[130320.EN.SEA] Evergreen Switches To Online Booking Platform After Maersk, Hapag Lloyd

TAIWAN's Evergreen has rolled out online booking platform, GreenX to provide shippers and forwarders "instant" quotes and allow them to book space "with prioritised equipment within minutes".

Launched in January, the platform has received 2,000 sign ups so far.

Evergreen claimed offering spot rates and giving customers the flexibility to make direct bookings would mean "breaking the traditional rules of contract negotiation", which is normally carried out in advance with volume commitments, UK's The Loadstar reported.

GreenX is "a white-labelled solution" from BlueX Trade, a neutral "open freight marketplace" supplier.

GreenX will also offer trade services, such as freight financing, insurance, customs brokerage, trucking and warehousing - "everything [customers] need to move a shipment will be integrated into this logistics ecosystem," said Evergreen.

The carrier claimed it aimed to deliver an "integrated container logistics solution" - a phrase consistently touted by Maersk to describe its own ambitions to provide more supply chain services traditionally provided by freight forwarders.

Maersk Line, alongside Germany's Hapag-Lloyd are the two front-runners in terms of online container bookings. According to SeaIntelligence, 24 per cent of Maersk's spot bookings are made through its digital platform, Maersk Spot.

Maersk approximately has half of its business on spot and the other half on contract, which indicates an uptake of 12 per cent of its total business has moved online," SeaIntelligence said.

Hapag-Lloyd's Quick Quotes this month is at 11 per cent of total weekly volume, and for 2019 volumes, the carrier recorded 987,000 TEU through Quick Quotes, equal to 8.2 per cent of its total volume, up from 278,000 TEU in 2018.

Source : HKSG.