Disclosed herein is a system and method for adequately securing the currently available metal and plastic containers for paint and other fluids as well as other foreseeable containers in an automated fashion without crushing or damaging the containers, without using any special adapters for particular container types and without operator intervention. To avoid crushing a plastic container, the disclosed system and method takes advantage of the compressibility of these less rigid plastic containers. It has been found that a plastic paint container can be safely clamped in place without structural damage if the clamp plate travel after engagement with the top of the container is limited to a certain value, for example, about 5/16″. When the compression amount if limited or controlled, the plastic container will not move or will move very little during a three minute violent shake cycle. Some conventional containers are not readily compressible, such a metal cans, drums or the larger (five gal.) plastic buckets or pails. To address the issue of these containers being used with the same machine as the new plastic containers, an increase in current or voltage drawn by the clamping motor is monitored after initial contact with the top(s) of the container(s), and if the increase reaches a threshold value, the motion of the upper clamping plate is stopped and an appropriate holding force is maintained.