A request that this article title be changed to Temu is under discussion . Please do not move this article until the discussion is closed. |
Founded | July 2022 |
---|---|
Headquarters | Seoul, South Korea |
Area served | List
|
Founder(s) | Park Je-Nak |
Industry | E-commerce |
Services | Online shopping |
Parent | PDD Holdings [7] |
URL | temu |
Launched | September 2022 |
Whaleco Technology Limited, [8] doing business as Temu ( /ˈtiːmuː/ TEE-moo), is an online marketplace operated by the Chinese e-commerce company PDD Holdings. [7] [9] It offers heavily discounted consumer goods [10] which are mostly shipped to consumers directly from China. [11] [12]
Temu's business model is based in South Korea. It has become popular among consumers but has also drawn concerns over data privacy, forced labor, intellectual property, and the quality of its marketplace products. The company has been embroiled in legal disputes with rival Shein.
Temu is owned and operated by PDD Holdings, which also owns Pinduoduo, a common online commerce platform in China. [13] [14] PDD Holdings was initially registered in the Cayman Islands before moving its place of incorporation to Dublin in 2023. [9]
The Temu platform first went live in the United States in September 2022. [15] In March 2023, Temu launched in Australia and New Zealand. [1] In the following month, Temu was launched in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK. [2] Temu eventually expanded into the Latin American market. [16] On January 17, 2024, Temu officially launched in South Africa, the 49th country that Temu had entered since its launch in September 2022. [17]
In February 2024, Temu ran multiple Super Bowl ads, offering US$15 million in giveaways. As a result, the company saw a spike in searches for their name and traffic. [12] [18]
Following the Super Bowl ads in February 2024, Temu reached 100 million active users in the U.S., over 130 million app downloads globally, and approximately 420 million monthly website visits, as per Semrush. [19] [20]
In December 2022, Temu was sued by rival company Shein, alleging that Temu had enlisted online influencers "to make false and deceptive statements" about Shein to promote its own goods. Temu later sued Shein in July 2023, alleging that Shein had "engaged in a campaign of threats, intimidation, false assertions of infringement, and attempts to impose baseless punitive fines" on clothing manufacturers thought to be working with Temu. [21] On 31 July 2023, Shein won a temporary restraining order against Temu in a different case, alleging that the company used Shein's copyrighted images in product listings. [22] Later in August, Shein sought an injunction against Temu, filed in London's High Court, alleging the company had "identified thousands of instances" where Temu's sellers copied its listing photos. Shein requested all violating posts be taken down and at least £100,000 in damages. [23]
On July 18, 2023, Temu filed a federal lawsuit, accusing Shein of violating U.S. antitrust laws. [24] Temu stated in the indictment that as of 2022, Shein owns more than 75% of the U.S. ultra-fast fashion market and leverages its market dominance to compel exclusive agreements with apparel manufacturers, restricting them from collaborating with Temu. [24] Temu further contended that in May 2023, Shein mandated that its 8,338 manufacturers supplying or selling on their platform sign exclusive distribution agreements, preventing them from offering their products on the Temu platform or to Temu-affiliated sellers. [24] Temu contends that these manufacturers linked to Shein constitute a substantial portion, estimated at 70% to 80%, of all merchants offering ultra-fast fashion products in the U.S., leading to higher prices, fewer consumer options, and hindered growth of the U.S. ultra-fast fashion market. [24]
In October 2023, Shein and Temu requested that their respective cases against each other be dismissed without prejudice in Massachusetts and Illinois. Neither company offered further explanation or whether a settlement had been made. [25]
In December 2023, Temu sued Shein again, alleging illegal interference with its suppliers. [14]
Temu allows China-based vendors to sell and ship directly to customers without having to rely on intermediate distributors in the destination country, making products more affordable. [26] Some sellers have stated that Temu asked them to lower their prices, even to the point of selling items at a loss. [27] Temu offers free goods to some users who successfully refer new users via affiliate codes, social media, and gamification. [10] Online purchases on Temu can be made using an Internet browser or through a dedicated mobile app. Temu uses large-scale online advertising campaigns on Facebook and Instagram. [28]
Temu requires its sellers to offer their products at prices lower than those found on AliExpress. [29] When multiple sellers offer the same product, Temu authorizes only the one with the lowest price. [29] Items not meeting Temu's minimum sales requirements (30 pieces and $90 in 14 days) are removed from the platform. [29]
The company has heavily advertised in mobile apps and ran TV ads on Super Bowl LVIII, resulting in their popularity. A research by Sensor Tower revealed that in the last quarter of 2023 Temu users spent an average of 23 minutes a week on the app, compared with 18 minutes on Amazon and 22 minutes on eBay. [12]
