Customer segmentation of freight forwarders and impacts on the competitive positioning of ocean carriers in the Taiwan–southern China trade lane

ABSTRACT

An ocean carrier can establish a competitive advantage to meet the customers’ needs more successfully than its rivals. This requires understanding its major strengths and weaknesses. Exploring market segmentation and competitive positioning in the ocean liner shipping market allows for development of effective marketing and operating strategies for ocean carriers. This study involved surveying freight forwarders that used ocean carriers to move cargo between Taiwan and southern China, and undertaking factor analysis and two-step cluster analysis to group freight forwarders into two customer segments: small firms that emphasize service performance and reputation, and large firms that emphasize freight charges and information technology. For each segment, correspondence cluster analysis was used to create perceptual maps that revealed carriers’ major strengths and weaknesses of services and to classify the carriers into multiple competitive groups. This study concludes with managerial implications and directions for future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Ocean carrier
• market segmentation
• positioning
• cluster analysis
• correspondence analysis

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to thank anonymous reviewers for the insightful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of Taiwan under Grant No. 98-2815-C-035-030-H.