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Under the Super Bowl effect, Temu's soaring momentum in the United States has further increased. According to SensorTower data, on the day when Temu's advertisement appeared on the Super Bowl final, its downloads surged by 45%, and its daily active users soared by about 20% compared with the previous day. Temu, which became popular overnight, even surpassed Target, one of the largest retailers in the United States, in monthly active users in early February.
In fact, before the Super Bowl ad aired, Temu achieved sales of more than $50 million in the week ending February 5, a record high.
After nearly half a year of launch, Temu has been expanding overseas at an incredible speed. However, behind the gorgeous performance data, what is the real evaluation of the platform merchants and overseas consumers? Forced to pay 5 times the fine, the seller tearfully accuses Temu of nine sins After three months of being in the market, a senior seller who has been engaged in the cross-border e-commerce industry for many years complained bitterly about Temu’s nine sins:1. The product price must be lower than the 1688 wholesale price, and you need to label it yourself and be responsible for the freight, etc. 2. After unsaleable products are returned, they are cleared out one by one. Using SF Express for a single package is expensive 3. Warehouse management is chaotic, and freight is arbitrarily deducted for self-pickup products 4. Five times the fine for product problems, compulsory deduction of payment without evidence and specific details 5. Lack of feedback channels and customer service, unable to appeal and recover the money that was randomly deducted 6. Require large quantities of stock, reduce the price to cost or sell at a loss, otherwise the product will be removed from the shelves 7. The collection efficiency is low and the accounts are extremely simple and confusing. 8. Even if the negative feedback is caused by the platform’s own logistics efficiency rather than product quality issues, as long as the score is lower than 4.2, the product will be removed from the shelves and no appeal will be accepted. 9. The platform agreement rules are arbitrarily changed, and the rights of sellers are not protected. The seller reported that the Temu store seemed to have smooth orders and considerable sales, but there was no profit at all. Those who offered the lowest prices could get preferential treatment from the platform's traffic, which in turn forced the merchants to squeeze the prices to the extreme. In addition, the platform lacked a sound and reasonable operating mechanism, the relevant rules and regulations were arbitrarily changed, the fines were unreasonable, and the lack of appeal channels also made it impossible for innocent sellers to appeal.
Excessive control over supply-side prices has also caused Temu to suffer from the common product quality problems of low-price platforms. For this reason, it issued the "Commodity Quality Accident Handling Rules" in early February. If there are quality problems with the goods, the seller must bear the corresponding responsibilities. The new rules cover multiple categories such as clothing, luggage, digital electronics, etc. If the goods or packaging contain sharp, flammable and explosive hazardous foreign objects, the seller will pay compensation to Temu at the rate of 10,000 yuan per item per order.
The implementation of the new rules is undoubtedly another blow to sellers. It is reported that many sellers have a large number of deduction records in the backend, but no specific violations are seen in the "Violation Information" column, and there is no "Public Notice" reminder or appeal button.
▲ The picture comes from the Temu seller communication group
"They started to fine people in February for orders placed in October, with tens of thousands of dollars deducted every day. There is no room for reasoning." In fact, the specific standards for fines are also hard to believe. Some damages caused by international logistics and transportation issues are also blamed on the sellers, and even if the sellers are misjudged, they have no way to explain themselves.
A senior seller in the industry said that Temu is effective as a clearance channel, with a total sales volume of more than 8,000 orders and an average daily order volume of more than 300, but the premise is that the supply price is low enough. "I have a product with a price of 6 yuan, and the buyer suggested that I supply it at 2 yuan because Alibaba has a price of 2 yuan, but he doesn't care whether the price in Alibaba corresponds to the specific product. It may be that the 1688 merchant has made a small accessory to attract traffic, but the link price is 7 yuan."
For emerging platforms, low-price traffic generation is indeed an efficient means to quickly increase volume in the early stages of development. However, Temu excessively pursues low prices on the supply side. Under the pressure of extremely low prices, merchants naturally cannot achieve both profits and quality, which leads to the intensification of product quality issues on the platform.
In order to solve this kind of chaos, Temu has now introduced a strict penalty system, which means that sellers have to ensure product quality and provide lower prices. It is a bit like wanting the horse to run but not eat grass, so merchants are naturally complaining.
Currently, Temu has gone a bit too far in terms of marketing and traffic generation. Although the results are very good, with platform traffic and user numbers soaring, the platform's own operating system has always lacked reasonable perfection. Therefore, even with its rapid momentum now, whether it can retain consumers and how far it can go still remains a big question mark. Reputation and popularity do not match, Temu is complained by American consumers On the other hand, what do consumers think of Temu, which is getting cheaper and cheaper?
It is understood that after the Super Bowl ad debut, Temu's popularity in the United States has reached a new level. However, in terms of consumers' real shopping experience, Temu's reputation is indeed somewhat unable to match its popularity. The timeliness of delivery is the most criticized issue for Temu by American consumers. According to some buyers, it takes at least 10 days or even longer to receive Temu packages. Although this is considered relatively efficient for goods shipped from China, by comparison, local e-commerce platforms such as Amazon provide two-day and next-day delivery services, and the delivery time for the same product may differ by ten times. 2. The return procedure is complicated Another problem that consumers have reported is that Temu's return process is complicated . According to its policy, any product marked as non-returnable by the merchant is not allowed to be returned, so buyers need to be careful when purchasing. However, Temu has also introduced new return rules, which support consumers to return products without reason and free shipping within 90 days, greatly simplifying the process. 3. The goods are not the same as the ones shown According to the survey, many consumers have filed complaints because the actual Temu products do not match the product pictures, especially luxury or high-end products. According to consumers, the pictures they see on some sellers’ product homepages are most likely copied from other brands, and the actual products they receive do not have brand logos and are of poor quality. Currently, American consumers have low trust in Temu sellers. Many buyers report that they often receive counterfeit goods when purchasing branded goods through Temu stores, especially in the electronics and cosmetics categories.
In addition, Temu has brought bad shopping experiences to American consumers, including undeliverable packages, unclear fees, order confusion, and poor customer service. At present, Temu's appeal to them still lies in its attractive sales price, but if the above problems cannot be further resolved, the platform will find it difficult to form user stickiness, and the current glory may become a flash in the pan. Although Temu's low-price strategy conforms to the current consumer trend, it still lacks strong competitive barriers and has not established its own unique product supply advantages. Facing established e-commerce giants such as Amazon and Walmart, Temu still has a long way to go. |
