Rating criteria for the star rating of merchants on Alibaba International Station:
(1) The star rating of a merchant (customization/fast transaction) is determined by the performance of the merchant’s four major capabilities. The maximum score for each capability is 100 points. The four major capabilities must meet certain standards to be promoted to a star merchant. The score requirements for the four major capabilities for 1 to 5 stars are 60, 70, 80, 85, and 90 points respectively.
(2) The scores of the four major capabilities are jointly affected by multiple indicators under them. The scores of the corresponding capability items are calculated based on the weights of each indicator. The higher the value of each sub-item indicator, the higher the score of the corresponding capability item.
If there are basic service indicators in the capability item, when the basic service indicators do not meet the corresponding star requirements, the score of the capability item will remain at the critical value of the next star. For example, if the average response time does not reach 24 hours, the marketing power will be displayed as 59 points. If it does not reach 20 hours, it will be displayed as 69 points, and so on.
(3) The customer backend will simultaneously display the scoring indicators and merchant performance data for two different scenarios, customization and quick transaction. The star ratings for customization and quick transaction are determined according to the merchant star rating rules in Table 5-4. The system will take the higher star rating of the two as the merchant’s final (predicted/rated) star rating. The quick transaction star rating is only enabled when the proportion of RTS products in the merchant’s store reaches 30% or more. If this rating threshold is not reached, it will be defaulted to 0 stars. The custom star rating is not affected by this and all merchants are rated.
(4) The merchant’s rating star rating for the current month is determined by the merchant’s actual data performance on the last day of the previous natural month (PST, Pacific Standard Time in the United States) (not the data seen by the merchant in the backend on the last day of the month, but the data seen in the backend two days after the end of the month).
The rating star rating results determine the star benefits that the merchant can enjoy in the current month. The rating star rating is updated on the 5th of each month in the merchant backend. It will not change before the 5th of the next month.
The merchant’s star rating benefits are determined by the merchant’s rating star rating, and merchants of different star ratings have different benefits. Star customers can enjoy more tangible benefits in terms of traffic and service. After star merchants are upgraded, they will see an increase of about 30% in visitors, exposure, clicks, feedback and order acquisition, and buyers will give significantly higher evaluation scores to star merchants, usually up to 4 times that of non-star merchants.
Compared to the single-dimensional transaction level, the merchant star level can more comprehensively and dynamically reflect the merchant’s comprehensive online performance and is more referenceable. Therefore, Alibaba International Station plans to replace the transaction level with the merchant star level for display on the buyer side. After the star level is displayed on the buyer side, it will bring more business opportunities to high-star merchants.