Temu is a global sensation. US-based Temu expanded throughout Europe, including Denmark. I wanted to see what Temu was about.
What is Temu?
Online marketplace Temu began in September 2022. Temu sells anything from apparel, shoes, jewelry, accessories, makeup, skincare, home décor, kitchen supplies, office supplies, toys, games, electronics, appliances, art supplies, craft materials, musical instruments, pet supplies, and more. Chinese corporation PDD Holdings controls the brand and Pinduoduo.
Malware in Pinduoduo has drawn notice this year. The Pinduoduo app was deleted from Google Play but remains on the Apple App Store. The Pinduoduo app’s virus generated similar suspicions about Temu, but security experts have found no malware.
What Makes Temu Cheap?
Temu sells products from Chinese third-party sellers at inexpensive costs. You don’t know the manufacturers, the industrial workers’ conditions, or the safety precautions. You can see the vendor’s shop, ratings, and reviews on Temu, but you don’t know anything about the merchant or their manufacturers.
Low costs lead to overconsumption, especially for influencers who accept sponsorships and do large hauls on YouTube and TikTok to promote Temu. Due to their low cost, people discard broken or low-quality things in large hauls. In May of this year, I received an email to partner with Temu, but I declined because they did not ship to Denmark and seemed like another Shein-type website with low costs and doubtful quality.
Temu ships to which countries?
Temu debuted in the US in September 2022 and Canada in February 2023. Temu premiered in Australia and New Zealand in March 2023 and in France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK in April 2023. In subsequent months, Temu extended to other European and Asian countries.
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and the US. Temu offers free shipping on all orders.
Is Temu Real?
Temu really is an online shop. When you buy something from Temu, you usually get it. But some things might not be as good as you thought they would be, and sometimes the item you get won’t look like the picture. The package might also get lost in the mail.
1. Electronics
Dupes and fakes also come in electronics. You can buy electronics that look like Apple Watches, AirPods, Polaroid Cameras, the Nintendo Switch, the PlayStation 5, and more. These copies, on the other hand, are usually not nearly as good as the original. Microwave Society looked at some fake gadgets from Temu. They were a lot less expensive than the real ones, but they weren’t very good either. On top of that, I wouldn’t buy electronics from Temu because they aren’t very good and will break quickly.
2. Clothing
I would also stay away from any clothing because I don’t do weekly hauls like some celebrities do and I don’t buy clothes from fast fashion brands. Some fast fashion brands make too many clothes, hurt the earth, and take advantage of their workers. Instead of following trends, I try to make choices that are better for the world. Temu is also a lot like Shein in that they copy patterns from both big-name brands like Air Jordans and smaller, independent brands. It is better to support small, independent brands than cheap fashion brands like Temu if you can afford to. In a recent video, Mia Maples bought original fashion items from several clothing brands whose designs had been stolen and compared them to items on Temu and Shein. The clothes from small brands are of much better quality than those from Temu or Shein.
3. Beauty Products
However, Temu has a lot of fake or similar goods, especially when it comes to skincare and makeup. There are fakes of many well-known brands on Temu, such as Charlotte Tilbury, Fenty Beauty, MAC, Rare Beauty, Urban Decay, ELF, Essence, Maybelline, NYX, Pixi Beauty, The Ordinary, First Aid Beauty, and Vaseline. The goods will have different brand names, though.
But I wouldn’t buy any skincare or makeup on Temu because the goods might not be safe to use or contain ingredients that are bad for you. Temu doesn’t list any of the beauty items’ ingredients, so you have to trust the ones that are written on the boxes. When compared to real name-brand goods, the beauty products are probably not as good, even if the ingredients listed on the package are correct.
The beauty review tried makeup from Temu, but when they looked up the chemicals listed on the packaging, they didn’t exist. The makeup also wasn’t very good. Also, cheaper skincare and makeup products may have more dangerous ingredients. For example, someone on Reddit is getting treatment for contact dermatitis after trying Temu makeup and finding out they are allergic to cobalt, which is found in cheap makeup that isn’t paraben-free.
Have the same traits Temu, Shein, and Wish?
