Tmall Partner onboarding should give you a store audit, a price and assortment plan, a campaign calendar, and a weekly report within the first 90 days. Agree on delivery dates before work starts. If those documents are still missing at the end of month 2, despite your supplying the agreed inputs, require a written recovery plan.
A Tmall Partner, or TP, operates a store for a brand. This plan assumes you’ve hired an operator; a partner buying your stock needs a separate purchase agreement. The first review can feel productive when the team presents revised product pages and a sales forecast. You still need to know what the team can do without asking you, and what must wait for your approval.
The schedule below is our recommended management plan. It isn’t a Tmall approval deadline or a promise of sales. For a new Tmall Global store, the cross-border marketplace for overseas merchants, distinguish the partner’s work from platform review and the arrival of saleable stock. For an existing store, start with its trading record and the outgoing operator’s handover.
A Tmall Partner onboarding schedule you can sign off
Count day 1 from the agreed kickoff and record the inputs due from each side. Put the person who accepts each deliverable beside the person who produces it. A deadline with no named approver is easy to miss across time zones. Save approvals with the version of the document reviewed.
The contract should identify the daily contact and their backup, plus when the monthly retainer starts. Specify the work covered while the store awaits approval. Weekly status reports start at kickoff; trading data follows once sales begin.
| Week range | What the TP delivers | What the brand provides | Sign it is on track |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weeks 1–2 | Store audit, access register, weekly status report | Merchant documents, account access, past sales, stock records | Brand can inspect the store; gaps have owners |
| Weeks 3–4 | Price and assortment plan; launch budget | Product costs, approved claims, price limits, stock commitments | Each product variant has a price and a stock decision |
| Weeks 5–6 | Campaign calendar and order-flow checks | Budget approval and confirmed warehouse availability | Offer, checkout, dispatch, and refund routes have been checked |
| Weeks 7–8 | Trading review and corrective actions | Decisions on discounts and replenishment | Weekly report reconciles sales with returns and cash |
| Weeks 9–12; review by day 90 in week 13 | Next-quarter plan and performance review | Decision on scope and spending | Both sides can explain the results and the next spending request |
While the platform reviews the application, the team can finish an audit of its launch preparation and the price file. Put the external dependency in the report with the evidence of submission and the date of the latest response.
Start with access and an audit you can inspect
The access register belongs on the brand’s side. It should name the merchant account and its recovery contacts, with payment control recorded separately from the authority to approve advertising spend. During kickoff, have the TP demonstrate how your team can log in to inspect the account and its permissions (a screenshot of a login page proves very little).
The account holder carries the risk of actions taken through the store. The platform terms below were checked on October 23, 2026.
Tmall Global’s merchant agreement makes the merchant responsible for activity through its account and requires prior written consent to transfer the account or authorize another person to use it. The agreement also restricts reuse and disclosure of platform data and sets conditions for handling personal information. Source: Tmall Global (天猫国际), Merchant Service Agreement, May 2026. https://terms.alicdn.com/legal-agreement/terms/b_platform_service_agreement/20231027155750546/20231027155750546.html
Use the permissioned access the store supports and confirm the relevant authorization with the platform. Sharing the main password leaves the brand with little control over who can act. Ask the account administrator to show how a departing team member’s access is removed.
Taobao’s sub-account agreement allows permissioned access for third-party service providers, account disabling, and operation-log queries. Available permissions depend on the product and store. Source: Taobao (淘宝), Sub-account Software License Agreement, June 2023. https://terms.alicdn.com/legal-agreement/terms/suit_bu1_tmall/suit_bu1_tmall201802012028_72666.html
An existing store’s audit should show where the opening stock and recent sales figures came from. Keep unresolved customer cases beside the person responsible for closing them. Check listing problems and unused advertising balances separately. For a new store, replace historical trading figures with a readiness audit of the files and approvals needed to launch.
Read the account arrangement alongside the guide to who controls a partner-run store. If the registered merchant is the TP’s company, record that fact before you treat its store dashboard as a brand-owned asset.
Approve the price file before the campaign calendar
Ask for a working spreadsheet, with a separate row for every product variant the TP wants to sell. It should show the normal selling price and the lowest campaign price you’ll accept. Add the costs needed to judge the offer, including fulfillment and the expected effect of returns. The brand’s finance lead should sign off on that calculation.
A coupon can erase the margin on a product. Have the team show the buyer’s final payment for the proposed offer and identify who funds each promotion.
Keep the approved discount limits in that file.
