In a bid to encourage transparency and give users bigger say in its ecosystem, Alibaba Group will allow millions its of users to systematically resolve e-commerce disputes that arise on Taobao Marketplace, China’s largest consumer-to-consumer e-commerce platform.

The recently launched User Dispute Resolution Centre (pan.taobao.com) enables Taobao users to play judge and jury in disputed e-commerce transactions. Taobao users interested in participating in this process must first register with the User Dispute Resolution Centre. Only users whose identities have been verified and are of good standing within the Taobao community will be allowed to take part in this process.

 

“The users who participate in this dispute resolution process are an important part of the Taobao Marketplace ecosystem and we hope that in the future more users will participate actively in it,” said Wang Yujia, director of Taobao Marketplace’s customer service centre.

The User Dispute Resolution Centre was in beta-testing mode for a year before it was officially launched on Monday. During the year of testing, over 800,000 people successfully applied to become “dispute assessors” with more than 340,000 cases resolved through this method.

By resolving disputes through community arbitration, buyers and sellers can receive judgment on their disputes within two days, down from the current 3-5 days it takes for Taobao Marketplace’s customer service personnel to reach a judgment. Sellers are also able to become assessors, but they won’t be allowed to judge their own disputes on the system.

E-commerce has grown rapidly in China yet issues of poor customer and after-sales service have plagued most business-to-consumer and consumer-to-consumer platforms. Taobao Marketplace’s User Dispute Resolution Centre aims to restore some transparency and efficiency to this process.

Dispute assessors will be allowed to take resolve three types of e-commerce conflicts on Taobao, namely, disputes over an item’s categorization, disagreements over the monetary aspect of the transaction and general breach of contract disputes.

After an assessor picks a case he or she is interested in, the dispute assessor becomes part of a pool of 31 assessors who are then tasked to look at the evidence objectively. The assessor then casts a vote that would align the case either in favor of the buyer or seller. The side with the most votes wins.

To make the system even more self-regulating, Taobao Marketplace ranks the abilities of the assessors based on the number of cases they have resolved and the complexity of the cases. The system then sorts the assessors into different groups ensuring that the most senior assessors resolve the thorniest of disagreements. Assessors can also take exams to improve their standing.

“The Taobao community belongs to everyone; it is something everyone needs to build together,” said Wang.