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On May 17, Amap published an open letter to everyone, announcing the launch of the "Small Shops Shine" plan to make it easier for shops to be found anywhere in the world.

Starting today, Amap is open to small shops across the country, sharing hundreds of millions of users. Small shop owners upload relevant information, and after passing the review, the small shop can become an Amap certified merchant, displaying detailed information such as business hours and contact numbers, making it easier to be found and attract more customers.

You can search "I am a merchant" in the Amap search box to go directly to the homepage of claiming and adding new stores. Amap said that marking information locations on Amap is completely free and no fees will be charged.

The following is the full text of Gaode’s open letter:

Hello everyone, we are the Amap data team. Our job is to enrich the location information data of Amap, handle their changes in a timely manner, and ensure accuracy. Today, we officially launched a plan called "Small Stores Shine".

Amap has more than 70 million active location information, including a large number of small shops distributed across the country, including convenience stores, snack bars, hardware stores, printing shops, etc., most of which are individual businesses and small and micro enterprises.

Public data shows that there are tens of millions of individual businesses and small and micro enterprises in China, accounting for more than 90% of the market entities. On Amap, the location information of small shops is updated frequently, and in places that people don’t pay attention to, new and old shops are quietly and constantly replaced.

Alibaba believes in the greatness of small things and takes "making it easy to do business anywhere" as its mission. As a member of Alibaba, Amap believes that no matter how small a store is, it has the right to shine.

We talked to some small shop owners, and what they mentioned most was that they hoped their shops could be marked and have information on the map. This even gave rise to a business, with some companies providing so-called map marking services. Small shop owners risked being cheated and provided personal identity information and business information of their shops, spending hundreds of yuan to mark each location.

Secondly, they hope that small shops can be discovered and found. Most small shops can only serve relatively familiar customers within a few hundred meters, while Amap's pan-exploration capabilities gather a huge amount of user search needs every day, which can bring non-local and unfamiliar customers to small shops.

Here, we would like to solemnly declare that marking location information on Amap has always been completely free. In addition, we also hope to do more for every small shop owner.

To this end, Amap launched the "Small Shops Shine" plan, opening it up to small shops and allowing them to share Amap's hundreds of millions of users, helping small shops attract more customers and striving to make it so that there are no hard-to-find shops in the world.

1. Make it more convenient for small shops to settle in.

We have moved the entry point to a more obvious location. Just click on the avatar in the upper left corner of the main page and select "I am a merchant" to facilitate search and entry. Shop owners upload photos of their shops and business licenses and fill in relevant information. Amap will complete the review and put them online within 24 hours. The whole process does not require an intermediary, is completely independent and free of charge.

2. Make small shops easier to find.

The shops that pass the review will become V shops, that is, Amap certified merchants. V shops can display detailed information such as business hours and contact numbers, making them easier to search and thus attract more customers.

3. Give small shops more energy.

In the future, Amap will further enrich the rights and interests of certified merchants, giving small shops more autonomy and flexibility in information display and big data support, empowering small shops.

"Connecting the real world" is one of the visions of Amap. On the map, a small shop is a dot. In reality, a small shop is the most real life. Life is not easy, but it is beautiful. No matter how small the shop is, it must shine.

In the future, Amap will continue to promote the “Small Shops Shine” plan. Our goal is to make it so that no shop in the world is difficult to find.

Amap Data Team

May 17, 2019