Institute of Transportation, MOTC

　　Due to the rapid development of information techniques and the Internet, electronic commerce has become an important trend for global businesses. This research seeks to evaluate service attributes of electronic commerce for liner shipping from a shipper’s perspective. The results indicated that the most important service attributes of electronic commerce were container tracking, customers’ response, schedule information, electronic bill of lading, fright enquiry, and booking on line, etc. Through factor analysis, five factors were extracted and defined as traction service factor, company information factor, facility service factor, market information factor and support service factor from 24 service attributes. Moreover, according to the results of a cluster analysis, shippers were categorized into “general services oriented firms, company information oriented firms, traction service oriented firms”, and “support service and company information oriented firms”. This study provides a useful research approach for maritime firms to develop their marketing strategies in electronic commerce.