Temu is one of the latest online shopping platforms that connects its users with a wide variety of objects for a low price.
Although its business model is common, its sudden boom in popularity to the number one shopping app downloaded in the app store has blindsided many.
Temu is the American counterpart of the Chinese company Pinduoduo, both sister companies operate under a larger company called PDD Holdings.
Temu was started in 2022 in Boston, Massachusetts, and in less than a year, it surpassed the biggest names in online shopping such as Amazon, Shein, Etsy, and Poshmark.
After an advertisement for Temu was featured in the Super Bowl with the tagline “Shop like a billionaire”, people rushed to download the app, and its user base largely grew since then. People were shocked at the variety of things they could purchase at such low costs.
From buying a wedding dress for $35 to an Apple Watch dupe for $18 to “Ultra HD Underwater Cameras” for $11, the prices were much lower than on other purchasing platforms. But Temu is not a new concept, in fact, people have seen the rapid rise of fast-fashion and fast-everything at much larger rates in the past few years.
Similar platforms such as Aliexpress, or Wish, Temu doesn’t produce anything, it connects its users with independent vendors.
Temu makes it incredibly easy to spend hundreds of dollars on their platform because of how low the prices are; $300 Shein-haul influencers have begun to shift to Temu hauls.
Additionally, Temu employs a system of points and games that can add up to free gifts, not unlike Romwe and Shein; people who refer the app to others get points that can buy them free products. This point system has proved an efficient way to attract more customers to the app.
But along with the abundance of positive reviews from people surprised at the high quality of orders and the fast delivery, the problem many found with Temu is the same problem with company after company that claims it has low prices for high-quality products: many people can’t ethically justify the means of production.
If Temu sells a bracelet for $1.79, after both Temu and the vendor selling the bracelet take a fraction of that price, not much is left for the workers.
Workers in these factories aren’t given contracts upon employment in most cases, so employers often fail to pay minimum wage or don’t pay them at all.
Sites like these also develop new products at such a fast pace that it becomes difficult to come up with new ideas, so they steal from smaller businesses and offer their products at lower prices.
The same wedding dress that can be sold on Temu for $35 can be found by its original creator for upwards of $2000.
Another problem is that Temu’s products aren’t sustainable, they often do not last long, and most products can’t be resold because they do not hold up well, especially clothes.
People also complained that they didn’t receive their orders or had their orders mysteriously refunded out of nowhere. Some reported random charges to their card after inputting their information into Temu.
But as the discontent with Temu’s reliability has been growing, so has the number of daily users.
This discontent has been growing for even longer overseas though, Temu’s sister company Pinduoduo has been involved a few controversies both in the US and in China.
Pinduoduo, founded in September of 2015, has been banned from Google for malware and counterfeit products.
But their issue with Chinese consumers comes down to how they treat their workers.
Pinduoduo found itself the recipient of public outcry after evidence emerged on their employees’ working conditions.
In Youtuber iilluminaughti’s video titled “Temu: a Shein Clone”, she discusses two instances of Pinduoduo’s mistreatment of their employees.
One story talked about a young woman in her early 20s who collapsed and died on her way home after working overtime. An investigation was launched into the working conditions that would have led to her collapse.
As a response to the situation, Pinduoduo posted on their official account and said, “All people from the bottom rungs of society exchange their lives for money.”
The company first denied that this was posted on their account, then said it was a contractor that posted without authorization.
The other scandal refers to an instance where an employee killed themselves in 2011 and the company fired any employees that spoke out about it.
Temu is a blooming company that can provide affordable products for people who otherwise may not be able to get them, but the rate at which it’s growing could present the same problem in regard to workers’ treatment and the environment people have seen with platforms like Shein.