Shipping Brokerage. Also known as a shipping broker, it refers to individuals who engage in ship leasing activities, with ships as their business focus. Their primary role is to find suitable transport vessels for charterers or cargo sources for shipowners in the market, acting as intermediaries to facilitate leasing transactions between the two parties and earning commissions. Consequently, based on the different principal identities they represent, they are categorized into shipbroker agents and shipowner agents.
Shipping Agent. Refers to individuals or entities entrusted by carriers to handle all matters related to vessels, including port entry and exit, cargo handling, supplies, and other service-related tasks. The delegation of the shipowner and the acceptance by the agent are limited to each voyage, known as voyage agency; when a shipowner and an agent enter into a long-term agency agreement, it is termed as a long-term agency.
Freight Forwarders are individuals who, upon the consignor's authorization, act on behalf of the consignor to handle various logistics services such as customs clearance, handover, warehousing, allocation, inspection, packaging, transportation, and booking. This includes agents for booking and cargo attraction, cargo handling, customs declaration, transportation, tallying, storage, and container operations.
Four, Consultative Agent (CONSULTATIVE AGENT): Refers to individuals who specialize in consulting services, charging a fee for providing clients with information, intelligence, data, and information services related to international trade transportation as per their needs. The businesses of these various types of agents often overlap, such as many shipping agents also engage in freight agency, and some freight agents also operate shipping agency services, etc.