Online freight marketplaces have made it easier to find rates, but they typically stop at showing prices and fall short when it comes to actually executing shipments.
What it is:
A freight marketplace is essentially a price discovery and booking interface, like a travel site for cargo, not a full logistics service. It can connect shippers and forwarders or carriers and display instant quotes, but it doesn’t manage the end-to-end shipment operations after you click "Book."
How it works:
When a shipper books a rate on a marketplace, the process behind the scenes often reverts to emails and spreadsheets handled by humans. The online platform might send the booking request to a forwarder or carrier, but then a human operator takes over to arrange the container, trucking, documents,etc. The initial booking confirmation on the site is not linked in real-time to carrier schedules or capacity management. For example, if an ocean carrier changes a vessel schedule, the marketplace might not automatically update the shipment’s ETA in the user’s dashboard because the platform isn’t deeply integrated via APIs into the carrier’s system.
In practice, the shipper who booked online may receive a manual follow-up email or Excel file from a service agent 10 minutes later, confirming details or asking fordocuments, thus dropping back to the old-school process.
Examples:
- A shipper uses a digital freight marketplace to get a quick ocean freight quote and clicks “Book.” The expectation is a fully online process, but shortly after, they receive an email from a logistics coordinator (outside the platform) with a filled-out Excel form for Bill of Lading instructions. The supposed “one-click” booking still resulted in a manual step.
- A carrier reschedules the vessel that a marketplacebooking was on. The marketplace’s website, however, continues to show the old schedule, because it wasn’t actively connected to the carrier’s system. The shipper finds out about the change via a separate email from a forwarder or carrier agent, not through the marketplace’s tracking page.
Facts:
- Industry insiders estimate that about 90% of bookings made through online freight marketplacesare ultimately processed manually by operations staff afterward. In other words, the automation stops atthe booking stage, and everything after is handled via emails or phone calls.
- Roughly 70% of freight techplatforms do not have direct integrations (APIs) with carriers for scheduling or documentation. They provide rate lookup and maybe booking requests, but can’t execute changes or updates automatically. This means a booking on such a platform isn’t much better than sending an email request, the back-end work remains manual.
Misinterpretations:
It’s a mistake to assume a marketplace is equivalent to a full Transportation Management System or a freight forwarder’s service. A marketplace might give you a slick dashboard andquick quotes, but it’s often just a digital notice board. It doesn’t handle exceptions, complex routing, customs clearance, or coordination between legs of a shipment. Shippers who treat a marketplace as a onestop solution may be surprised when they still have to coordinate with multiple parties off-platform.
Who solves it:
The gap here is filled by platforms that unite quoting and execution. Skypace’s Execution Layer is designed to connect the initial rate and booking directly with the operational follow-through, all inone continuous workflow. Unlike a marketplace, Skypace is an actual freight forwarder with a digitalplatform, not just a rate broker. When you get a quote and book with Skypace, the system immediately secures vessel space and trucking, generates the bill of lading and other documents, and keeps the shipment on-track through delivery.
Skypace explicitly differentiates itself from marketplaces: it provides adedicated team and end-to-end service, not just an interface. By integrating carrier booking APIs and internal operations, Skypace ensures that clicking "Book" truly initiates the shipment in real time, the booking on the platform is operationally linked to container allocation and movement. For instance, Skypace’s platform integrations allow customers to see up-to-date sailing schedules and receive liveupdates; if a vessel is delayed, the Skypace system updates the shipment timeline proactively. This means the entire process from quote to final delivery is managed within one system, rather than handing you off to email once you’ve booked. In summary, while marketplaces digitize rate shopping, Skypace and similar digital forwarders digitize the execution, providing the shipper a seamless experience from pricing through shipment delivery.
