AliExpress South Korea Seller Joining and Operation Assessment Rules
Publication Date: 26 September 2023
Effective Date: 1 October 2023
These rules are applicable to merchants that intend to sale through the AliExpress platform and which are registered for online sales in South Korea from which applications are accepted in the system (the “Merchants”).
Chapter 1 - Basic requirements for access application
Article 1. Enterprises
You have to be a duly incorporated legal entity properly registered and normally operating for online sales, under the law applicable to your jurisdiction of incorporation. “South Korea Seller” means the Merchant that is duly incorporated in South Korea.
Article 2. Brands
In case that you operate through the use of a trademark, the trademark shall have been duly owned by or licensed to you. If you run some special trademarks (subject to system prompts), you may need to provide evidence of owning, having licence(s) or benefiting from other valid legal ground(s) to use said trademark. For these purposes, "Trademark" means a trademark that has been granted by the relevant trademark office in the jurisdiction(s) where you sell or target your activity through the AliExpress platform and/or the Korean Intellectual Property Office.
Article 3. Commodity Requirements
All goods must be shipped from a location within the jurisdiction(s) you have declared to operate from and/or ship products from, with a minimum of 7-day no-reason return service and a minimum period of warranty as required by applicable laws (if any) for products to be delivered to South Korea addresses, without prejudice to other requirements under any applicable regulations regarding consumer protection or otherwise in the relevant jurisdiction(s) were you sell or target your activity.
In case of cross-border sales, you shall also comply with the relevant consumer, import, tax or other requirements applicable in the delivery destination location.
You must clearly indicate the place of origin for each product. In case that you advertise, claim and/or represent that any specific products are “made in” the relevant country (e.g. by applying, as the case may be, the “made in Republic of Korea” and/or listing them in such channel), the production of said products must have taken place totally or substantially in the relevant country. You may be required to provide evidence of production in said country. If said evidence is not provided or is not considered satisfactory at the platform’s discretion, then:
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the relevant products listings may be removed and may never be allowed for relisting using the relevant “made in” or similar tags, in its description and/or in any exclusive channel;
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you may be forced to fully refund any buyer which has purchased the affected products; and/or
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if more than 5 products have already been removed, you may not be allowed to relist products using “made in Republic of Korea” or similar tags (as the case may be) for at least 90 days (at the platform’s discretion), and other products on your store may also be removed from the relevant channel or similar tags (for the same time period).
Chapter 2 - Detailed Requirements
Article 4. Apply for shop authority
You can apply to open one (1) online shop account at a time. Each company can apply for opening up to six (6) AliExpress shop accounts. If any of those accounts are not in good standing, AliExpress may freeze, deactivate or take other actions against all of your shop accounts until all accounts are in good standing.
If you run some special categories (which will be announced to you through system prompts), you may need to provide relevant qualification before being able to post and sell products in such special categories.
Chapter 3 - Restrictions
Article 5. Trademark restrictions
Unless specific circumstances are met, stores cannot sell products which are suspected of unfair competition affecting a related trademark ("Restricted Trademarks"), that is, any trademark or brand involved in any of the following situations:
(1) It is the same or similar to AliExpress’ existing brands, channels, businesses and categories;
(2) contains the industry name or generic name or industry hot search words;
(3) brands that includes celebrities or place names;
(4) brands with the same or similar name to a well-known brand; or
(5) pure graphic trademark.
When applying for the operation of Restricted Trademarks’ products, AliExpress has the right to refuse or terminate the application for entry; and for Restricted Trademarks’ products which are already being sold, AliExpress has the right to take down the related listings.
Article 6. Impact on consumer rights brand restrictions
Without prejudice to other remedies set forth under applicable law, the right to operate branded goods shall be discontinued if you run the brand in any of the following cases:
(1) Branded goods are proved to be manufactured by manufacturers that do not have the manufacturing qualifications, or which do not meet the mandatory standards of the state, regional or local government, or those set by industry or enterprises; or a contractual restriction applies to the sale of those branded goods through AliExpress;
(2) You are not the registered owner of the trademark or have not obtained the authorisation or other proper use right directly or indirectly from such registered owner to use the trademark;
(3) The brand is judged by AliExpress or a third party to be counterfeit or liable to confusion and misidentification among consumers due to its trademark, trade name, packaging and decoration, business name, product quality mark, etc.; or
(4) During the operation period, the brand is proven to have a high dispute rate, a high complaint rate, a low market acceptance and the average score of branded product description is significantly lower than the industry average, seriously affecting the consumer experience or causing the consumer harm, and after being informed by the platform, no obvious improvement has been achieved within one month.
