Exploring the adoption of e-commerce platform for container shipping bookings

Abstract

ABSTRACT Digitalisation has become one of the strategies for enterprises to stay competitive today, the maritime shipping servicing industry is no exception. The electronic-commerce (e-commerce) platform is one of the digitalisation attempts. Leading shipping lines provide e-commerce platforms for customers to book containers. However, it is unclear about whether these platforms disrupt the current container-booking process, the exact benefits such platforms would bring and the preferences towards the platform from users. This study aims to understand the traditional container-booking process and compare the process with and without an e-commerce platform in order to address above issues. Focus on the container-booking process and the inter-organisational communication during the process, this study unveiled the complexity of maritime shipping service and how e-commerce platforms contribute to efficiency, information sharing and transparency. This study provides managerial insights to freight forwarder managers to adopt and diffuse the e-commerce platform for digitalising the container-booking process.