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Maersk, a unit of Denmark's A.P. Moller-Maersk, began offering
the service to Chinese shippers on Alibaba's OneTouch booking
website on Dec. 22, a spokeswoman for the shipping line said on
Wednesday.
Shippers traditionally go through freight forwarders to book
space for goods on container vessels, but lines such as Maersk
are allowing cargo owners to book directly via the internet.
For their part, e-commerce companies are increasingly venturing
into logistics activities to try to gain better control over
their supply chain networks.
Amazon.com <AMZN.O> has registered a Chinese business as a
freight forwarder and has leased aircraft to handle more of its
own deliveries in the United States.
Alibaba, owner of China's largest e-commerce platforms, has been
making inroads into logistic services in recent years by taking
stakes in couriers and buying warehouses. The company was not
immediately available to comment on the Maersk relationship.
Maersk said this was part of the shipping line's strategy to
provide digitized services for customers and that it plans to
launch more pilot programs on third party portals.
Acquired by Alibaba in 2010, OneTouch targets small and
medium-sized Chinese exporters with online services such as
customs clearance and logistics. It also allows them to book air
freight and parcel delivery services and supports its parent's
Alibaba.com business-to-business marketplace.
Maersk said that the launch of the service was not about
bypassing the industry's traditional middleman freight
forwarders, as the OneTouch platform still used such firms to
provide services such as haulage.
"The initial launch ...allows existing Alibaba OneTouch
(registered) users to lock in the price of required cargo spaces
on selected routes by pre-paying a deposit amount," the Maersk
spokeswoman said.
"This service will be offered on selected routes and ports
initially."
It is currently offered on routes from eight Chinese ports,
including Shanghai and Ningbo, to ports in Europe and Asia,
according to the OneTouch website.
(Reporting by Brenda Goh; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman/Keith
Weir)
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