Temu in Canada - What you need to know | Cansumer (2024)

Temu Coupon Code

New app users get a $100 coupon bundle by downloading the app and a 50% off discount by entering the code afv39120

To give Temu a try, I ordered some odds and ends I needed that I would have otherwise ordered on Amazon:

• Microfibre cloths
• Glasses cloths
• Screw extractor set
• Wire brushes for drill
• Stainless steel soap holder

Here’s what I got (screw extractor not pictured):

And here is what I found out about Temu that you should know:

Bottom line

Temu is an online dollar store that sells unbranded products made in China for lower prices than you might find on Amazon, but with even less oversight into the products it sells than your local brick-and-mortar dollar store. It is the latest company looking to become the go-to place that for Canadian consumers to buy these products online since AliExpress and Wish.com.

If you’re looking for products made ethically, sustainably and to be long-lasting – look elsewhere.

However, for buying cheaper, everyday commodity-like goods like charging cables, keyboards, jumping ropes, and soap dishes that you’d have otherwise purchased on Amazon or at the dollar store, and you don’t mind waiting for them to arrive, buying on Temu can save you around 50%.

In my experience, some products look slightly different and are lower quality than expected, but many are identical to those on Amazon, and most are good enough to “get the job done”.

Before ordering, be sure to read reviews (of the product, not the store), look at photos of the product posted by customers, check the sellers’ reputation and how many customers have re-ordered the product.

And be mindful of the aggressive sales techniques they use they use to convince you to buy stuff you don’t need, more than you need or that’s likely to break.

What is Temu?

Temu (pronounced “tee-moo”) and meaning “Team Up, Price Down” is a Chinese-based online marketplace and consumer-to-manufacturer (C2M) platform that hosts millions of 3rd party vendors selling cheap, unbranded, white-labeled products made in China across around 30 primary categories and over 250 subcategories, shipping them from China directly to Canadian consumers.

The app continues to rank as the #1 shopping app on the App Store and Google Play in Canada and #1 on the App Store in the US ahead of Shein, Amazon and Walmart. It’s also topping the charts in Australia, UK and New Zealand and is available in available 14 other countries.

Temu, incorporated as Whaleco Inc., launched in the US in September 2022 and in Canada in February 2023 with aggressive marketing campaigns and a generous user referral program – incentivizing users to invite other users to join in return for free gifts or in-app credit.

You may have seen their ads on social media and in search results promoting cheap prices and deep discounts, especially once you’ve visited their site or app or searched their name and their ad retargeting is applied to your online profiles:

Their tagline ‘Shop like a Billionaire,’ featured in 2 30-second Super Bowl ads. The company is reportedly spending$1.4 billion on US advertising alone in 2023 according to the report, and $4.3 billion next year to gain market share and brand awareness.

Their expansion comes at a time when consumers are feeling squeezed financially – first facing the highest inflation in decades, and now rising interest rates, making low prices more appealing.

Temu vs Shein

Temu and Shein are both Chinese-founded companies that sell low-cost products made in China to consumers in Canada and other countries. Temu’s launch aims to replicate Shein’s success in selling ultra-fast fashion to Gen-Z consumers in North America, beating out competitors Zara and H&M to become the world’s largest online fashion company in 2022.

While Shein initially focused primarily on apparel and Temu on household products, both are expanding their product categories to become Amazon-like marketplaces that sell everything. The two rivals are competing with each other more directly for Gen-Zs attention and have to go after the same suppliers in what might be a race to the bottom.

• In December 2022, Shein filed a lawsuit against Temu, alleging that told social media influencers to make disparaging remarks about them such as “Shein is not the only cheap option for clothing! Check Temu.com out, cheaper and way better quality” and “Looking for clothes better than Shein but cheaper than Revolve? Check Temu.com out” and tricked customers into downloading the Temu app using “imposter” social media accounts.
• In July 2023, Temu sued Shein for asking it’s 8,000+ manufacturers to sign exclusivity agreements and loyalty oaths preventing them from selling on Temu. They also claim that Shein is filing false copyright infringement claims, forcing Temu to remove more than 10,000 products that they sell at cheaper prices than Shein does.

TikTok is launching its own a Shopping Center in 2023 to compete with Temu and Shein and replicate their success in the US and Canada.

Temu vs Amazon

Temu competes directly with Amazon, eBay and other online stores, in particular the products they feature that are made in China and sold by Chinese suppliers or US- and Canadian-based retailers who source their products from China. Almost half of the top Amazon sellers who sell more than US$1 million in the US are in China.

