Alibaba Bulks Up Its Buyer Assurance Program

Alibaba has given its buyer assurance program more updates to ensure retailers can trust the sellers on Alibaba.com.

This enhanced Trade Assurance program will cover credit payments, as well as bank transfers from sellers outside of China. This upgrade is specifically tailored to help those in major selling regions — like North America and across Europe — to ensure quality assurance is provided.

While this program was first introduced in January, a report from Internet Retailer notes that the program limited coverage to bank transfer transactions. It was confirmed at a conference in Las Vegas last week that credit card coverage was being added.

“If the supplier is at fault, the buyer gets their money back,” said Sunny Chhabra, U.S.-based global marketing and business development executive for Alibaba. “You’ll be covered by Alibaba. We’ll go after the supplier to recoup our losses.”

To recover payment for damaged or poor quality goods, the buyer must have a specific inspection program that exists to produce a formal complaint about the products. With this Trade Assurance program, buyers can also sort through suppliers based on buyer feedback. The program also allows for suppliers to bulk up its buyer guarantee based on the good reviews it receives.

Alibaba also announced in July that it was upgrading its buyer assurance program to provide better protection clauses for SMEs that are dealing with buying in the global trading market of goods. Under the Trade Assurance program, Alibaba will provide the buyer a refund of the purchase if the supplier doesn’t come through on its end of the contract deal.

The enhanced service ensures that buyers would then be entitled to a full refund of the deposit or order amount if that supplier didn’t perform up to Alibaba’s expectations. This means anything from shipping time to other varieties of agreements that are made between buyers and sellers.

“By providing maximum trade protection, Alibaba.com aims to make cross-border trading easier, therefore empowering small and medium-sized businesses to engage in global trading,” Wu Min Zhi, senior vice president of Alibaba Group, said in a company press release. “By lessening concerns and building trust in international trade, we are committed to introducing more trade opportunities to Alibaba.com members. As a result, small and medium-sized businesses will not miss out [on] the benefits of international trading due to trust concerns over product quality or payment security.”

[vc_row full_width=”” parallax=”” parallax_image=””][vc_column width=”1/1″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”” parallax=”” parallax_image=””][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_separator color=”grey” align=”align_center” style=”” border_width=”” el_width=””][vc_single_image image=”148412″ alignment=”center” style=”vc_box_shadow_3d” border_color=”grey” img_link_large=”” img_link_target=”_blank” css_animation=”left-to-right” img_size=”full” link=”http://www.pymnts.com/whats-hot-today/”][vc_column_text css_animation=””]

To check out what else is HOT in the world of payments, click here.

[/vc_column_text][vc_separator color=”grey” align=”align_center” style=”” border_width=”” el_width=””][/vc_column][/vc_row]