Alibaba.com’s New Inspection Service Allows Buyers To Shop With Confidence

There’s always this fear factor when you buy things online, especially when it’s supplied from China. So to curb this problem, Alibaba.com has launched a new service that allows both big and small buyers to inspect the goods before they are shipped.

The inspection service costs $100 to $150 per day and, according to Alizila, the Alibaba Group commentary blog, 20 China-based inspection companies have been chosen to perform the inspections. Irina Gee, who runs the service for Alibaba.com briefly explained the inspection criteria:

We vet [the suppliers] by checking how many orders they handle per year, how many years they’ve been in the business and their experience dealing with foreigners.

Sure, this isn’t a big news in the tech world, but it is yet another baby step forward to improving the image of “made in China” products. Besides this inspection measure, Taobao, also an Alibaba-owned entity, has previously teamed up with big brands like Apple and Gucci to remove counterfeit products from its site. All these efforts, as Jack Ma said in an interview with Forbes, are set up to improve the image of Chinese-made products.

Other Chinese companies have stepped up this year to reassure customers about the authenticity of its products: Tencent launched a mobile security lab to scan for pirated or malware-ridden apps, and Sina launched a luxury brand-oriented e-commerce site to challenge other online shopping sites that are plagued by counterfeit goods.

In my opinion, it’s encouraging to see Alibaba Group pursuing the goal of zero fraud. When internal fraud was reported earlier this year, both common employees and some leaders were either demoted or asked to leave. Plus, the company was extremely transparent with the media about situation — Or at least that is what it seems to me.

Nonetheless, this inspection service is certainly an option welcomed by foreign users of Alibaba.com. Skeptical buyers now have a additional reason to use Alibaba.com’s service while Ma continues to build a China-based company that is slowly gaining trust in the world.

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