Someone mentioned elsewhere in this forum that I had rejected him from Trade Manager so let me explain so that he and others that I have also rejected can understand my decision.
First off it is not personal as I often don't know who you are, but you have your fellow country men to thank for the fact that I no longer accept Chinese members on TM.
The reason is.......abuse.
To my mind TM is for discussing business related matters, not for:
a. selling product;
b. promoting your company;
c. making friends;
d. practicing English;
e. abusing and stalking other users
I have encountered all of the above during my time here at alibaba and in almost every case it was at the hands of Chinese members hence my bias in this regard. Just because I am online does not mean that I have time for idle chats and I get a bit tired of offending people when pointing out to them that I am busy!
Of course I am fully aware that there are plenty of legitimate Chinese users out there but unfortunately I have been burned too many times before to accept any more Chinese users on TM.
The last straw for me was one Chinese user who asked me to admit him to my TM by sending me the subject line - Urgent Help Needed. Only to have him try and sell me some fake brand name product of some type or another. On questioning him he admitted that he uses that subject line as if he doesnt then people dont accept him on TM!!
Prior to that I have had one guy offer to hook me up with prostitutes in order to get a good business relationship going, one guy threaten me, and plenty of others who repeatedly sent requests for me to add them to TM after I had rejected their requests until I had no choice but to add them just so that I could block them.
So members from China, sorry to group you all in together, but please understand that it is the bad behavior of the ones that have come before you that have created this situation.
Comments and criticisms are welcome.
Hi Egernia,
I spent me several hours to read all of the above talks. I thank you very much for bring us so many interesting topic. You had pointed out an impolite behaviour which occured on many Chinese users. I believe its true because it's sometimes occured around us actually. However, maybe you did not find the real reason for this dissension.
You are correct: too many Chinese users abuse the TM. It truely happened.
Why you found that so many users abused TM? I think you did not know it.
Reason 1: Such huge of Chinese population, and Alibaba is a Chinese website. For example, there were 20000 Chinese people using TM, and 200 Korean people using it. Both 10% of them tried to contact you, 2000 Chinese and 20 Korean. Then 50 Chinese and 1 Korean abused TM. Here you might think that so many Chinese users were impolite but seldom for Korean. However, did you know the impolite Chinese suppliers was just 2.5% of total users, but there were 5% for korean? so I think it's wrong for you to consider that so many Chinese users abuse TM and refuse all of Chinese users on TM.
Reason 2: Culture Gap. While do business, most of Chinese people like to make friends before doing business. This is the common habit for Chinese. They contact you and want to set up a good relations with you at first, then hope you can place an order in the future. This "relation" is called GUANXI, in Chinese, and GUANXI is very important in China while doing business. How to establish the relation? Often by chat on TM. I also well know that Western people often make friends only after several time of good business, so this is the difference, which we called Culture Gap. You have 30% of time live in China, you should understand it. On the other hand, you said these Chinese users broken the rules, BUT, who makes the rules? not Chinese, also not accepted by Chinese, and most of Chinese do not think it as a rule. so these Chinese do not think that they break the rule on purpose, it's only a culture gap.
It's important that, if a Chinese supplier want to establish the business relation with other countries, he or she has to understand the customer's habit and thought and respect the customer's rules. And, it's better for a foreigner to know more about Chinese habit and working way so that the good business relationship can be established smoothly.
I accept the comments of the two users above but would counter as follows.
If this was a Chinese site for use by Chinese people and a few foreigners such as myself wandered in here then I would agree with you that we should understand and accept the way that Chinese people view things and the way that they prefer to do business.
Unfortunately alibaba by its own branding is for 'Global Trade'. The users that are contacting me know that I am not Chinese. They are not seeking business with other Chinese users, but are instead seeking out business with foreigners. So in that regard it would seem to make more sense to me that the Global trade norms would take precedence over what Chinese users may be used to when conducting internal business with other Chinese.
