen | 1,784 |
| 17 | Huicheng District, Huizhou | 1,702 |
| 18 | Xiaoshan District, Hangzhou | 1,648 |
| 19 | Zhangjiagang, Suzhou | 1,629 |
| 20 | Huishan District, Wuxi | 1,615 |
The top 20 counties/districts together account for 65,345 factories, or 18.7% of the national total; Dongguan alone accounts for 16,800, or 4.8%.
Of these 20 counties/districts, 9 are in Guangdong, totaling 42,402 factories; 7 are in Jiangsu, totaling 15,870; 3 are in Zhejiang, totaling 5,288; and one is Songjiang in Shanghai. Some of these should be viewed as contiguous clusters: Shenzhen's Bao'an, Longgang, Longhua, and Guangming districts together total 11,717 factories; Suzhou's Kunshan, Changshu, Wujiang, and Zhangjiagang together total 9,413; and Foshan's Nanhai and Shunde districts together total 6,905. In these areas, factories in the same township can be scheduled into the same pickup run.
Dedicated Lines Follow the Industrial Belt: Where Six Cargo Categories Cluster
The top 20 counties/districts only tell you where the most factories are. What a dedicated line actually needs to find is where a specific category of cargo is concentrated: for the same category, one vehicle type, one packaging setup, and one compensation clause can be reused, and a single collection point can serve an entire cluster. I picked six factory categories: metal products and plastic products ship the highest volumes, while the other four have smaller overall totals but are concentrated in tight industrial belts with their own transport quirks. Below are the counties/districts where each is most concentrated (a factory can belong to more than one category):
| Category | Factories nationwide with 20+ insured employees | Top 3 most concentrated counties/districts (factories) | Top 6 counties/districts as % of national total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Metal products | 45,492 | Dongguan 3,112, Nanhai (Foshan) 963, Zhongshan 916 | 15.3% |
| Plastic products | 28,219 | Dongguan 3,273, Zhongshan 726, Bao'an (Shenzhen) 588 | 21.0% |
| Woven apparel | 4,907 | Zhongshan 165, Dongguan 117, Yiwu (Jinhua) 90 | 12.0% |
| Wooden furniture | 4,123 | Dongguan 337, Zhongshan 184, Anji (Huzhou) 101 | 20.7% |
| Lighting fixtures | 2,873 | Zhongshan 377, Dongguan 195, Bao'an (Shenzhen) 125 | 33.4% |
| Ceramics | 2,624 | Chao'an (Chaozhou) 284, Dehua (Quanzhou) 241, Liling (Zhuzhou) 149 | 32.2% |
This breaks down into three patterns:
Metal and plastic products follow the top 20 counties/districts. These two categories have the highest counts, and each of their 6 most concentrated counties/districts falls within the top 20 — Dongguan alone has 3,112 metal-products factories and 3,273 plastic-products factories. Build up pickup density in the major manufacturing counties, and this cargo will come naturally.
Ceramics, furniture, and apparel have their own industrial belts. Chao'an, Dehua, and Liling — the three most concentrated counties/districts for ceramics factories — together account for 674 factories, more than a quarter of the national total; the top 6 counties/districts span five provinces (Guangdong, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangxi, and Shandong), and none of them is in the top 20 counties/districts. Among the top 6 for wooden furniture, Anji (101), Nankang in Ganzhou (81), Chongzhou in Chengdu (76), and Huiyang in Huizhou (76) are all outside the top 20. Woven apparel is the most dispersed: its top 6 counties/districts account for only 12.0% of the national total, so Yiwu, Jinjiang (Quanzhou), and Tongxiang (Jiaxing) need to be worked as separate targets.
Lighting fixtures cluster in the Pearl River Delta. The top 6 counties/districts are all in Guangdong — Zhongshan, Dongguan, Bao'an (Shenzhen), Nanhai (Foshan), Jianghai (Jiangmen), and Huicheng (Huizhou) — together accounting for 961 factories, a third of the national total. A single loop through the Pearl River Delta can pick up a large share of lighting-fixture cargo.
So the origin point should be set according to the cargo. A metal/plastic line competes on pickup density within the big manufacturing counties; to pick up ceramics and furniture cargo, you need to set up a collection point in county towns like Chao'an, Dehua, Liling, and Nankang.
