With the advent of the Internet era, most industries are actively taking part in the web-based electronic commerce markets. To come up with the trend, Korean shipping companies have built their own websites and tried to take advantage of the state-of-the-art technology. However, e-commerce in the shipping market has proven to be not so vigorous because conservative market participants prefer the traditional face-to-face relationship to the virtual one. And this is the main reason there have been few academic works on the e-commerce in shipping industry.
This paper aims to analyze recent developments in e-commerce of shipping industry and, Also the study suggests several solutions to invigorate the virtual transactions.
To analyze recent developments, this paper carries out a cases study on the websites of 5 major shipping companies in Korea. Each sites are evaluated with respect to 4C’s(Contents, Commerce, Community, Connection) analysis. The case analysis draws 6 conclusions as following:
1. The structure of the websites are differentiated.
2. For the sake of customer satisfaction, the website need continuous upgrading and single-window system.
3. To maximize the use of the website as a marketing tool, shipping companies need to expand the role of the website from simple posting into more active promotion tool.
4. It needs to establish intra-industry information system which allows carriers to exchange market information.
5. It needs to maintain the web security reliable to ensure customers the confidentiality.
6. The website should be a tool to provide total logistics solutions which allows shipping companies to be integrators of value-added chains.
In the questionnaire survey on establishing the internet marketing stratety, this paper analyzes (1) priorities between tasks carried out through website, (2) usefulness and effects of the information on the website and (3) user satisfaction with respect to 4 C’s.
The survey draws conclusions as following:
1. Contents: shipping companies try to improve the quality of and access to information
2. Commerce : websites need to be more user-friendly and comprehensive. They also clrealy evaluate the quality of tasks done.
3. Community : shipping companies need to more agressively exploit the website as a marketing tool. Also highly reliable websites contribute to improve the creditability of the owner
4. Connection : websites need to ensure anonymity to improve the exchange of information