You can make all the excuses for these users that you like but that does not change the reality of the situation. The reality is that abuse of the TM function here at alibaba, predominantly by Chinese members in my experience, serves to create a bad view of Chinese users in general.
So once again if Chinese members do not appreciate the fact that some of their countrymen are giving a bad impression to foreign buyers and perhaps creating a bad name for Chinese dealers in general, then the answer is to put pressure on those 'bad apples' to stop their behavior, not to make excuses for them!!
1. I never think abusing TM is a correct action, and you are correct and reasonable to point out the bad behaviour.
2. You have full rights to refuse any one, even any group, but it's very improper for you to post the topic declaring that you refuse all of Chinese users on TM.
3. Your posting with declaring that you refuse all of Chinese users is an impolite behaviour to all of genty Chinese users , I think your decaring was same impolite as the users bothering you on TM.
4. Some Chinese users abuse TM, it's impolite, you can point out it, and I think most of them should understand your feeling and like to rectify their action after reading your opinion.
You declaring by post to refuse all of Chinese users was also impolite, I here also point it out, so that you can understand the feeling of all gently Chinese users.
Everybody may put his foot in it, including you and me. If you find any of my improper words, you are welcome to point it out.
5. By the way, I give my comments in order to explain the reason, analyze the culture gap, so that all of people can understand each other well, and communicate with pleasure.
Quoting from [Egernia]:There are bad apples everywhere , China is no exception. I deal wih many Chinese in TM and personally I have not have a bad experiance. People do understand its a B2B forum and you are here to (potentially) do business. I can't think of any other use of TM.I accept the comments of the two users above but would counter as follows.
If this was a Chinese site for use by Chinese people and a few foreigners such as myself wandered in here then I would agree with you that we should understand and accept the way that Chinese people view things and the way that they prefer to do business.
Unfortunately alibaba by its own branding is for 'Global Trade'. The users that are contacting me know that I am not Chinese. They are not seeking business with other Chinese users, but are instead seeking out business with foreigners. So in that regard it would seem to make more sense to me that the Global trade norms would take precedence over what Chinese users may be used to when conducting internal business with other Chinese.
You can make all the excuses for these users that you like but that does not change the reality of the situation. The reality is that abuse of the TM function here at alibaba, predominantly by Chinese members in my experience, serves to create a bad view of Chinese users in general.
So once again if Chinese members do not appreciate the fact that some of their countrymen are giving a bad impression to foreign buyers and perhaps creating a bad name for Chinese dealers in general, then the answer is to put pressure on those 'bad apples' to stop their behavior, not to make excuses for them!!
You have made your point . Now no use harping about it . Personally , I think its all a storm in a teacup. No use trying to blow it out of proportions.
TAIS I understand that Chinese people view things differently. That is not in question here.
The problem is that Chinese users that abuse the system are causing people such as myself to stop using the TM function in order to avoid nuisance users....which in my experience are inevitably from China.
What I would be interested in hearing is what you think the solution is here? I have chosen not to accept Chinese members full stop....what would you do?
You can refuse anyone you like, but you are impolite to refuse a group
Cathy I agree with what you say except that there is no way to do what you suggest. When you get a request on TM you have two choices - either accept it or refuse it.
Once you accept and end up with a time waster you then have to deal with that person by deleting them. Not a huge amount of time of course, but an inconvenience.
In the past I accepted all requests but in doing that I found that pretty much all the abuses I found were from Chinese users. I have not at any stage suggested that all Chinese users abuse the system - I have simply pointed out that in my experience most of the abuse comes from Chinese users.
So rather than accept Chinese users in the hope that the person has a legit need for contacting me on TM I have found that the best solution for me has been to be more selective as to who I accept in the first and hedge my bets in avoiding wasting my time.
The reason for this thread is to answer the users that were refused by me and who asked elsewhere on this forum why. Nothing more.