If you got bombarded by Temu ads this year (and you probably have been), your first question was probably, “What is Temu?” Your second question was probably, “Why is this stuff so cheap?”
Temu is a digital marketplace that offers rock-bottom prices in every imaginable category — paired with a barrage of gamified discounts that barf out coupons like slot machines. It’s also the No. 1 free app on the Apple and Google app stores. Most products are factory-direct from China and lack a level of marketing copy and imagery that would appear, uh, “professional.”
Along with the app Shein, Temu is taking a bite out of Amazon’s market share, and Amazon doesn’t match its prices. Temu deliveries take much longer to arrive than Amazon Prime orders do, but when you’re selling electric frothers for $1.72 or knockoff Hoka sneakers for $7.99, the formula works.
Ironically, if that formula sounds familiar, it’s because you saw it on Amazon first.
On today’s Amazon, familiar name-brand products are lost in a whirlwind of copycats sold by China-based wholesaler brands with random capital letters such as NVEESHOK and COKUNST. (Amazon prefers trademarked brands, and these nonsense names are easy to trademark.) The dupes’ sales text often seems run through Google Translate without any further editing, and the prices undercut everyone else.
Still, U.S. consumers overwhelmingly trust Amazon (albeit less so than in the 2010s), which has a generous return policy. Since Temu popped off stateside late last year, it’s racked up hundreds of complaints at the Better Business Bureau, under which they’re not accredited. Cybersecurity experts have warned about potential data mining.
But Amazon set the rules of this new game, which Temu has rapidly mastered. If you race to the bottom, someone’s going to beat you there.