The Xeneta Geo-Hierarchy is developed based on common market practices. Ocean freight rates contracted to/from specific trade routes correlates strongly on price. We have used our database of millions of price points to validate the price correlation. We, therefore, offer global data coverage. We have grouped ports based on price and not proximity following the way the industry is pricing the different connections.
Xeneta shows accurate pricing for the exact port-port connection as the rate data is aggregated based on ports with similar pricing. The areas where ocean freight rate correlation is strongest and embedded in today's quotation practices is in North Europe and the Far East. Therefore, in Xeneta, these are built up by Main Ports and Sub Ports. The remaining areas are built up by geographical areas.
Understanding the "Region" Box and Icon Colors
When the “Region” box appears, that means we need to show prices for a larger surrounding area because there may not be enough prices available to give an accurate benchmark for one or more of the specific ports you are searching. The colors that appear inside the box indicate how close to your original search the displayed prices are.
Example:
In this search, we’re interested in seeing the market average rates between Shanghai and London. When we perform this search, we can see that the “Region” box appears with a green dot next to it. When we click on the box, we see the following message:
Since there are less than three rates available for this exact origin/destination port combination, it would be more useful for us to instead show prices from Shanghai to the entire UK instead because we have 30+ rates available for Shanghai to the UK.
When you click on the geo-selector (globe icon in search fields) you can see that one “level” above London is “UK Sub”. The green dot in the “Region” box means that we only moved up one level (London -> UK Sub) to fetch desired prices. If we had moved two levels up to fetch prices (“London -> North Europe Sub”), the colored dot may turn yellow because the geographic area is broader, thus, less accurate.
To summarize: green colored dots indicate that we are still providing pricing benchmarks that are very similar to your original search query and are what we believe to be highly useful pricing data. Yellow and orange indicate we are using data points that may be less precise, but still relevant to your query. Red means there isn't enough data available to provide an accurate price. At least four datapoints are required to provide a minimum level of coverage.
Green = Most precise (one level up)
Yellow = Less precise (two levels up)
Orange = Least precise (three or more levels up)
Red = Not enough data available to provide price