Temu is an online store that sells thousands of different items, like Shein and Wish. However, it is not the same as those two stores. Temu is run by PDD Holdings. They opened in 2022 and sell goods made in China by other companies. Shein, on the other hand, seems to have more than one parent company, such as Roadget Business Pte Ltd and Zoetop Business Co., which also owns ROMWE. For the same reason, Shein, which opened in 2008, doesn’t make its own goods and instead buys them from other companies in China. ContextLogic Inc. is the parent company of Wish. They began as a business in 2010. Wish doesn’t make its own products; instead, it relies on sellers mostly based in China and other places where production is cheap.
So, Temu, Shein, and Wish can all sell goods that are close or even the same, and they can all use the same pictures of those goods. The price and quality of the item may be different, though, and Mia Maples does a great job of showing how the three online markets are alike and different.
Do Temu Products Work Well?
I chose to buy some things for myself to answer this question. The only groups I looked at were “home & kitchen” and “office & school supplies” because those were the ones I could use.
I had to spend some time picking out the things I wanted. In the end, I chose to order some kitchen materials to make cute bento boxes and a knife rest. I also bought myself some stationery that I thought I would use often. As of August 26, the order I made on August 13 was due to arrive between August 19th and 26th. The package arrived on the 21st, which isn’t bad at all for my order to take that long to get there.
Office Things
- 12 Milky Pens
I only have a few black and blue ink pens, and I thought it would be nice to have more colors to use for taking notes or making a to-do list. The pens cost $3.90. Some of them seemed better than others, but once I got them going, most of them seemed to write well. I couldn’t use the brown pen, though, because the cap was stuck, and when I tried to remove it, the pen broke right apart.
- Milk Pencil Case
It’s a cute pencil case that’s a good size for $1.38. It was big enough to hold the 12 pens, the to-do list (turned on its side), and the stickers. You can put pencils, erasers, and other office supplies that you may have.
- 50 Heartstopper Stickers
It cost me $2.15 to buy these stickers that are based on the Heartstopper books and Netflix shows. The set comes with fifty stickers, and all of them are cute. The stickers are nice, and I can use them for projects or to make my room look nicer.
Most of the things I bought and tried out look like they are of good quality. Some things aren’t up to par, though. For example, the silicone tool rest isn’t made of silicone and is bent, and the brown pen can’t be used because the cap is stuck on it. People often say that you get what you pay for, and I think that’s true with Temu. The prices are low, but not all of the things will be good.
- 50 Sheets To Do List
Most of the time, I keep a daily to-do list on my phone, but I wanted a paper one for times when I have a lot to do and don’t want to be sidetracked by my phone. The cute to-do list cost $1.22, and I love the rainbow cloud design on it.
Kitchen
- 3 Sandwich Moulds
To match the bento box theme, I paid $4.88 for these sandwich molds that look like a rabbit, a flower, and a bear. Since my daughter doesn’t like the crust on her sandwiches, I only used the flower mold twice and the bear and bunny mold once for one sandwich. I had to throw away the crust. The cutting part of the mold worked well, and the designs did come out right, but the face design part of the mold was hard for me to use. The images didn’t show up very well even when I pushed down hard on the sandwich pieces to make the faces show up. It was a mess. The cutter part is all I would use to make the shapes; I wouldn’t think about the face designs.
- 3 Vegetable Cutters Set
I wanted to make bento boxes for my daughter, as I said, and these vegetable tools looked like they would work great with sliced carrots, cucumbers, and other vegetables. The vegetable cuts were $1.45 each and came in a heart, flower, and scalloped circle shape. The vegetable slices fit easily on them. If you slice a vegetable and the slice gets stuck in the cutter, you can use a chopstick in the hole at the top to push the slice out. The designs look great, and my daughter loved them.
- Silicone Utensil Rest
I cook almost every day, and the tools are often left in the pot or pan or on the counter. This utensil rest thought would come in handy when I don’t need to keep the tools in the pot. It cost $1.17. However, the tool rest is not made of silicone. It is made of a hard plastic that can’t be shaped. The utensil rest doesn’t lay flat on the table because the top right corner is bent up. I’ll still use the rest for the tools, though.
Conclusion:
They are busy expanding to more countries and more and more people are buying from them, so it doesn’t look like Temu will be leaving the online marketplace space any time soon. Temu has a lot of cheap items, but the quality can change a lot, especially for fake and cheaper items. Don’t buy things you don’t need or want from Temu. If you want to get a better idea of the item’s quality, you should also read the reviews that include pictures of the item uploaded by users. If you want to make sure you’re not wasting your money on bad items, you can also look at the seller’s general ratings and reviews.