In my experience, Temu’s prices are typically around 50% cheaper than Amazon.ca for the same, or similar product. For example, these screw extractors are an identical product as far as I can tell:

One reason for this difference is that Amazon takes up to 50% of sellers’ revenue, charging:

• Referral fee of up to 15%
• Advertising costs up to 15%
• Fulfillment by Amazon 20% to 35%

In addition, many of the products on Amazon are dropshipped from marketplaces like AliExpress and Wish, which both allow dropshipping (Temu does not to prevent products from being sold on Amazon). For example, a seller lists products for sale on Amazon at a marked-up price, but doesn’t actually hold any inventory. When an order is received through Amazon, the seller places an order with their supplier on AliExpress and ships it directly to the buyer, pocketing the difference.

Temu warehouses and ships products to customers from China, resulting in longer delivery times, while Amazon warehouses and ships from “fulfilment centres” across Canada get products to customers in a couple of business days.

Temu vs Wish, AliExpress

While often compared to Shein and Amazon, Temu is most similar to Alibaba’s AliExpress and Wish. It is the latest company to spend heavily on marketing trying to become the go to place that Canadian consumers buy Chinese-made products.

Wish, a US-based app and site that features many Chinese vendors, was the most-downloaded e-commerce application worldwide in 2018, spent US$1.7 billion on sales and marketing in 2020 and was the top advertiser on Facebook and Instagram and among the biggest on Google in 2021.

However, it struggled with so many quality control, scams and dangerous products that it spawned memes:

After their rapid revenue growth and IPO in December 2020, they continued to lose money and eventually had to cut their sales and marketing budget by 77% in 2022, causing their revenue to fall by 73%.

AliExpress, a China-based marketplace launched in 2010 is popular in Brazil, Spain and Russia, but hasn’t become mainstream in Canada.

Time will tell how Temu’s attempt at pitching cheap items at high discounts fueled by ads will end up.

Is Temu legitimate?

Yes, Temu is a legitimate online shopping platform. Their Chinese parent company is publicly-listed on the US stock market and has a market cap of $118 billion.

The products are real and you will receive them – eventually – as it takes 8 to 25 days for them to arrive at Canadian addresses. Temu offers a $5 credit for packages that arrive late to provide some reassurance that the products will show up.

If you receive your items and they don’t look like their online listing, or they arrive damaged, or they don’t arrive at all, your order is eligible for Temu’sPurchase Protection Program. It guarantees that you can return your items within 90 days of purchase for a full refund.

Who owns Temu?

Temu is owned by PDD Holdings (NASDAQ: PDD), a publicly-traded Chinese company which changed its name from Pinduoduo Inc. in February 2023. It is headquartered in Ireland after moving it from Shanghai in May 2023, registered in Cayman Islands and founded by Chinese billionaire Colin Huang in 2015. It had revenues of US$19 billion in 2022.

PDD is known for its online marketplace Pinduoduo in China, where it sells many of the same kinds of products, with a focus on small farmers selling to consumers. Temu is the internationally-targeted version and “sibling company” of the Pinduoduo marketplace.

The core feature of Pinduoduo is team purchasing, where buyers can form a group in order to receive a lower, discounted price from sellers and if a team is formed within 24 hours, the purchase is confirmed and shipped.

How are Temu’s prices so low?

Many of the prices seem unbelievable and too good to be true:

• Sunglasses for $3
• Phone chargers for $6
• Meat thermometer for $12 (vs $20 on Amazon)
• Headlamp for $6
• Necklaces for $2
• Running shoes for $15
• Keyboards for $15
• 5 pairs of socks for $4.50
• 250 zip ties for $2
• Lenovo LP3 wireless earbuds (Lenovo products)

… plus free international shipping on orders over $15. Temu does charge sales taxes (GST, HST, PST, QST) in Canada, but says they are responsible as an importer for duties and tariffs.

So, what’s the catch?

Here is why Temu can sell at such low prices:

Temu isn’t profitable

The company is losing an average of US$30 per order and losing US$588 million to US$954 million per year as the company tries to gain market share and brand awareness according to Wired. These subsidies and loss leaders given to early customers probably won’t last forever, but the deep pockets of its parent company can certainly afford it.

In Canada, most of Temu’s subsidies come in the form of free international shipping. The cost of shipping a small package from Guangzhou to the US is around US$14 and Temu pays US$9 to US$10 of that, with the logistics provider paying the rest.

