Alibaba.com to Launch Factory Checks in New Push for Security, Trust

Alibaba.com, China’s massive B2B trade platform, is pushing security by introducing onsite checks – actual physical visits to factories and supply warehouses – to verify all of its paid-up ‘gold suppliers.’ Its stated aim is to build up trust and and peace-of-mind for buyers.

It’s going to be a mammoth task: there are just over 120,000 such suppliers who use the site to sell their wares around the world. That’ll require tens of thousands of factories be visited and inspected in this new Alibaba scheme, which will start next month.

The checks will entail – in the words of Linda Kozlowski (pictured above), Alibaba’s director of global marketing – “factory audit reports” in which the firm’s production lines and raw materials are cross-checked with their claims upon signing up (and paying up) as a gold member on Alibaba.com.

Linda Kozlowski at Alibaba HQ, outlining the onsite checks and other new features.

At a recent media event at Alibaba’s HQ – where we also saw the president of its cloud-computing division confirm an AliYun tablet – Ms Kozlowski told Penn-Olson that the audits will be mandatory. She estimates it’ll take a full year to check all current registered suppliers.

There’ll also be a sort of “secret shopper” program to periodically check-up on the trustworthy-ness of the multitude of Chinese manufacturers that populate its trade site.

Last month, the company rolled out a similarly aimed service which allows buyers to inspect goods before they’re shipped.

In other news that affects buyers, Alibaba.com’s Escrow payment service – which is based on its Alipay system, but modded for B2B purposes – is being expanded to allow payments of up to US$50,000 (from the previous $10k), and the items can now be shipped via sea freight – no longer just by air.