Chapter 4 - Commission fees charged in real time
Article 7. Commission fees
Sellers shall pay commission at a certain percentage of their sales on the AliExpress platform.
AliExpress also reserves the right to adjust the commission rate according to category developments at any time, to the extent permitted by the relevant laws. The specific commission policies, including commission rates, will be announced through a different webpage for Sellers. The notification will be published on the AliExpress platform and delivered through intra-net messages or emails. Sellers need to pay attention to updates or modifications to these Rules.*
Chapter 5 - Business assessment
Article 8. Business assessment
AliExpress puts emphasis on the consumer experience, as follows:
I) AliExpress Categories Performance evaluation
Announcement Time | Examination results will be announced on April 15th,, July 2nd, October 2nd and January 2nd (Beijing time). |
Assessment index | "categories 90-day SNAD rate" and "category 90-day DSR of product description" Where: SNAD is “Significantly Not As Described” DSR is “Dispute Satisfaction Ratio” |
Indicators | Will be announced by the end of December |
Assessment penalties | The right to operate in the corresponding categories will be suspended if the assessment criteria are not met (i.e., failure to meet either of the indicators). The right to operate can be restored in the next assessment period. |
Remarks | For new shops opened within the last 6 months, there is no assessment |
II) Shop management supervision
The platform will regularly check and supervise overall business indicators of each store (detailed seller ratings/dispute rate). In case that the indicators for the operation of the stores under verification are much lower than the industry standards (i.e., much lower than the average level, low rate of praise, etc.), which seriously affects the consumer experience, the platform has the right to freeze the store operating authority, terminate the business, and/or disable the account, upon thirty (30) day’ prior notice.
Chapter 6 - Maximum number of products
Article 9. Maximum number of products that can be published
The total number of all kinds of products that you can post and keep online at AliExpress shops may be limited from time to time to ensure the efficiency in the product search functions and normal operations of the AliExpress platform. If you need to increase this number, you may contact AliExpress seller support or your account manager to apply.
Chapter 7 - Restrictions and clearance
Article 10.
In case that sellers list products under the category of non-operating major categories in order to avoid AliExpress policies of acceptance into such categories, or sellers cheat annual sales or resort to fraud, the platform has the right to limit the listing of products by sellers, apply temporary penalty such as freezing an account, or closing an account.
Article 11.
If there are any serious offenses such as provision of false information, omission of important information on the products (e.g. place of origin), sale of counterfeit goods, speculation, fraud, Material Violation(s) (as defined below) etc., the seller’s account can be closed by AliExpress, the seller may be removed from the operating category or be restricted to operate in AliExpress.
Article 12.
As part of AliExpress’ considerable efforts to prevent consumer harm, in case of serious infringement of AliExpress’ platform related agreements or rules, leading to serious damage to the interests of consumers and/or affecting the operating platform, the platform has the right to immediately freeze the account or shut down the seller operating authority.
Article 13.
You shall represent and warrant that all information provided to the platform during the period of your application to start and carry on operations, including but not limited to the accuracy, completeness and truthfulness of the company's background documents, business licenses, trademark registration/authorisation documents, authorization documents, and relevant information of the company, as well as its legal representatives and ultimate beneficial owners, is valid and up-to-date. Otherwise, AliExpress reserves the right to terminate or refuse your application at any time.
After you complete the joining process, You shall represent and warrant that all information relating to the products, including the place of origin, must be true, complete and accurate. AliExpress has the right to cancel any of your accounts based on a fundamental breach of contract and stop the service. AliExpress also reserves the right to include you in a list of non-honest clients and to refuse to provide you with other services in the future.