De minimis loophole and US-China trade war

In the US, Temu and other China-to-consumer companies benefit from two tax advantages:

1. Orders valued at less than the de minimis threshold of $800 don’t have to pay import duties or be inspected by US Customs when entering the US. The threshold was increased from $200 to $800 in 2016 to reduce costs to the private sector and facilitate trade, as advocated for by large online retailers and delivery services.
2. China waived up to 13% in export taxes for direct-to-consumer companies in 2018 as part of their response to the trade war.

For example, a typical cotton T-shirt doesn’t have to pay up 13% in import taxes, a 16.5% import duty or a 7.5% tariff specific to China, resulting in savings of 37%.

In Canada, the de minimis threshold is $20 for goods imported to Canada from any country other than Mexico and US, resulting in higher prices on Temu for Canadians when compared to the US.

Cutting out the middleman

Chinese-based companies like Temu and AliExpress allow the manufacturing base in China to sell directly to Canadian consumers and cut out higher margin US- and Canada-based middlemen: wholesalers, distributors, retailers, private labeland dropshipping brands that add their own margin at each step, a process known as “disintermediation“.

Squeezing suppliers

Unlike on AliExpress and Amazon where sellers set their own prices and do their own marketing, Temu uses a “fully managed” “consignment” approach, where they negotiate with sellers and agree on a price beforehand, locking the sellers’ profit margin. The seller then sends their products to Temu’s warehouses.

From there, Temu does everything else – marketing, logistics, fulfilment, and customer service.It has full control of the prices on its platform and only pays merchants when the product sells. The difference can be substantial: buying goods for $1.50 to $2 while selling them for $8 to $9.

They also use a bidding system to select the supplier with the lowest bid for “standardized” products. This lowest-price-takes-all approach forces suppliers to lower prices, incentivizing them to pressure their employees with low wages and long working hours.

Product reviews

In general, products on Temu seem to fall into 3 broad categories:

1. Identical to Amazon, but for half the price of brands like HOMEXCEL, Swpeet and CeyMlem
2. Misleading/bait-and-switch that aren’t as good as they seemed in the listing, but barely meet expectations
3. Duds and dupes that barely or do not work or are guilty of trademark infringement

Each product I received was the “minimum acceptable quality” to justify giving the product its name and pretty much met my expectations. The quality is about what you can expect for the price you pay – they both have $6 t-shirts and $15 t-shirts.

Chinese-made products have a reputation of lower quality, that isn’t always the case. Many products sold by different brands are made in the same factories, but with different specification requirements and quality control parameters.

However, the lowest price wins on Temu, and quality can therefore be reduced up to the point that too many customers start complaining and returning the product.

Microfibre cloths

Unlike the ones from Home Depot, the microfibre cloths did not have a tag or any other identifying details stating where they were made or what materials they were made from. They felt more cheaply made, were less plush and rougher to the touch.

Stainless steel soap dish

A simple metal soap dish secured by an adhesive rather than an unreliable suction cup. I was happy with this purchase.

Glasses cleaning cloths

These ended up being see through, light, thin and scratchy. Not sure I’d want to wipe my glasses’ lens with them. Upon further review, the product only has 33 reviews, while these glasses cleaners have a much better reputation than the ones I bought: 531 reviews and 100+ re-purchases.

Benefits of Temu

Temu offers a lot of great shopping features that I wish other platforms would add:

Free shipping and low order minimum

Temu’s order minimum was $15, far less than other online retailers. For reference, an Amazon order has to be at least $35 to qualify for free shipping in Canada.

Sales data and reviews

• Customer reviews of the product with photos
• Seller reviews
• Product’s sales
• Sellers sales
• Customer repurchases

Order tracking

My $22 order for delivery in Ontario had order tracking by FedEx:

And received the following updates about it:

• July 20 – Order confirmation
• July 22 – Shipped
• July 27 – Received by FedEx
• July 28 – Out for delivery
• July 28 – Delivered

Free returns for 90 days

Temu’s Return Policy in Canada states that you can return items for a full refund within 90 days from the date of purchase (not the date you received the items). Return shipping is free, but only on the first return processed on every order.

This means that if you return one of the items from an order, it will be free. If you later decide to return another item from that same order, a $9 return shipping fee will be deducted from your refund.

However, they do not accept returns of:

• Clothing items that are worn, washed, damaged, with tags, packaging, or hygiene sticker removed or in an incomplete set.
• Items that are labeled as non-refundable
• Free gifts

Price adjustment for 30 days

Temu’s Price Adjustment policy states that they will pay you the difference if the price of a product you purchased is reduced in your region within 30 days of your purchase.

