In order to enjoy the benefits that Alibaba.com has to offer, you will first need to become a member. To become a member of Alibaba.com it is necessary to choose an appropriate Member ID and Password for your account. This will form the topic of this tutorial.

Your Member ID and Password are used to identify yourself to Alibaba.com. After signing in, all of your company and member information becomes available in My Alibaba and can be used throughout the website. The figure opposite shows the Member ID and Password fields from the My Alibaba Sign In page.

Choosing your Member ID is as simple as choosing a word or phrase that you can easily remember. Your Member ID must be between four and twenty characters in length and can only contain upper case letters (A-Z), lower case letters (a-z) and numbers (0-9). Spaces are not allowed in user names.

Member IDs must be original and although it is possible to have a Member ID that is only four characters long, I suggest using at least six characters as Alibaba.com has so many members that it may take you a long time to find a four character Member ID not currently in use.

For added security, I would suggest mixing the capitalization of letters and including numbers. Please remember that once submitted, your Member ID cannot be changed, so choose one that you like and will easily remember.

Member ID Examples:

When choosing your password, remember that it should not be the same as your Member ID. To create a secure password use a combination letter capitalizations and numbers, and avoid choosing obvious dates or words that can be easily guessed such as birthdays, pet names, nicknames, etc.

The importance of having a good password cannot be overstressed. Remember, there are those who will try to guess your password or use an automated program to try and obtain it. If someone was to gain access to your Alibaba.com account, they would have access to all of the information that you have stored in your My Alibaba. With this in mind it is worth spending a little time to create a good password that you can easily remember and would be hard for someone else to figure out. To help you, here are a number of basic techniques that you can use to create a good password:

1. Abbreviating a phrase: iWtF100bEd (I want to find 100 buyers every day)
2. Merging words together with numbers: 2ManyThings412Remember

Remember: The more characters that a password contains the harder it is to guess.

When choosing your Member ID and password:

1. Please don't use any of the examples in this tutorial as your Member ID or password.
2. Don’t write your password anywhere.
3. Don't share your password information with anyone else.
4. Change your password at least every three months.

I hope that you have found this tutorial helpful. If you would like to request a future tutorial or share your ideas about choosing member IDs and passwords, please feel free to send me a message using the feedback box below.

Milton