•Are You Worried About Getting Scammed On Alibaba? Learn How You Can Do Business And Stay Safe•

Are you worried about getting scammed on Alibaba? One of the roadblocks for most beginner Amazon sellers who want to import goods from China is the fear of getting scammed and losing their hard-earned money. In this podcast Manny talks about Alibaba Trade Assurance, what it is, and why you should be using it. (Especially if you’re just starting out or you’re a first time buyer.)

Alibaba’s website does offer us a few options to sift through this large list of suppliers and narrow it down to companies that meet a certain level of criteria that weeds out most of the crooks or fly-by-night operations. These options are: gold supplier, assessed supplier, and trade assurance services offered.

In order to become a Gold Supplier, a manufacturer goes through a verification process with Alibaba that ensures they’re a legally registered business. This alone definitely helps filter out the scammers from the legit suppliers. Alibaba also shows the length a company has been a gold supplier, which helps add to the confidence level; scammers usually aren’t able to hang around for longer than a few months.

If trade assurance option is selected, the website screens the suppliers based on offering trade assurance or not offering. This is a type of insurance that protects buyers by adding an extra layer of security to money used to purchase products.

It’s important to notice the amount of the coverage. Some companies may only have a couple thousand dollars’ worth of insurance, whereas other companies may offer tens of thousands of dollars in coverage. There will be a link on the right side of the page that shows the actual amount of insurance that is being offered based on the volume of product ordered or amount of money spent. Be sure that this amount covers your full order value.

On-time shipment safeguard assures the buyer that if the supplier is unable to meet the agreed deadline for shipping, Alibaba will cover the amount lost. This is rarely enforced by the buyer because once it is added suppliers generally make an effort of meeting the deadlines set. And even if they don’t, you’re typically going to wait a little longer to get your product vs. filing a claim with Alibaba.

Pre-shipment product quality guarantees that the product paid for is the same product that will be received. You can hire an inspection company to go out and do a full inspection on the product to ensure that everything is as ordered and packaged as requested. The factory could provide this service; however, it’s recommended to get a third party involved in order to ensure a more impartial inspection.

The trade assurance process is simple. When you’re ordering a shipment, a payment is made through wire transfers into an Alibaba account in the supplier’s name. The money is not immediately made available to the supplier. Once the supplier has made the products and passed the pre-shipment product quality inspection, Alibaba releases the payment into the supplier’s account.

If the supplier does not offer trade assurance and there is no other supplier for this product, find out the reason for this. You might wish to wonder why they are the only supplier for these particular products. Is there a patent on the product? In this situation be sure to proceed with caution. If you still want to move forward with the order, use PayPal.

PayPal’s dispute window is 6 months, so there is enough to time to raise this claim. If a claim is made, the seller and the buyer have 20 days of resolving this issue. If it is not resolved within 20 days, the claim will go to PayPal’s review team. The great majority of claims are closed in favor of the buyer, unless the product made was custom made or it is contrary to what the buyer is claiming.

~Download the transcript for this episode: https://www.ampmpodcast.com/ep3-are-you-worried-about-getting-scammed-on-alibaba-learn-how-you-can-do-business