If you want to resolve disputes through Alibaba, you need to know what role Alibaba will play and what position it will take.
Alibaba provides dispute resolution services for both buyers and sellers. In this dispute resolution system, Alibaba plays two roles in fact: service provider and judge.
Role 1: Service Provider
Although Alibaba provides trading platform services to both buyers and sellers, it obtains its service revenue mainly from sellers. In fact, Alibaba’s business model is to attract more buyers and then provide buyers to sellers, so as to earn its service fee therefrom.
In this sense, Alibaba mainly serves sellers, providing buyers as “products” to sellers.
Therefore, Alibaba won’t be too harsh on sellers, but only wants to guide them to fulfill the contract honestly.
Role 2: Judge
At the same time, Alibaba is also the judge making decisions in Online Dispute Resolution between buyers and sellers. Alibaba will determine the breaching party and pertinent obligations impartially based on the evidence and facts provided by both parties.
This requires Alibaba not to favor either party to the transaction.
Apparently, there are some conflicts between the two roles. As a service provider, Alibaba tends to favor its paying customers, i.e., the sellers; as a judge, it can’t favor either side.
In this situation, Alibaba would 1) render its decision impartially if clear facts and conclusive evidence are available, and 2) favor sellers if it is difficult to determine the liabilities between buyers and sellers due to the lack of clear facts and conclusive evidence.
Therefore, if buyers want to make effective use of Alibaba’s online mediation system, they should sign clear sales contracts with sellers and preserve evidence properly.
The Cross-border Trade Dispute 101 Series (‘CTD 101 Series’) provides an introduction to China-related cross-border trade dispute, and covers the knowledge essential to cross-border trade dispute resolution.
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