In 2023 some Temu ads were banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the UK for showing a bikini-wearing girl in a pose that was "quite adult" for her age, jockstraps that emphasised "the outline of the genitalia", cycling shorts that "appeared as underwear" with cut-out bottom, and pictures of dresses that left out the models' faces. Temu said the picture of the girl violated the company's policy and would not be shown again but disputed the other findings by the ASA, saying not showing models' faces were not meant to objectify women and other retailers had similar photos. [30]
Some merchants use Temu as a clearing house where they attempt to sell off low quality, expired, or outdated products. [31]
According to Andrew Chow writing for Time , in 2022 Temu customers experienced a rash of undelivered packages, product discrepancies due to false advertisements, and mysterious charges, as well as unresponsive customer service. [10]
According to Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch in relation to Temu's advertising campaigns, "These ads appear to be working to boost Temu's installs. But dig into the app's reviews and you'll find similar complaints to Wish, including scammy listings, damaged and delayed deliveries, incorrect orders and lack of customer service." [28]
In October 2022, the Boston branch of the Better Business Bureau opened a file on Temu; by the end of 2022, they had received 31 complaints from customers regarding the website's service. As of January 2024 the company has a BBB rating of C+, though the company is not BBB accredited. [10]
In March 2024, BabyCenter did a review of the app Temu and said that the website had found products that have been recalled, could be counterfeit or circumvent U.S. safety standards and features that are important in preventing issues like choking. [32]
In May 2024, the European Consumer Organisation launched a complaint against Temu with the European Commission alleging breaches of the Digital Services Act concerning trader traceability requirements and algorithmic transparency and accountability. [33] The same month, the European Commission stated that Temu must comply with the Digital Services Act. [34]
In May 2023, the United States–China Economic and Security Review Commission raised concerns about risks to users' personal data on Temu after Pinduoduo, its sister app in China, was suspended from Google Play because some of its versions, not available on Google's app store, were found to contain malware. [35] [36] [37] Two days after releasing an update to remove the exploits, Pinduoduo disbanded the team of engineers and product managers who had developed them. According to a CNN source, most of the team were transferred to Temu, working in various departments, but a core group of engineers remained at Pinduoduo. [38]
On 17 May 2023, Greg Gianforte, the governor of the US state of Montana banned Temu on government devices state-wide, along with ByteDance applications (including TikTok), WeChat, and Telegram. [39] [40]
According to Politico , "Apple said the company previously violated the company's mandatory privacy rules and misled people about how it uses their data." [41]
Separate class action lawsuits were filed against Temu in 2023, located in Illinois and New York, each in regards to Temu's handling of private data collected via accounts made on their platform. [42]
In February 2024, South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission launched an investigation into Temu and other e-commerce platforms regarding the handling of user data. [43] In June 2024, the Arkansas Attorney General filed a lawsuit against Temu alleging malware and deceptive trade practices. [44]
In June 2023, the United States House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party stated that Temu did not maintain "even the façade of a meaningful compliance program" with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act to keep goods made by forced labor off its platform. [45] [46] [47] [48] The committee's report delivered a critical evaluation of Temu, suggesting that there was an "extremely high risk of forced labor contamination within Temu's supply chains." [48] The report also found that Temu had exploited United States de minimis rules to evade customs enforcement. [49] In 2024 Temu faced renewed criticism referring to the 2023 report from US Senator Tom Cotton, and US House representatives Kat Cammack and Michelle Steel after the company aired commercials during Super Bowl LVIII. [49]
Sellers on Temu face recurring accusations of infringing upon intellectual property rights. [50] Instances of design theft have also been reported. [51]
Temu has been criticized for having an intense workplace culture and encouraging a 996 working hour system. [52] This workplace culture has been connected to incidents of PDD Holdings employee deaths that have made international headlines. [52]
In 2024, the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal reported that PDD Holdings, Temu's parent company, uses surveillance and non-compete lawsuits against former employees who leave to work for rivals. [53] [54]
E-commerce is the activity of electronically buying or selling products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. E-commerce is the largest sector of the electronics industry and is in turn driven by the technological advances of the semiconductor industry.
Opera Limited is a multinational technology conglomerate holding company headquartered in Oslo, Norway with additional offices in Europe, China, and Africa. Opera offers a range of products and services that include a variety of PC and mobile web browsers, GameMaker and gaming portals, the Opera News content recommendation products, the Opera Ads platform, and a number of Web3 and e-commerce products and services. The company's total user base is 311 million monthly active users.
