One of the largest ecommerce site in the world in Alibaba and the company is located in China, the country currently plagued with the Coronavirus pandemic which already has taken over 1000 lives. With millions of its merchants all having to either unable to return to business or cant ship goods out, Alibaba is faced with an unprecedented problem affecting all aspects of its operation.

Taking on its stride the circumstances the company is in at the moment, Alibaba is not sitting around waiting for the problem to solve itself, staying true to its nature as a technology company, the company quickly got to action and established two task force, one to fight against the virus and the other to support its merchants. It has also detailed out various measures to help merchants as soon as their operations resume.

Among the steps include offering waivers or reductions of service fees, providing financial assistance, as well as other special assistance in six major areas.

A: Reduce operational cost on our platforms
1. All Tmall merchants can have the platform service fees for the first half of 2020 waived.
2. All merchants on Taobao and Tmall will receive a free subscription to “Wangpu,” an essential online tool kit to revamp your online storefront.
3. Hubei-registered Tmall merchants who have been working with “Star TmallPartner (TP)”, quality store operation services providers identified by Tmall, can receive free services for three months.
4. Cainiao will waive the warehouse rental fee for two months for new merchants who start to use Cainiao’s warehouses before March 31.
5. Koubei will waive commissions for all participating merchants until February 29, 2020. The waiver will extend to March 31, 2020 for those based in Wuhan.
B. Provide financial support by waiving or lowering interest rates
1. MYbank, an online bank brand under Ant Financial, will provide 12-month loans totalling RMB 10 billion to online merchants from Hubei Province registered on Taobao and Tmall. These loans are interest-free for the first three months, and rates will be lowered by 20% from the current level for the remaining nine months.
2. MYBank will also provide 12-month loans totalling RMB 10 billion to Taobao and Tmall merchants from outside Hubei, with interest rates also lowered by 20%.
3. To help ease cashflow pressures for qualified merchants on Tmall and Taobao, MYbank will issue payments to them as soon as an order has been fulfilled. The service, which typically incurs a charge, will be provided free up till March
31. Normally, merchants would only receive payment after customers confirm they’ve received the shipped items.
4. Ele.me and Koubei will earmark a special support fund totaling RMB1 billion to select nationwide chain restaurant operators.
C. Subsidize delivery personnel and ensure higher logistics efficiency
1. Taobao, Tmall and Cainao have co-launched a RMB1 billion fund to support the supply chain and logistics service.
2. Compensation will be provided to couriers includes extra allowance for order pickup and free insurance. Cainiao will also waive the technology service fee charged to the companies that are using the Cainiao Guoguo app.
3. For virus-prevention products delivered through Cainiao’s warehouses nationally, Cainiao will waive the warehouse rental fee in February and the pickup cost of line-haul logistics from the merchants to Cainiao’s warehouses.
4. To minimize the impact on cross-border merchants, subsidies for first-mile and line-haul logistics as well as custom clearance will be provided.
D. Provide flexible job opportunities to ensure income
1. Freshippo and those in the numerous sectors, including dining, hospitality, movie theaters and department stores, have launched an employee-sharing scheme by allowing employees in those sectors to temporarily work at a Freshippo store. This schedule is expected to expand into other sectors.
2. Ele.me and Koubei have launched “Blue Ocean,” an employee-sharing scheme that allows workers from various restaurants to temporarily work as couriers or convenience store clerks.
E. More tools for enterprises to accelerate their digitization
1. All offline store operators can join Taobao Livestream barrier-free and can use its operational tools free of charge.
2. Taobao University is offering multiple free online courses to help online store operators.
3. Cainiao will offer various digital solutions and proprietary services for free, including its Smart Supply Chain solution.
F. Remote working management for enterprises
1. Dingtalk is offering its “Work from Home” function free of charge. The function incorporates features to allow up to 302 participants to join the same video conference, and to provide a daily health check reporting system for employees, “contactless” inspection and an AI-powered “Virus Prevention” robot.
2. Alibaba Cloud has worked with Alipay to roll out seven major deals for developers, including a cash offering up to RMB500,000 to outstanding developers, free use of various cloud-computing resources, templates for miniapps and data-visualization tools for three months.