Top 10 Chinese Second-hand Ships Trading Platform

With the lifting of the epidemic lockdown, international trade is gradually recovering, and the growth of maritime transportation business continues to drive the trade of second-hand ships.

The traditional second-hand ship trading market remains in China, Japan, and South Korea. Due to the price advantage of Chinese ships and the rapidly improving ship quality in the past decade, more and more international buyers and sellers are seeking China as a second-hand ship trading market.

We evaluated from multiple dimension such as the number of vessel transactions, transaction amount, services provided, market reputation and so on.

1: China Ship Trading 

The China Shipping Trading belongs to the Shanghai Shipping Exchange, which collects service fees by providing B-B and B-C services,  it also help both buyers and sellers evaluate ship prices.

Today, the services provided include: bidding, auction, financing, insurance, settlement, etc., the platform provide also full range of ship types.

Disadvantage is that the ship information sold on the website is incomplete, and as a state-owned enterprise in China, the ship resources on the platform and service capabilities offered are gradually losing competitiveness in the face of China's newly emerging private enterprises.

2: CSSC

It is a B-B and B-C trading information publishing platform that collects service fees by providing import and export services. Its advantages come from 1: no sales commission 2: Full range of ship types 3:Comprehensive second-hand ship buying and selling services.

However this platform is also a state-owned enterprise in China, and has the same shortcomings as the China Ship Trading.

3: Alibaba

Alibaba is the largest e-commerce platform in China, with several years of professional services and strong capital strength, which has achieved a global reputation. A reliable background can ensure the safety of transactions between buyers and sellers.

However, this platform only provides B2B services and exports all types of goods, it is not a professional ship trading website. In addition, a large number of intermediaries resell on this platform, resulting in a lack of advantage in product prices. And all transactions on the platform require paying taxes to the government, so ship prices on it are not as competitive as other platforms.

4: VesselsLink

This Chinese private enterprise was established only 25 years ago. Today, its business covers second-hand ship trading, ship manufacturing, bidding auctions... Vesselslink is a new birth name for ship export business, which means linking China and the world's ship trading business.

Due to his predecessor being a shipbuilding enterprise, this platform can provide new ship manufacturing，it also helps overseas customers search for second-hand ships in the Chinese market according to their needs. Vesselslink has created many additional services such as video and live streaming to overseas customers,  by providing competitive service and price, it has obtained many customers, especially Southeast Asian people who are sensitive to ship price.

The disadvantage: This Chinese private enterprises is still lags behind state-owned companies in terms of funding and ship resources.

5: Eship Trading

It is a famous Chinese ship trading platform. It helps ship brokers to sell vessels instead of providing only ship information, today both buyers and sellers need to pay membership to obtain trading privileges.
The advantage: it is an early established Chinese ship trading platform which has a wide reputation overseas. it provides ship trading and import /export documents and services.
The disadvantage: the transaction cost is expensive, both buyers and sellers need to pay membership to obtain ship information, and the platform will extract commission for each ship transaction.

6: Made-in-China

This is a comprehensive e-commerce platform that includes a variety of products, including second-hand ships, so it is not a professional ship trading platform. but the website content includes both Chinese and English versions

The scope of business is wide, including ship trading (sale/purchase), new ship construction, completed ships, industry information, and rich ship types.
Disadvantage: This platform only provide ship information, does not provide transaction services, and membership fee is expensive. 

7: China Shipxy

This is a professional Chinese second-hand ship trading platform. The website provides large ship information and trading services such as evaluation, bidding, auction, financing, insurance, settlement, etc., 

However, this company focuses on Chinese domestic ship transactions, with the aim of providing professional services and information for Chinese users. Therefore, it lacks English version on the webpage and it is obliged to register as a local user to check the information, the content is not friendly to overseas users. That's why the platform lacks the ability to provide services to international customers.

8: Shipping Online

This famous Chinese company provides rich information and services such as ship buying, selling, leasing, and dismantling.

Advantages: The English interface is friendly to international users, this platform also sells ship equipment and parts to meet different customer needs.

Disadvantage: the website page is rudimentary and lacks necessary ship information, the service is not always efficient.

9: China Ship Network

This platform is a ship information website dedicated to serving Chinese users, providing rich information on ship equipment and accessories. Users can publish information on buying or selling ships according to their own needs, waiting for other users to reply.
Professional ship equipment platforms can provide various equipment requirements, but the Chinese interface does not support browsing and trading for overseas users.

10. Shipsol

This is a professional second-hand ship trading platform in China, which provides abundant ship resources, but lacks the necessary information for ships.

Both parties to the transaction need to contact directly and make an appointment to check the condition of the ship. Due to the platform do not providing guarantees, the information on the website lacks authenticity, and the ships lack necessary documents for exporting to other countries.