Keep launch cash in the same review. The first sales report won’t explain money already committed to getting stock ready.
TheChinaPath calculator data, October 2026: our Tmall Global model uses a 12-month period for each annual budget. Its editable warehouse deposit input is 100,000 RMB and its tax-prepayment input is 300,000 RMB, a combined 400,000 RMB cash assumption before other budget lines. Source: TheChinaPath Tmall Global calculator, October 2026. https://www.thechinapath.com/tools/tmall-global-setup-and-run
Replace those inputs with the terms from your warehouse and clearance provider. They’re budget assumptions, not compulsory charges or a quote for our services. The calculator has no store-approval time estimate.
Use the Tmall Global budget calculator to separate cash funding from recurring spending. The brand’s finance lead should know who receives each payment and what evidence releases it. Ask for the terms governing any unused balance before sending the money. Set a spend cap the TP cannot raise without approval.
Check the order route before paying for traffic
The campaign calendar should name the products in each offer and show the saleable stock available to support it, excluding units already reserved or held from sale. Put the approval deadline beside the planned start date and name the campaign owner. An event that depends on inventory still in transit needs a smaller backup offer or a later start.
Walk through checkout and the warehouse order flow before increasing advertising spend. Confirm that the listed variant matches the warehouse item and that the customer sees the delivery terms you intend to honor. Ask how a failed dispatch reaches customer service and who authorizes the refund.
Any transaction used to check the route must follow platform rules. Don’t buy fake sales or reviews to make the launch appear busy. Save the order-flow evidence and the person responsible for fixing any failure.
For an existing store, keep the handover date visible in the report. Orders placed before the new TP arrived may be refunded afterward. Give those cases an owner so they don’t disappear between two agencies.
Read refunds and settlement alongside weekly sales
Require the report in a language your decision-maker can read. Agree on the reporting cutoff and keep it consistent. A screenshot with a rising sales total doesn’t tell finance what reached the settlement account.
Start with paid order value and deduct completed refunds against those orders. Pending refund requests belong alongside the total. Keep unpaid cancellations separate so they aren’t deducted twice. Match refunds to the period of the original sale, then reconcile the settlement statement separately because cash may arrive later. Retain the permitted source export with each report so finance can check it.
Keep advertising spend separate, with the attribution window written beside any return-on-ad-spend figure. Then show stock available for the next offer and the decision the brand needs to make about replenishment. Set a reorder point against the supplier’s confirmed lead time, and record who can release that order.
Ask the TP to explain a shortfall through the store’s actual records. When a product page draws visitors who rarely pay, inspect the offer and checkout. Paid orders that never shipped need a different explanation: trace them through the warehouse record. Name an owner for the correction and a date when the report will show whether it worked.
Escalate a missed delivery date when it happens. If month 2 ends without the agreed documents, review the delivery record. A brand that hasn’t approved its prices has helped cause the delay. If the TP has the agreed inputs and still cannot produce usable work, freeze discretionary increases in spend and set a dated recovery plan under the contract. Define what evidence will close each missed delivery and book the follow-up review before the call ends.
At day 90, decide whether the next quarter’s budget is justified. Compare the results with the assumptions both sides approved, and separate unfinished launch work from trading performance. If the appointment needs to change, use the evidence you’ve collected to write a tighter scope for the next operator.
The Tmall Partner selection guide sets out what to check before that appointment. Keep the onboarding deliverables in the brief you submit through Compass.
Questions to settle at kickoff
Does a Tmall Partner have to launch the store in 90 days?
The schedule here is a proposed management plan, not an official launch deadline. Agree separately on the documents the TP must deliver and the dependencies outside its control. An approval delay should still leave you with evidence of submission, a clear record of what is missing, and a revised date for the next check.
What if the new TP inherits a poorly run store?
Set a baseline before judging its results. Ask for dated exports of orders and stock, plus the record of unresolved customer cases. Assign responsibility for refunds tied to earlier sales. The new team should explain which problems it can fix within its scope and where it needs brand approval or cooperation from the outgoing operator.
Should the brand receive every customer record?
Ask only for the evidence needed to check trading and settlement, using aggregate or masked records where possible. Tmall Global’s agreement restricts reuse and disclosure of platform data and sets conditions for handling personal information. Have the TP identify the permitted reporting method for your store before it exports customer-level records to a shared drive or headquarters.
Request a Compass shortlist with your store’s current position and the work the next partner must deliver.
Updated October 24, 2026
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