AliExpress will take any actions pursuant to Article 10 through Article 13, upon seven (7) day prior notice. In the case where AliExpress reasonably considers that any potential violation or breach of Article 10 through Article 13 may expose any consumers / users to personal harm or may constitute a breach of applicable laws, regulations and/or policies and/or procedures of AliExpress, AliExpress has the rights to take any actions immediately.
Article 14. Transaction violations
I) Falsified delivery
a) Scope of application
In order to ensure a healthy market order in the platform, to avoid the existence of fake deliveries and to improve the experience of platform users, the following rules shall apply, without prejudice to other platform rules applicable to seller’s misbehavior on the platform.
b) Definitions
“Falsified Delivery” means a delivery regarding which during the prescribed delivery period:
(1) the shipping waybill number filled in by the seller is invalid; or
(2) although the said number is valid, it is unrelated to the order transaction;
which may misguide the buyer and/or AliExpress.
For example, in order to evade punishment for “Closing but not Selling” (i.e., closing a transaction order but in which there has not been an actual sale), a seller could fill in an invalid shipping waybill number, or a shipping waybill number which is obviously unrelated to the order transaction.
Where:
“The shipping waybill number filled in by the seller is invalid” means that the shipping waybill number does not exist (which situation shall also include without limitation the alleged use of a non-registered small package shipping channel which entails non-traceability of the logistics information).
“Although the said number is valid, it is unrelated to the order transaction” means that, although the shipping waybill number exists, it is inconsistent with the time of placing the order (for example, the receiving time is obviously earlier than the time of placing the order), or the shipping address is different from the address provided by the buyer (for example, the shipping address and the address of the receiver are not in the same country).
c) Punishment
In case of violation of the above:
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the relevant product listings may be removed;
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you may be forced to fully refund any buyer which has purchased the affected products; and/or
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your account may be frozen or shut down.
II) Disobeying commitment assumed by the seller
a) Definition
It means that the seller has failed to provide service for the buyer as committed (either in the product detail page, via private communication with the buyer or otherwise) and, thus, the proper rights and interests of the buyer are impaired.
b) Punishment
In case of violation of the above:
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the relevant products listings may be removed;
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you may be forced to fully refund any buyer which has purchased the affected products and if the funds of the order have been released to the seller, AliExpress and payment service providers licensed in South Korea (“KR PSP”) shall have the right to deduct money refund to the buyer from the seller’s account; and/or
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For serious violation, your account may be frozen or shut down.
AliExpress reserves the right to modify these rules or adapt them to specific conditions at any time.
III) Material Violations
a) Definition
“Material Violation” means any of the following : 1) serious violation of AliExpress Rules for the South Korea Sellers, at the reasonable determination of AliExpress; 2) serious violation of Platform User Agreements, at the reasonable determination of AliExpress; 3) using fraudulent behaviors or methods against AliExpress or registered users of AliExpress.com for the purpose of inducing the completion of purchases or orders, or manipulating the customer ratings, feedback and reviews and sales for the products and/or the store; 4) attempt to circumvent AliExpress sales process or to divert AliExpress consumers to another website; 5) attempt to damage another seller, its listings, products or ratings; 5) manipulating the web traffic (e.g. using bots or paying for clicks); 6) infringement of third-party rights (including portrait right, copyright and trademarks); 7) manipulation of store activities or sales amount, and delivery of prohibited goods or any other goods not ordered by consumers; 8) non-compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
b) Punishment
In the event that you have committed a Material Violation, AliExpress shall be entitled to take any restrictive measure(s), including, without limitation, the following:
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warnings, either orally or in writing;
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adjusting search ranking of one or all of your product(s) in search results up to 180 days;
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blocking part or all goods in your store in search results or other pages on AliExpress up to 180 days;
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restricting your right to send notices/messages to buyers up to 180 days;
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restricting your right to post new products up to 180 days;
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deleting part or all of reviews of your product(s);
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delisting part or all product(s) in your store;
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deleting part or all product(s) listed in your store;
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restricting your right to apply for or participate in marketing campaign(s) or event(s) hold on AliExpress platform up to 180 days;
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restricting your access to store account up to 180 days;
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freezing the seller's account funds (including but not limited to Alipay accounts or KR PSP accounts, as the case may be) up to 2 years or such longer period as it may be implemented under Article 20 until the platform believes that the risks are manageable;
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cancelling your order no matter if it is paid or unpaid by the buyer until the platform believes that the risks are manageable;
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freezing part or all the functions and features in your account up to 2 years or such longer period as it may be implemented under Article 20, including the remittance function for fund balance; and/or
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shutting down your store.
