You have probably heard of Temu, the new online sales platform available in France. Can we trust him? Here is our opinion.
If you launch TikTok right now, you can’t miss the ads for Temu, an online sales site offering very attractive prices. Is it too good to be true? How can prices be so low? Can we trust this site? Here is our opinion on Temu.
What is Temu?
Let’s first come back to the site itself, also available as an application. This is a new e-commerce site like Amazon, AliExpress or Wish. On it, you can find everything: clothes, art, gadgets, but also electronic products at often ridiculous prices. The site focuses heavily on compulsive purchases for less than 5 euros (or even less than one euro).
However, there are more expensive products, like the Galaxy A14 for example, at 180 euros. Like Amazon or other online sales sites, it is actually a marketplace on which different sellers can sell their products. The Samsung smartphone is thus sold by a certain “Mobile Buy“.
By its presentation, its low prices and its products, Temu is of course reminiscent of Wish or AliExpress.
Who is behind Temu France?
This platform, launched in France in April 2023, belongs to the Chinese group PDD Holdings, which also manages the PinDuoDuo site, operating on the principle of group purchasing (the more buyers there are for a product, the lower the price ). TEMU is the acronym for “ Team Up, Price Down ”, which can be translated as “together, let’s save money”.
The company benefits from globalization since PDD Holdings is registered in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven, and its European headquarters is based in Ireland (in Dublin according to the contact page), where taxes are low.
Is Temu a Chinese site like Shein?
The Temu application is reminiscent of Shein, another major Chinese brand known for its very low prices. We also find the two applications neck and neck at the top of the rankings of the best applications on the App Store and the Google Play Store. We also find certain products in common on the two platforms (or at least very close).
TEMU is the most popular application on iPhone….
…but Shein is not far away
On Android, both applications are at the top
However, the two stores are very different. First of all, Shein is not a marketplace, but a store in its own right. Additionally, Shein only focuses on ultra fast fashion , while Temu offers a much broader catalog. On this point, Temu is therefore closer to AliExpress.
Is the Temu site reliable?
The question that buyers really ask concerns the reliability of the site and the products sold. And on this point, it’s rather mixed.
What are the delivery times ?
On the majority of products displayed in the Temu catalog, delivery times are approximately one to two weeks. Temu indicates that “ Temu shipping origins may vary depending on the product purchased “, but in most cases packages are shipped directly from China.
Overall, delivery times are met when packages arrive at their destination. On review aggregation sites, we note that reviews rarely, if ever, mention late delivery, but rather problems with missing packages.
Please note that it may be necessary to pay customs fees on packages coming from China.
Are the products purchased of quality?
With products sometimes sold for less than one euro, one might wonder if the products are of quality. And the answer is usually “no”. On Trustpilot, for example, we can read “most [sic] items were either poorly cut for clothes or of very, very poor quality“, “Quality of the articles is more than mediocre, does not correspond to the photos on the site. Nice scam…» and many other negative comments.
Same observation on Poulpeo: “I ordered a car mat for my grandson. I am disappointed with the quality, too thin, the finest oilcloth [sic] and packaged in a plastic pouch. As a result, it has lots of fold marks.»
It can be noted that certain products are very freely inspired by well-known brands. These are not counterfeits strictly speaking since the brand names are not directly copied, but we can find certain copies of luxury items such as the Chiquito bag by Jacquemus. Actual price: 670 euros. Price of a bag with a similar design on Temu: 12.32 euros.
Temu promises to apply “a strict policy against listing or selling products that violate the intellectual property rights of any third party”, but the limit remains quite vague.
Finally, let us point out that these are Chinese products which have not necessarily passed European safety standards. We therefore advise you not to buy any electrical appliance on Temu if you are in doubt. There are countless stories of Chinese chargers (but not from Temu) which caught fire during the night. The consumer defense company TestAchats purchased several products on Temu and indicates that “in several cases, we noted the absence of the CE label or its counterfeiting; this is the case for several products intended for children, namely a teddy bear and certain stationery items“. Some makeup products also do not display the list of their ingredients, which is banned in Europe and potentially dangerous.
In France, Temu is the subject of an investigation by the Directorate General for Competition, Consumption and Fraud Control regarding the quality of its products.
Is Temu’s after-sales service reliable?
In case your package is not delivered, you will certainly want to contact after-sales service. It is possible to contact him directly from the Temu site or application.
On review aggregation sites, we can note a large number of unfavorable opinions on this point. While some claim to have managed to get a refund without any problem, sometimes even without having to return the item (a common practice), it seems that it is sometimes difficult to win their case.
Temu states on his site that “Return shipping is free for your first return on EVERY order within 90 days of purchase date“. On Trustpilot, however, we can read comments from people who have not received help from customer service two months after purchase. Between theory and practice, there seems to be a dissonance, but Temu is working on his brand image.
The controversies
Data collection
Temu, like all online platforms, holds a large amount of data on its users. With its prize systems, the service can collect information even from people who do not make any purchases. Furthermore, the Pinduoduo application was pinned for the presence ofmalwarein some of its versions distributed outside the official stores.
For Kevin Reed,chief information security officerFor cybersecurity company Acronis, the Temu app is not as aggressive and no two versions appear to contain the same data vacuum. Despite the permissions requested by the app, some see it as less dangerous than an application like TikTok for example.
Furthermore, as Temu belongs to a Chinese company, the risk of sharing information with the Chinese government is regularly raised. Some cybersecurity experts raise the idea that the application is not profitable on its own and that itsbusiness modelshould therefore be based on the sale of data. However, there is no proof of this.
The ethics of the workforce
Mike Gallagher, US Senator, states that “Temu does next to nothing to keep its supply chain free of forced labor“. A US parliamentary committee report accuses Temu of avoiding sanctions under the US Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.
Hacked bank cards
On TikTok, several people have complained about strange debits from their bank accounts after ordering from Temu. Amounts that can amount to several hundred dollars, always in withdrawals of less than three dollars to go unnoticed. We have not been able to confirm this claim, but if in doubt, we advise you to use a pop-up card or a third-party service like PayPal to secure your payment.
Temu before European justice
Several consumer associations, including UFC-Que Choisir, filed a complaint against Temu, accusing it of being too opaque about information concerning sellers and products sold on the platform.
The plaintiffs notably exploited a legal procedure put in place with the Digital Services Act (DSA).
Should you buy on Temu?
In view of all this, we can therefore have some doubts about Temu. From an ecological point of view, the mass importation of poor quality products sold contributes to the creation of tonnes of waste every year. At the ethical level, we cannot guarantee that all links in the chain benefit, especially if we believe the suspicions of forced labor. The fact that some products sold could potentially be dangerous is also a factor to take into account.
You may find some good deals on Temu, but we still advise you not to make purchases that are too expensive, you risk being disappointed. In addition, it is preferable to take all possible precautions to protect your data, particularly banking data.
Article updated on May 16, 2024: clarification of the consumer associations’ complaint against Temu.