The intermodal marketing companies cannot however be equated with the common transportation industry. These companies are much rather institutions that are needed to produce and market a service to a customer. Intermodal is a form of coordinated transport of articles in trailers or containers by mainly truck or rail. A close look into the industry reveals that between 1980 and 1998, rail intermodal traffic grew very fast and it witnessed a severe slump in 1995-96, but the situation has been revived now. Intermodalism is a combination of the economic line haul capabilities of rail roads and ocean shipping with the accessibility of trucks. The major problems bugging the industry has been coordination and channel leadership. In the international intermodal channel, ocean carriers have been the undisputed leaders but in the domestic markets there has not been any clear leaders. There is a lot of conflict between the intermediaries in this sector. The channels of distribution are either direct with no external intermediaries or indirect with the use of intermediaries.
There are some channel functions to be performed in the international intermodal marketing companies. The infrastructure is undertaken by both private and public sectors. Other contractual and liability rules, customs laws, etc. are included in the infrastructure.
Because of needs of variety of containers, trailers and chassis sizes, there is always the difficulty of providing the right equipment.
There is a lot of competition in the industry. The barriers to entry of new players in the business are also not much. Also, there are a lot of substitutes of the IMCs available. The power of industries to the industry are also high.
In recent years, a lot of intermediaries have developed to perform marketing and operational functions. Some of these are specialized while others carry out a host of other functions. The wholesale intermediaries work with these intermediaries and not with shippers directly.