IV) Ratings, Feedback and Reviews
When there is economic interest between the seller and the reviewer (e.g, payment or any incentive in exchange for providing or removing feedback or reviews), the seller and the reviewer must disclose the economic interest pursuant to applicable laws and regulations. In other cases, You may not attempt to influence, manipulate or inflate customers’ ratings, feedback, and reviews.
You must comply with specific policies and procedures which AliExpress may publish from time to time regarding reviews with obscene content, or reviews that invade privacy, injure others’ reputation, or infringe on personal information (the “malicious review”), including deletion of malicious reviews, standards for use restrictions for consumers who post malicious reviews, and procedures for requesting suspension of posting reviews. ,
Chapter 8 - Transaction rules
Article 15. Shipment of the goods
Once the buyer’s payment has been confirmed, the seller shall ship the goods within 3 business days, unless the seller has justifiable reason(s) for the delay.
The seller may negotiate with the buyer for an extension of such shipment period, in which case the seller shall ship the goods within the period agreed with the buyer. Otherwise, if the shipment is not made within the relevant period, the order will be closed and the payment will be refunded in full to the buyer.
If the seller does not make the shipment within the relevant stipulated period on several occasions, given that this may seriously affect the buyers’ shopping experience, the relevant products listings may be removed, and if the circumstances are particularly serious or if there is a substantial number of repeated cases, the account may be frozen or shut down.
Article 16. On-time Delivery
The seller must ensure that all of its products are delivered on time.
On-time Delivery starts the moment the seller has shipped out the product. In case a buyer has made a purchase on AliExpress but does not receive the product within the seller’s guaranteed delivery time, the buyer can get a full refund (and keep the product) if it files a dispute, unless the seller has justifiable reason(s) for the delay.
Article 17. Cancellation of the order by the buyer
The buyer may apply for cancellation of the order at any time once the buyer has successfully paid and until the seller makes the shipment. Once the buyer requests to cancel the order, if the seller agrees to cancel the order, then the order will be closed and the payment will be refunded to the buyer in full; if the seller does not agree to cancel the order and the seller has shipped the product, the order shall not be cancelled.
The above is without prejudice of the right of the consumer during the Transaction Protection Period as described in Article 19 below.
Article 18. Automatic cancellation of the order
Once 20 calendar days have elapsed since the moment the buyer placed the order, in case that the buyer has not paid for the order or the payment has not been received, then the order may be automatically cancelled.
In case of special promotions (such as flash sales or limited time sales) and similar scenarios, the order may be closed within a shorter period (e.g. 30 minutes) as decided at the platform’s discretion.
Article 19. Transaction Protection Period
The seller must provide a transaction protection period from the moment the buyer receives the goods, during which the buyer has the right to return the products for no reason for the length and subject to the other conditions as indicated in Article 3 of these rules (the “Transaction Protection Period”).
Article 20. Release of funds
The funds corresponding to the price paid for the order (after applicable deductions, including the transaction fee charged by the platform, if any) may be released to the seller after the buyer confirms the receipt of the goods or after the logistics channel confirms ordinary delivery has taken place. Without prejudice to the release of said funds, the seller shall provide the Transaction Protection Period (including said no reason return right) as mentioned above. If the buyer files a dispute over the order on these grounds and a refund shall be made, then the seller shall make the corresponding total or partial refund, with the platform being entitled to cause that the relevant funds be applied from the relevant seller’s account to the buyer by instructing Alipay or the KR PSP (as the case may be).
