This is the definition from alibaba

Quoted

According to our Terms of Use, if your company is (or has branches) located in China (mainland) or exports from China (mainland), you are required to register as a Gold Supplier member. You may find out more details about the Terms of Use here: http://www.alibaba.com/trade/servlet/page/static/legal_notice_basic.

Unquoted

Does it mean every company or exporter in China is a Gold Supplier?  Then what does trust pass mean?  Would a Gold Supplier be sure to be better than a free member safe for business?  Maybe buyers, as well as paid members, would like to know the difference.

Here is my understanding of the situation after having spoken to alibaba representatives about this.

In the past suppliers in China could be free members or paid members the same as every other country. Paid membership gave suppliers certain priviledges but also came at a cost and included compulsory Trustpass verification and promotion to Gold Supplier status.

So Gold Supplier has never meant what most buyers assumes it means i.e. it does not mean a supplier that has achieved Gold status, but instead simply means a supplier who has paid for membership.

Trustpass sounds like a good idea but is also ineffective as it is not done properly.

A few years back alibaba decided to make payment compulsory for all Chinese members. Clearly this would have been motivated by concerns for more profits perhaps in the lead up to them floating the company on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

What they seem to have overlooked at the time, but now come to realize, is that by making every single Chinese member a Gold Supplier - even the scammers - that the Gold Supplier status that suppliers were paying for is now not worth the money that they paid for it!! Kind of like printing too much hard currency and devaluating the dollar I suppose.

Anyway, Alibaba now realizes this problem and they are setting out how to resolve it but therein lies the problem. If they spend too much time talking about it rather than just getting it fixed then they may find that it is a case of too little too late.

Legitimate manufacturers and suppliers in China that have been members here for years and paid large amounts of money for membership, Gold Supplier, and Trustpass status are likely  very unhappy that a scammer can join up today and get the same status as that trusted and respectable company. As the scammers continue to undermine trust with buyers here, then the legitimate companies also start to lose out. When it reaches a point that they believe paid membership is not worth it then some legitimate suppliers will leave. Buyers will leave as the scammers come to rule the site. The snowball has started rolling down the hill and we all know what happens then.....

So the solutions seem to be simple:

1. Only give Gold Supplier status to companies that meet certain criteria and that have been listed on the site for at least a full year without legitimate complaints;

2. All other paid members can be noted as Paid Member or Full Member to set them apart from Free Members;

3. Immediate action to remove all scammes from the site should be taken to prevent the cancer from reaching a stage where it cannot be cured.

4. Take responsibility for ensuring in the very least that paid members here actually exist at the addresses that they list with the site. It is very easy for alibaba to verify contact information at the time that they accept payment for such listings.

5. Take simple steps to warn buyers who search for certain products such as brand name products on this site about the problems with buying those sorts of products.

6. Ban seller listings and sell leads that contain foreign brand name products - unless the seller can produce a verifiable licence as a re-seller of that brand name product.

Simple solutions that could be enacted within a week if everyone at alibaba is on board here. The time for talking is over, now is the time for action.

There are cheaters in business world since Roman time and it would be one of the basic for every businessman to judge who is cheating.  Would it be a proper way to shift this responsibility to alibaba, and is alibaba able to be sure they can do this job, and is all paid members are clean, and what can alibaba do when some paid members cheat, and also what if buyers cheat?  There are tons of companies sending fake orders to cheat, and what is alibaba doing to them?  Alibaba is asking members to pay to do something that appears a mission impossible.

Ultimately the buyer and seller are responsible for trading security - I don't agree with any suggestion that alibaba should be responsible. Alibaba merely provides a platform for buyers and sellers to meet up. They are not involved with the deals that are done on their siet and therefore cannot be responsible for what happens.

Buyers and sellers should do due dilligence before entering into a transaction with a new customer/supplier. I believe that alibaba could do a lot more to help us all with this due dilligence.