Ceramics, Lighting Fixtures, and Furniture: The First Call Asks Different Questions
Different cargo types have very different requirements for vehicle type, packaging, and damage compensation. Before quoting a price, get a feel for each category's temperament first:
| Cargo type | Transport considerations | What to spell out in the quote and contract |
|---|---|---|
| Ceramics | Heavy for its size and fragile — weight caps out first, stacking must be stable | Pallet or wooden crate, and who builds it; whether damage is compensated by piece, by carton, or by cargo value |
| Lighting fixtures | Light but bulky, easily crushed — volume caps out first | Priced by cubic meter; how many layers can be stacked, and whether other cargo can be loaded on top |
| Wooden furniture | Large pieces, prone to bumps and scratches | Who does the corner protection and film-wrapping; whether scratches count as damage, and the inspection window after delivery |
| Metal and plastic products | Metal parts are heavy for their size, plastic parts are mostly bulky | Weight and volume per shipment, and how the two categories are combined to fill a load |
Whatever the cargo type, the first call should nail down five things:
- Where the cargo ships to, and how many shipments per week. Whether the direction overlaps with your trunk route tells you in one sentence whether this factory is worth pursuing.
- Weight and volume per shipment. This determines whether to quote by kilogram or by cubic meter, and which other shipments it can be consolidated with.
- Who handles packaging. Cartons, pallets, wooden crates, stretch film — does the factory do it or do you, and who pays for it.
- How damage is compensated. Whether declared-value insurance is needed, and what standard is used to determine damage. Follow up with "why did you switch dedicated lines last time" — the real reason they switched is usually revealed right here.
- Loading conditions. Whether there's a loading dock and a forklift, whether pallets are forklifted on whole or loaded by hand, and how long the pickup wait is. Another article breaks down a factory's material-handling equipment from the equipment-sales angle: How to Find Factory Customers for Forklift and Warehouse Material-Handling Equipment Sales.
For ceramics factories, the focus is on items 3 and 4; for lighting-fixture factories, it's item 2; for furniture factories, ask one more question: whether the destination needs door-to-door delivery and carrying the goods upstairs.
A Sequence You Can Run Right Now
- Decide on the origin point first. Check the two tables above to see which counties/districts near your trunk-line origin have the densest cargo, and what category it is.
- Then decide what cargo to take on. Match it against your vehicle type, packaging capability, and compensation terms, and only pick categories you can actually handle. A line that can take ceramics and a line that only takes hardware need two different target lists.
- Generate the list. On Tianxia Gongchang, filter by city, industry, and insured headcount. For ceramics, for example, you can filter ceramics factories with 10+ insured employees in Chaozhou, Quanzhou, and Zhuzhou; or you can just ask Tianxia Gongchang's AI, "lighting-fixture factories in Zhongshan with 20+ insured employees," and it will break the request into filters and list the results.
- Plot the route by township. Sort the list by address down to the township level, and schedule factories in the same township for the same day's run, folded into the same pickup trip. For how to sequence the daily call list, see Lesson 3 of the methodology series: How to Build a "Call-Today" Factory List.
- Start with a trial shipment. With a new customer, start with one small shipment, let delivery speed and the damage record do the talking, then negotiate a long-term price.
A Checklist Before Entering a New Industrial Belt
Industrial belts shift too. As factories in a new park come online one after another, a fresh batch of cargo sources shows up there; another article covers what kinds of factories a park is recruiting, from the investment-promotion angle: How to Find Factory Customers for Industrial-Park Investment Promotion. Whether it's an established industrial belt or a new park, run through these nine questions before opening a collection point:
- How many factories with 20+ insured employees, in the cargo category you can handle, are in this county/district? Enough to support a collection point?
- Which directions do these factories mainly ship to? How much overlaps with your trunk line?
- Is this cargo type weight-driven or volume-driven? Does your vehicle type and pricing method match it?
- Who sets the packaging standard, who does the packaging, and who pays for it?
- Has the compensation clause been rewritten for this cargo type? How is damage determined, and what's the inspection window?
- How many townships can one pickup truck cover in a day? Which township should the collection point be in to stay closest to the cargo?
- Does the factory have a loading dock and a forklift? How long is the wait to load?
- How many dedicated lines already run the same direction locally? What level of delivery speed and compensation have they achieved?
- Is the first-round list ready? Has it been sorted by township?
Only once all nine questions have answers should you start talking price.
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Published by the Tianxia Gongchang Research Institute. Data notes: factory counts are from Tianxia Gongchang, covering active-status manufacturing factories with 20+ insured employees, as of September 2026; total social logistics value, industrial-goods logistics value, total social logistics costs, transport costs, and the ratio of total social logistics costs to GDP are from the 2025 National Logistics Operation Report, jointly issued by the Economic and Trade Department of the National Development and Reform Commission and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (February 10, 2026).