In addition, when AliExpress has reasons to suspect that the seller’s activity(ies), transaction(s) and/or seller's account may be engaging in any potentially fraudulent behaviour or otherwise potential material breach of platform rules, in particular when any of the seller’s transaction(s) or seller's account behaviour follow unusual patterns which may give rise to suspicions of fraudulent behaviour or otherwise potential material breach of platform rules, AliExpress has the right to deal with the payment that has been made to the seller's account including but not limited to instructing Alipay or the KR PSP (as the case may be) to holding, applying or limiting the availability of any funds in the relevant seller's account reasonably needed to protect against the risk of liability of the seller against the buyers, the platform or a third party; or as may be required by any judgements and orders which affect the relevant seller or the seller's account.
Article 21. Indemnity
(1) AliExpress provides an e-commerce transaction system between the seller and the consumer. If a dispute arises regarding information on products and services registered by the seller, or regarding transactions with consumers, the seller must bear all liabilities resulting from the dispute. The seller shall actively cooperate in resolving any issue raised by third parties against AliExpress due to actions of the sellers and its representatives, and shall defend, indemnify and hold harmless AliExpress, its affiliates, and their respective officers, directors, employees, representatives, and agents against those claims, loss, damage, settlement, cost, expense or other liability arising from the actions of the sellers and its representatives.
(2) AliExpress may delete or modify information about goods and services upon request from a legitimate right holder. The seller shall not claim against AliExpress.
(3) AliExpress may provide consumers with the method to view information of the seller pursuant to the applicable laws and regulations. The seller shall be responsible for any liabilities arising from failure to provide the information or providing false information.
(4) AliExpress may temporarily suspend the service in the event of cases such as repair, inspection, replacement or breakdown of telecommunications facilities including computers, or disruption of communications, and shall not be liable therefor (except for any willful misconduct or gross negligence of AliExpress).
(5) AliExpress shall not be liable for any damages arising from the seller’s leakage or provision of his/her personal information or account information.
(6) AliExpress shall not be liable for any damages arising from the seller’s negligence in performing this Agreement or failure to comply with applicable laws, regulations, policies of AliExpress and/or notices for sellers.
Article 22. Disputes
The buyer may file a dispute once 5 calendar days have elapsed after the seller has made (or should have made) the shipment.
The following rules shall apply to each type of dispute:
Dispute for goods not received. Once the buyer has filed a dispute on these grounds:
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The seller shall respond within 72 hours provided that the buyer may not submit a dispute for goods not received until the delivery term set by the seller has elapsed.
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If the seller does not respond within the term set forth above, the payment will be automatically refunded to the buyer in full. If the dispute cannot be resolved after negotiation between buyer and seller, it can be submitted to the platform to settle the dispute.
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Notwithstanding the above, if the delivery of the goods is late (i.e., is not an On-time Delivery as defined above), the buyer can get a full refund (and keep the product), unless the seller provides justifiable grounds for the delay.
No-reason return dispute (within the relevant Transaction Protection Period) procedure:
Once the buyer applies for this dispute procedure, the system shall automatically prompt the seller to upload the return order number within 24 hours. If the seller does not respond or the time elapses, the buyer will be directly refunded.
Once the seller uploads the return order number, the buyer shall download the return information, then:
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If within 20 calendar days the seller confirms receipt of the return of the products, the payment will be refunded to the buyer;
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If after 20 calendar days the seller has not confirmed receipt of the return of the products and the seller has not filed a dispute, the payment will be refunded to the buyer;
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If within 20 calendar days the seller has not received the return of the products or the goods received have issues (e.g. they have been damaged, not fully returned, they have been used and/or are not in resalable condition), the seller can also apply for a dispute to be settled by the platform.
Other disputes:
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Once the buyer files for other types of disputes, the seller must respond within 72 hours. If the parties cannot resolve the dispute, the platform will decide according to the evidence provided by the buyer and the seller.
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In order to improve the buyer’s experience and confidence in the platform and in the sellers, the platform encourages sellers to actively negotiate with buyers; if the negotiation does not result in a settlement being reached, the platform has the right to actively participate in the proposal solution. However, in such cases, the involvement of the platform shall not prejudice the equal standing in the negotiation of the buyer and the seller.
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Seller accepts that the platform may make the necessary arrangements for seller’s funds to be applied to refund the buyer in case of a dispute.
In case of conflict between the English version and the version in any other language of these Rules, the English version shall prevail.
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