If Alibaba did two simple things that they do not currently do then probably 80% of the scammers business on this site would be wiped out within a day:

1. Ban the promotion of brand name products, including brand name derivatives like acronyms e.g. N95, from the alibaba website altogether. Alibaba already uses keyword recognition software which is why you can't type the word 'bank acc-ount' or even 'descrip-tion' into the forums - try it and you will see. So they have the technology all they need to do is apply it in the correct place. If by chance there is a seller that is legally authorized to sell a brand name product then they can provide their licences, alibaba can verify these with the brand name company, and that seller can then be able to post.

2. Remove all listings from the site with incorrect or incomplete contact details. And of course stop accepting listing from sellers that do not provide full details. In the case of China Alibaba collects large fees for every new member and these members are services by sales teams in various local offices throughout China. Is it so much to ask that the alibaba sales person who collects the commission for making the sale actually visit the business premises that the seller wants to list and also dial the phone numbers that the seller wants to list?

Those two simple steps would help a great deal to rooting out the scammer problem on alibaba.

Of course they are most applicable to Alibaba's home country - China - but if the process proves effective then there would be ways to expand it internationally.

There are also many other things that alibaba should do such as ensuring that sellers list correctly.

a. Only allow true manufacturers to list as manufacturers etc which again is something the sales staff in the local offices should be checking in person. There is no point to having that descrip-tion if the seller can choose whatever they want.

b. Make sure that the introductory video is representative of the seller. Again the sales staff could do this as they are the ones who are responsible for and familiar with the seller.

c. Alibaba staff need to manually check every single new listing, product addition, and sales lead posted on the site so why not train them to spot suspicious suppliers. For example a company registered on the site as producing underwear that starts to advertise sports shoes, mobile phones, laptop computers, and hair curlers; should raise some red flags for someone there at alibaba.

Finally I am in favor of repercussions for alibaba staff that fail to prevent these situations from happening. Surely if a certain member of the sales team can be associated with the acceptance of a number of scam companies then you have to question whether there was some motive for that individual to enable the listing of those scammers etc.

I have raised all of these concerns in personal contact with the relevant staff at alibaba and am waiting to see whether there are any real results here.

I notice today that we have a new chat icon on the forums here. YAY! However perhaps the resources used in developing that could have been directed toward the real problems on the site.

Quoting from [little trader]:

Little Trader !!!


Do you think it is the right way to complain about things, that nobody c/would change, by  using a fake name, no address and Alibabas phone number in your registration ??


Anonymus is not better than fraud !


Wilhelm

Quoting from [little trader]:

There are cheaters in business world since Roman time and it would be one of the basic for every businessman to judge who is cheating.  Would it be a proper way to shift this responsibility to alibaba, and is alibaba able to be sure they can do this job, and is all paid members are clean, and what can alibaba do when some paid members cheat, and also what if buyers cheat?  There are tons of companies sending fake orders to cheat, and what is alibaba doing to them?  Alibaba is asking members to pay to do something that appears a mission impossible.

Alibaba need to have a feedback system so people can see who are good suppliers and who are scammers, cant understand why this hasnt been done already. Its a joke. 

Feedback systems are suited to a certain buying environment and in my opinion the buying environment at alibaba is not a suitable environment for such.

Alibaba is all about buyers from around the globe making contact with manufacturers in other countries, mainly China. That means large quantity purchasing and low prices.

Buyers such as the above do not need to read feedback from past customers as they take the time to protect their investment by visiting factories themselves or contracting inspection companies to do so for them. Such buyers are not then going to turn around and post positive feedback about a manufacturer so that others can take advantage of their investment of time and money!!!

So feedback systems work well at retail and perhaps even wholesale level where buyers make small purchases, get instant delivery, on a level playing field. This is not what alibaba is about which makes a feedback system unsuitable for alibaba.

The big problem is that even alibaba have lost their way here. Through the Super Deals promotion, the suggestion of a forum group dedicated to consumer electronics, and the continued failure to remove sellers from the site that advertise foreign brand name products and consumer electronics that they do not even have, alibaba themselves have lost their purpose.

This means that buyers who should really be buying from wholesalers back home are now trying to buy on those same terms from Chinese manufacturers in the hope of making more profits. This is like trying to put a square peg in a round hole.

So the answer here is not a feedback system after the fact, but more careful attention by alibaba to ensuring that listed companies are as they claim to be. The rest is up to the buyer to check out themselves BEFORE they send money.