Baidu, Inc. is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services, headquartered in Beijing's Haidian District. It holds a dominant position in China's search engine market, and provides a wide variety of other internet services such as Baidu Baike, iQIYI, and Baidu Tieba.
Alibaba Group Holding Limited, branded as Alibaba, is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in e-commerce, retail, Internet, and technology. Founded on 28 June 1999 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, the company provides consumer-to-consumer (C2C), business-to-consumer (B2C), and business-to-business (B2B) sales services via Chinese and global marketplaces, as well as local consumer, digital media and entertainment, logistics and cloud computing services. It owns and operates a diverse portfolio of companies around the world in numerous business sectors.
Taobao is a Chinese online shopping platform. It is headquartered in Hangzhou and is owned by Alibaba. According to Alexa rank, it was the eighth most-visited website globally in 2021. Taobao.com was registered on April 21, 2003 by Alibaba Cloud Computing (Beijing) Co., Ltd.
Tencent Holdings Ltd. is a Chinese multinational technology conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimedia companies in the world based on revenue. It is also the world's largest company in the video game industry based on its equity investments.
Shopify Inc., stylized as shopify, is a Canadian multinational e-commerce company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. Shopify is the name of its proprietary e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. The Shopify platform offers online retailers a suite of services, including payments, marketing, shipping and customer engagement tools.
InMobi is an Indian multinational technology company, based in Bangalore. Its mobile-first platform allows brands, developers and publishers to engage consumers through contextual mobile advertising. The company was founded in 2007 under the name mKhoj by Naveen Tewari, Mohit Saxena, Amit Gupta and Abhay Singhal.
Pinterest is an American image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information like recipes, home, style, motivation, and inspiration on the internet using images and, on a smaller scale, animated GIFs and videos, in the form of pinboards. Created by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp, Pinterest, Inc. is headquartered in San Francisco.
Stripe, Inc. is an Irish-American multinational financial services and software as a service (SaaS) company dual-headquartered in South San Francisco, California, United States and Dublin, Ireland. The company primarily offers payment-processing software and application programming interfaces for e-commerce websites and mobile applications.
AliExpress is an online retail service based in China and owned by the Alibaba Group. Launched in 2010, it is made up of small businesses in China and other locations, such as Singapore, that offer products to international online buyers. It is the most visited e-commerce website in Russia and was the 10th most popular website in Brazil. It facilitates small businesses to sell to customers all over the world. AliExpress has drawn comparison to eBay, as sellers are independent and use the platform to offer products to buyers.
ByteDance Ltd. is a Chinese internet technology company headquartered in Haidian, Beijing and incorporated in the Cayman Islands.
Wish is an American online e-commerce platform for transactions between sellers and buyers. Wish was founded in 2010 by Piotr Szulczewski and Danny Zhang.
Xiaohongshu, also known as RED, is a social media and e-commerce platform. It has been described as "China's answer to Instagram", and is sometimes referred to as "Chinese Instagram".
TikTok, whose mainland Chinese counterpart is Douyin, is a short-form video hosting service owned by Chinese internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from three seconds to 60 minutes. It can be accessed with a smartphone app.
Pinduoduo Inc. is a Chinese online retailer with a focus on the traditional agriculture industry. The business is the largest product of PDD Holdings, which also owns the Ireland-based online marketplace Temu.
Colin Huang or Huang Zheng is a Chinese businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He is the founder and former CEO of the e-commerce company Pinduoduo, which is now the largest agriculture platform in China. Huang is also the owner of at least three other limited liability Cayman companies, including Pinduoduo.
Meta Platforms, Inc., doing business as Meta, and formerly named Facebook, Inc., and TheFacebook, Inc., is an American multinational technology conglomerate based in Menlo Park, California. The company owns and operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, among other products and services. Meta ranks among the largest American information technology companies, alongside other Big Five corporations Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. The company was ranked #31 on the Forbes Global 2000 ranking in 2023. In 2022, Meta was the company with the third-highest expenditure on research and development worldwide, with R&D expenditure amounting to US$35.3 billion.
Huawei AppGallery is a package manager and application distribution platform, or marketplace 'app store', developed by Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. It serves as the official app store for the devices running on Huawei HarmonyOS, and is also available for Huawei EMUI and Microsoft Windows via the Mobile Engine emulator.
Shein is a fast fashion retailer. Founded in Nanjing, China, in October 2008 as ZZKKO by entrepreneur Chris Xu, Shein grew to become the world's largest fashion retailer as of 2022. The company is currently headquartered in Singapore.