[PART 3] HOW TO SHOP SAFELY ON ALIBABA

Buyers Beware!

     No doubt about the fact that Alibaba is a great ecommerce website, but it also has some possible problems that you need to make yourself aware of when you are searching for and contacting different suppliers.
Below are the three of the main problems associated with finding manufacturers from Alibaba:

Middlemen

     Many of those who claim to be manufacturers on Alibaba are actually not, but middlemen that disguise, marking up price price of products, increasing the degree of miscommunication between you and the real manufacturers while providing just little or no value.

Scammers

     Agreed! middlemen are bad however they will only take a little of your money by charging you higher, but scammers have no other mission than to take all of your money. Despite Alibaba's effort to combat and delete scammers from their platform, it's still possible you come across some scammers there so you should be very careful so as to deal safely with real and honest manufacturers.

Quality

     This is another big concern when you're buying your products from overseas simply because, some of the advertised products claiming to be of high quality might actually not.

How To Safegaurd Yourself

     Practising several safegaurds is the best because there is no individual method that is 100% perfect. So how exactly should you protect yourself from middlemen, scammers and low quality products on Alibaba? Let's jump into it:

1.  Verify suppliers: Alibaba has their own unique verification program in place which includes several levels of verification. Below is a chart that summarizes the three different levels of verification Alibaba has. These types of verification badges will appear on product listing and suppliers profiles if they have them. Looking for these verifications is a good first step.
Want more information on checking supplier verification? click here. And for Alibaba’s Gold membership for suppliers, click here.
In addition to Alibaba's verifications, there are also independent third party services in Asia that will visit factories on your behalf in order to verify the supplier and quality of product. Depending on the size of your order, a few hundred dollars extra for added piece-of-mind may really worth it.

2.  Ask questions and do followup: As you get sarted narrowing down manufacturers, make sure you ask a lot of questions about their business and their products. Ask for a copy of their business license, request a phone number and place a call to the manufacturer, do Skype conference with your contact. You can as well ask for photographs of the factor, sample products and some other relevant things.

3.  Get samples: getting samples is very important because you'll be able to test and confirm the quality of the product you intend to buy. You can even contact them with a different name and email just to get another sample product so as to compare quality.

4.  Too good to be true: If something is too good to be true, then it usually isn't true. Be weary of prices that seem to be right or that are way off from other manufacturers you have contacted.If something doesn't feel right about a deal, be willing to walk away.