It does not cover:

• Clearance
• Promotions
• Products that are no longer available
• Fees, including shipping fees

2% to 5% cash back via Rakuten

Get 2% to 5% cash back on your Temu purchases with Rakuten:

Downsides of Temu

Companies like Shein and Temu face growing concerns and reports of their connections to the use ofslave labor, selling clothescontaminated with leadand other dangerous chemicals, and the unsustainable approach of over producing cheap products that end up in giant landfills.

Temu’s Third Party Code of Conduct expects its sellers do research to ensure that they are following the law, and will issue warnings, removals or bans if a product comes to their attention, but it is unclear how much active enforcement they do.

Labour practices

Temu does not have a system to ensure compliance with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), conducting no audits or reports to make an effort to keep products made with forced labour off the platform according to a report by the Select Committee.

They don’t have a policy that explicitly prohibits the sale of goods from Xinjiang – the location of the CCP’s ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs. At least 10 items made or sold by businesses in Xinjiang are also available to buy on Temu.

Tests by Agroisolab GmbH in Germany linked the cotton in competitor Shein’s clothing to cotton from the region.

Their use of the de minimis exemption means that the products cannot practically be subjected to UFLPA enforcement in the US.

In 2021, the deaths of two employees of their parent company Pinduoduo resulted in investigations and boycottsover the company’s working conditions.

Sustainability

Temu, Shein and AliExpress all say they’re committed to environmental sustainability by digitalizing the economy, cutting supply chain waste, and offsetting carbon emissions, however they don’t specify to what extent they accomplish this.

Temu has planted 20,000 trees across Africa through Trees for the Future in 2023. For a company that’s selling hundreds of millions of dollars in product a month, they could do much, much more than that.

Counterfeits and knockoffs

Temu’s Intellectual Property (IP) Policy states that they are committed to protecting IP rights including copyrights and trademarks and that they will remove or disable access to the infringing products, but counterfeit or imitation products (or “dupes”) are very common on the platform as copyrights and trademarks aren’t actively protected.

For example, here are fake Carhartt hats:

There’s the knockoff Apple AirPods that got a lot of attention on TikTok.

YouTuber Make Something found a number of knockoff woodworking tools on Temu, including:

• Rockler Silicone Glue Applicator ($28) vs the very similar dupe ($12) on Temu
• Knew Concepts Coping Saw ($149) vs the dupe ($10)

The original versions have their patent number displayed directly on the product, pointing to the time and money went into their research and development. Patents and IP rights are there to protect those investments and encourage innovation.

All online marketplaces seem to struggle with moderating their listings to varying degrees. Pinduoduo has sold many counterfeits, illegal goods, or products that do not match their descriptions and was added USlistofNotorious Markets for Counterfeit Products and Piracy in 2022. Amazon has also dealt with its own share of reports of counterfeit items and dangerous products.

Data collection and privacy

Temu’s Privacy Policy states that they’ll collect everything you give them, including:

• Personal information
• Content you upload
• Transaction data
• Payment details
• Government ID numbers

Combine it with data they get from other sources, including:

• Public sources, including social media and government agencies
• Data they acquire from 3rd parties

And use it to target you with personalized ads and share it with affiliated companies, marketing partners, and the authorities, as necessary.

On the face of it, their data collection and privacy policies are similar to those of the big tech companies in North America, your data is simply within arms reach of the Chinese government, rather than that of the US.

However the Chinese ownership of the company raises cybersecurity, data privacy, and supply chain concerns according to a reportby the U.S.-China Economics and Security Revision Commission (USCC).

In March 2023, Google removed Pinduoduo’s app from itsPlay Storedue to security concerns after it was found to containmalware, which was confirmed by Finnish, Russian, US, and Israeli cybersecurity teams, as well as Chinese cybersecurity firm DarkNavy in a CNN investigation. They found that it could bypass users’ mobile security software to monitor activities on other apps – including checking notifications and reading private messages.

There is no evidence to suggest that Temu’s app is malware, but it did violate Apple’s mandatory privacy rules, misleading people about the types of data its app can access, how it does so and what it uses them for by not being accurate or transparent on Apple’s Privacy Nutrition Labels. This issue was resolved and the app was back in the App Store in early July 2023.

Shipping is slow and in minimal packaging

Products ship directly from China, so they typically take 7 to 15 days to cross the ocean and arrive at your door – much slower than the 1-3 days that you’d get with Amazon.

