Never Too Old for E-Commerce, Chinese Company Says

Updated, 8:12 a.m. ET|
A spokeswoman for Alibaba, the Chinese company that operates the popular Taobao e-commerce site, denied on Monday that the company sets a maximum age limit for online vendors, as reported in a Chongqing newspaper.

According to the Chongqing Evening News, a 66-year-old retiree in the southwestern city said she was blocked from opening an online store on Taobao because of her age.
It quoted her as saying: “Other people at my age all like to go out dancing in public. I just like to go online.” It said that the woman, whom it identified by the pseudonym Qin Huafang, tried four times to open an online store to sell tea, but was rejected each time because of a rule that requires vendors to be between 18 and 65.

However, the Alibaba spokeswoman said that while the company has a minimum age of 18 for Taobao vendors, there is no maximum age. “While we do not comment on individual sellers and cannot confirm the authenticity of the report, we have no such policy in place,” she said in a statement.

Among Taobao’s vendors is a 76-year-old man who sells traditional Chinese lamps, the company’s Alizila newsletter reported last year.

Limited access to employment because of age, gender, disability and even height is commonplace in China, where employers often post job ads with narrow sets of requirements. Legal experts say older women face the twin barriers of gender and age discrimination. Women have an earlier retirement age, 50 for workers and 55 for civil servants versus 60 for men. The policy was introduced in the 1950s and was seen as a benefit to working women, but has had unexpected consequences, including forcing women to leave jobs they are still able and willing to do.

According to the newspaper, Ms. Qin said that she had been retired for several years, and in her spare time began using a home computer to read the news, send emails and explore social media. She hit upon the idea of opening an online store after seeing the success of her nieces and nephews. Her plan was to sell a type of oolong tea from Guangdong Province that she sourced from a friend, the newspaper reported.

She said she applied to set up her store several times starting in May, but was automatically rejected each time because of unspecified “security issues.” When a Chongqing Evening News reporter contacted Taobao, he said a customer service representative said the company had rules limiting stores to people between the ages of 18 and 65. “The customer service representative said this sort of restriction is a company rule, perhaps because e-commerce is relatively hard and unsuitable for old people,” the newspaper wrote.
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