The great rate debate

摘要

Ocean freight rates have long been considered the right purely of buyer and seller, a private piece of information not to be shared outside the boundaries of that commercial relationship. But there is an incremental movement in the ocean shipping industry toward more public availability of rates. Indexes and marketplaces proliferate, and while there is debate over how successful or useful those tools are, shippers and forwarders do have greater access to rates on a specific lane than ever before.