Temu promises a $5 credit within 48 hours if your order doesn’t arrive by a certain date. In my case, I would receive the credit if it didn’t arrive in 11 days. I received my order in 8 days, 3 days before the deadline.

Misleading product photos

Some product listings’ are misleading as the item in the photo does not match the price shown below it. It is only revealed that the item shown costs more after you click on it and are about to add it to your cart – a bait-and-switch.

For example, this listing shows 20 scrubbers and the price shows $5.97:

Clicking into the product page you’ll see the same thing – 20 scrubbers, $5.97:

After reading some reviews and looking at the product photos, you go to add the item to your cart, but there are a couple of options: size and quantity.

When you select what you think was shown in the photo, in this case “Medium” and “20”, the price nearly triples to $15.27, leaving you to go back to the drawing board or proceed with the purchase. In my opinion, this is a form of drip pricing.

Misleading review layout

Product listings in search or category pages will show that a product has hundreds, if not thousands of reviews:

This review count also features prominently on the product page next to the title:

But upon closer review, that review count and average rating that of the third-party seller, not the product featured on the page. In this case, the product only has 2 reviews, while all the that the shop sells:

Shopping gamification and social proof

Temu uses many psychological triggers to tap into cognitive biases and create a sense of urgency and scarcity to pressure users into buying more and buying faster. The platform as a whole has a kind of frenetic energy about it.

This countdown timer at the top makes it seem like free shipping is only available for a limited time, but in reality free shipping has been available on the site since it launched and the timer simply resets every 24 hours. If challenged on this, I expect the company would probably claim that the “free shipping on all orders” and countdown clock are separate features of the site and are not connected.

Of course, few things on the internet are actually scarce. Companies would actually rather sell you more of a product than run out permanently and stop making money.

They also layer on the social proof since people trust and copy the actions they believe have been taken by others, showing you:

How many people are viewing a product:

How many have added it to cart:

How many have purchased and gave it a 5 star recently:

Limited product information

Product pages have a title and a few photos, but additional details are often scarce. Many descriptions read like they were generated by AI and seem to say a lot, without actually saying much at all. How products are made, what materials they’re made from and how those materials are sourced are often missing.

Legitimacy of reviews

The company sponsors and incentivizes content creators, but there is no evidence to suggest that the product reviews on Temu are fake. So far I have not been aggressively prompted or incentivized in any way to leave reviews of the products I purchased.

However, fake reviews on online retailers are a persistent problem, with Amazon banning 600 Chinese brands across 3,000 different seller accounts for review fraud in 2021.

What are the best products to buy on Temu?

In general, simple, standardized, non-consumable products are the best products to buy on Temu – particularly those that are one-time use. The quality may be low, but the difference is negligible and won’t matter if they get thrown out after a few uses.

• Stainless steel scrubbers
• Plastic funnels
• Phone chargers
• Universal remote
• Headphones and earbuds
• Enamel pins
• Paint scraper

What products should I avoid on Temu?

Like dollar stores, be extra cautious when buying something that you are going to eat, will touch food or put on your skin, such as makeup and beauty products, shampoo, dish soap, detergent, pet food and toys, sunscreen, etc. as they may contain harsher ingredients or be watered down to keep costs low.

Don’t expect anything to be long-lasting or durable. Avoid products that see heavy, regular or repetitive use such as brooms, mops, tools, kitchen utensils, etc.

Temu reviews

Temu has:

• Over 5,000 TrustPilot reviews and a 3.5 rating
• Over 1,000 SiteJabber reviews and a 3.36 rating
• Not been accredited by Better Business Bureau (BBB) and has 781 reviews and a 2.55 rating

Of the negative reviews, most people complain about:

• Long delivery times or products never arriving
• Unresponsive customer service
• Low quality items
• Delays in receiving refunds

Sources

• Shein, Temu, and Chinese e-Commerce: Data Risks, Sourcing Violations, and Trade Loopholes – US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC)
• Temu Is Losing Millions of Dollars to Send You Cheap Socks – Wired
• How Retail App Temu Lures US Shoppers With Mind-Bending Prices – Wired
• The reason why Pinduoduo US (Temu) is 30% cheaper than Amazon – 42shops

Contact Temu

• Live chat
• Address: First Floor, 25 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland
  • Toronto Warehouse:202 Sparks Ave, North York, ON M2H 2S4
  • Vancouver Warehouse:102-3750 North Fraser Way, Burnaby, BC V5J 5E9
    

Customer reviews

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If you’ve bought something on Temu we’re interested to know your thoughts. Do you think it is worth it? What are your (least) favourite things about the retailer?