Why Is Temu So Cheap In The US? Is It Safe?
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Temu is quickly becoming an established store here in America. Are you wondering if Temu is too good to be true? You are not alone. The prices on Temu are jaw droppingly low for most Americans. For many products, the prices on Temu can be even lower than on Amazon. How do they do it? Is it safe? The short answer is “because China” and it’s about as safe as most online shopping.
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How Can Temu Be So Cheap?
Let’s dig deeper. Here are a few possible reasons that Temu can offer such low price:
Pinduoduo’s Supply Chains & Consumer Deals Experience
Temu is a sister company of the Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo. Over the past few years, Pinduoduo has provided Chinese consumers with an innovative shopping experience by offering low prices on various products using creative promotions like group buying. This extensive experience with consumer focused deals in China is expected to translate to the American market, where Temu aims to bring similar low-priced deals to customers.
Temu also has access to Pinduoduo’s established supply chains. The large scale of Pinduoduo’s operations allows it to negotiate better prices from suppliers, which are passed on to Temu’s customers.
Temu Can Ship From Factory To Your Doorstep
Temu operates as a pure third-party marketplace, which means that it allows sellers to directly sell goods to customers. This essentially enables Temu to source goods directly from manufacturers in China, cutting out intermediaries and reducing costs. It also creates more competition among sellers and can drive down prices, as sellers try to undercut each other to make sales. Thanks to the majority of the products being shipped from the factory to your doorstep, the prices are the lowest they can possibly get.
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Liberally Sharing Coupons & Free Stuff
Temu has launched numerous social media campaigns and aggressive marketing incentivizing users with coupons and store credits when they convince others to sign up. This has allowed some people to receive products for free or highly discounted products.
In the long term, this word-of-mouth of marketing can help to drive down costs. It can reduce the reliance to spend money on other more expensive advertising channels and pass on the savings to customers. In the short term, this is extremely expensive and could backfire.
Better Tools For Sellers
Temu offers tools that allow sellers to better manage production and inventory, which can help to lower costs for folks shopping on Temu. By having better control over their inventory, sellers can reduce waste and avoid overproduction, which can help to lower costs for consumers buying their products.
Unbranded Goods
The majority of the goods sold on Temu are unbranded, which means they don’t carry the extra costs that come with brands and can further lower the cost of these already low cost Chinese made goods.
Is Temu Cheaper Than Amazon?
Yes, in some instances Temu can be significantly cheaper than Amazon. This has been confirmed over multiple products. However, the best deals are usually limited to commodity, Chinese made products. If you see a ton of the same looking product while searching on Amazon, you may want to check Temu next time to see if it can be purchased for cheaper. When it comes to well known brands like PlayStation or something of that sort, Amazon or Walmart likely remain the best bet. In fact, Temu was significantly more expensive for some gaming systems ($100 or $200 more than retail price) at the time of this writing.
Is Temu Safe?
Online stores like Amazon and Walmart are reliant on third-party marketplaces, which can make it easier for counterfeit, fake, or used products to enter the platform. Both Amazon and Walmart have entire departments focused on fighting this problem that are present on all third-party marketplaces. While there is no clear evidence of this happening on Temu, it’s reasonable to suspect that similar issues could arise as Temu grows in the US. When shopping anywhere online, always use your eyes to double check if a package or product looks suspicious, used or tampered with.
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Since Temu is such a young company, BBB complaints are the best direct source of evidence to determine if Temu is safe or not. Below are a summary of the most common complaints related to the general safety of using the platform.
- Undelivered packages: There have been complaints from some customers who say their shipments did not arrive on time, or at all.
- Mysterious charges: Some customers have reported mysterious charges on their accounts.
- Incorrect orders: There have been reports of incorrect orders being delivered to customers.
- Poor customer service: The company has received negative reviews for its unresponsive customer service. This can be hard if you have any issue.
Who Uses Temu?
It’s too soon to tell being such a young website. Our prediction is that Temu will adopt the same strategy as its sister company Pinduoduo, targeting less affluent consumers in America who would benefit from the lower prices offered by the company. Initially, Temu may have a greater impact in rural areas, while urban areas may take longer to catch up. However, if Temu stays in the US market, we expect that its reach will eventually expand to urban areas as well. This is just a prediction, and the actual outcome may differ.
Overall, Temu is a very real online store and it has very real low prices. In my opinion, the safety is about the same risk you’d take on shopping on any marketplace which is low. If you are on the fence, I would give Temu a shot and see how it goes. Don’t expect Amazon quality customer service, but you can expect really cheap products that arrive within 1-2 weeks from personal experience.
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