![]() ![]() She used them to order a ring light (priced at $25.48) for her plaster-art small business, Array of Aura’s, as well as an oils diffuser ($5.48), several necklaces, and a mouse and keyboard for her daughter ($19.98). ![]() Lukey posted about Temu on Facebook, TikTok, and Snapchat, and eventually convinced friends to join the app, in the process earning a bunch of credits. She first heard about the app from a friend a month ago, and was initially leery of it: “I know there’s a lot of things that go around that may not be legit,” she says. “It seems like they’re being subsidized to be a loss leader in order to gain market share, which is not unlike what Amazon did for a long time,” says Douglas Schmidt, a professor of computer science at Vanderbilt University.īrianna Lukey, who lives in Fort Worth, Texas, says she’s received $200 worth of items from Temu for free. This has enabled some people who have earned enough credit to receive home goods without even giving Temu their credit card information. That’s because Temu has launched a campaign on social media in which the more you convince others to sign up, the more credit you earn. While Temu’s prices are cheap, many new customers actually aren’t paying anything at all. A Temu spokesperson responded to questions from TIME with a statement from its website: that the company’s prices are enabled by a “deep network of merchants, logistic partners, and established ecosystem built over the years.” How are people getting stuff for free on Temu? Pinduoduo launched Temu in September in order to court the American market, and Temu’s website lists an office in downtown Boston. The company now has a market cap of $102 billion, and its stock price increased during a year in which competitors like Alibaba took severe hits. Pinduoduo has found success in China selling heavily discounted products straight from manufacturers to low-income buyers, as well as agricultural products to farmers. Temuīut the strategy makes sense once you realize that Temu is a “sister company” of the Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo, which has offered similar deals in China for the last few years. Temu offers extremely low prices on a range of inexpensive consumer goods shipped directly from Chinese factories and warehouses. The breadth of items and prices is remarkable, and the site’s aesthetic comes off as something like a virtual dollar store. A banner brags about items up to 90% off retail prices, thanks to a new year’s sale. Users on the Temu website or app are immediately besieged by deals of all kinds: running shoes for $17.48, universal wrenches for $4.48, talking toy hamsters for $6.99. The better question is what Temu doesn’t sell. Users who turned to Temu this month as a lifeline for holiday shopping in the face of the highest inflation in a generation made it one of the fastest growing platforms in the U.S. ![]() Over the last couple months, posts praising Temu have spread like wildfire across Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok-though many of them use glowing language that appears to be recycled from one post to the next.īut, at the moment, Temu is very much a real platform, offering a variety of real, heavily discounted products, from air fryers to wireless Lenovo earbuds ($8.98), computer keyboards ($15) to clothes ($1.69 for five pairs of socks). On top of really cheap consumer goods, Temu boasts opportunities to earn credits through spin-the-wheel games or if you convince your friends to join. Upon first glance, Temu could leave some users questioning whether it’s legit. retailers and the global supply chain in the coming year. Temu’s business model-if it catches on-could also have major implications for U.S. ![]() When contacted by TIME, the company did not directly address questions about customer complaints or the concerns of the BBB. “They’re making delivery promises, and people aren’t getting their stuff when they’re supposed to be,” Melanie McGovern, the director of public relations and social media for the BBB, tells TIME. ![]()
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