Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads
- I wonder if we can look forward to the end of the letter soup brands on Amazon, it's ridiculously difficult finding real brands in between them.
That would be one silver lining in all this mess, at least.
- I loved temu, aliexpress, and shein. I probably averaged 1 item per day arriving to my house, for years and years. Mostly little electronics parts and specialized tools for my workshop. Buying from Amazon or locally would have cost me 10x as much. Obviously it's over now. Anyone getting a package in May will be hit with a $75-$150 or more bill per package, even a 75 cent envelope will be charged +$75. I feel bad for the unaware people still ordering. I'm surprised the websites don't even acknowledge this yet. I guess they are hoping for a reversal in the next 2 weeks.
by bufferoverflow
10 subcomments
- I used to buy a lot from Temu. Till I got a product that fell apart after three months. I tried to leave a bad review, but Temu wouldn't allow it. If you're trying to leave 3 star rating or below, they redirect you to customer service. But since customer service only dealt with items under 45 days (as far as I remember), they would just tell me something like "too bad, you're out of luck".
So I can't get a refund, I can't get a replacement, I can't leave bad review.
This was very eye-opening to me. I immediately uninstalled their stupid app.
- Good. They're pushing overpriced low-quality junk. If you want to buy from Temu but want a better chance at reasonable prices, shop AliExpress.
- Aren't Temu/Shein considered to be ultra-low-quality garbage, mostly? Don't people haul their items in order to promote their useless Instagram/TikTok, so their followers will buy the same ultra-low-quality garbage?
Don't get me wrong. I'm in favor of direct access to overseas markets, rather than local distributors slapping 200% margin on Chinese sourced/produced items that you can buy from AliExpress. But I'm not in favor of flooding the market with cheap, toxic, unsafe, non-lasting crap that ends up in landfill in a few weeks or days.
So no, I don't feel sorry for Temu.
by constantcrying
6 subcomments
- I hope temu and the other Chinese companies in that segment stop selling overseas. Their model is just incredibly destructive to the environment, they ship over the lowest quality garbage imaginable and create so much pollution and waste in the process.
I also have quite a bit of disdain for people using these sites. Nobody needs this and it is just harmful all around.
by grey-area
1 subcomments
- Interesting dynamic here with echoes of the .com bubble where there is a huge web of industries all dependent on the current setup continuing and money being available for consumer spending and ads - when that dries up it will impact not just those selling goods imported from China, but everyone in the US.
Disrupting US trade quickly with massive global tariffs will cause all sorts of secondary effects like a massive downturn in ad spending - directly affecting companies like Meta and Google who look insulated right now because they don't sell physical products.
Not a great time to be dependent on ad revenue.
- Good riddance. I'd rather have fewer things I care more about. If we rethink our consumption, we could become happier, need less space and spend less money even at higher prices. And when we do need to buy things, we'll be either supporting local workers or friendly nations.
by whatever1
1 subcomments
- Ads was THE thing that our tech industry was exporting to the world. I was astonished with the people who thought that tech would be not affected by the tariffs.
by 0xbadcafebee
0 subcomment
- I first learned about Temu when someone I barely knew messaged me saying they needed me to sign up to Temu under some referral code so they could get bonus points to shop more. They were addicted to shopping, and Temu was the most addictive thing on the internet. Like the Dollar Store, Amazon, slots, and a pyramid scheme, rolled into one.
by rtaylorgarlock
0 subcomment
- I'm relatively happy whenever I see negative news about Temu. Call it a bias, though my limited data[0] (itself biased) supports whatever negative perceptions I have towards Temu. The only brand to get 0/100? Why does human exploitation always have to pair with the absolute cheapest prices sourced from developing countries?
[0]: https://baptistworldaid.org.au/resources/ethical-fashion-rep...
- > shut off Google Shopping ads... App Store ranking subsequently plummeting
Are they implying that app store ranking was quid pro quo for ads buys?
by josefresco
3 subcomments
- Lot of "good they only sell crap" comments here. Would you guys feel the same about your neighborhood dollar store?
- Speaking of, anyone else has encountered issues while browsing temu? I'm facing captcha's most of the time. I mean the "slide to move piece into a position" which most of the times fails, after which I'm facing a more "difficult" pick object of color repeated etc. The site also after a while of browsing not logged in pushes me into login page. So I wonder if it's my browser and various adblocking extensions or it's a common thing?
- This might more be a European thing, but over here some of the sellers on marketplaces like Amazon, are linked with organised VAT/Tax fraud.
While I can't say it's all, it'll all things being equal, be baked in to the competitive dynamics. Thus undercutting legal operators, or destroying their profit (incentive) to provide good or domestically produced wares.
There's a podcast episode from some ML (money laundering) specialists, that make mention of it. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/trigger-warning/id1448...
- i dont know how long temu will last without americans, but it feels surreal that europeans have more buying power than americans
- Temu is absolutely amazing. I went from being a frequent Amazon customer in 2020 to not having used Amazon at all in 2024, all thanks to Temu.
by amanaplanacanal
1 subcomments
- I wonder what percentage of their sales has been in the US.
- As far as I know in Europe TEMU sends stuff from local fulfillment centers.
So maybe TEMU US can return in that form if the trade conflict settles.
- The Temu ads I see are so awful that they totally put me off from even wanting to look at their site.
- Good, happy to see this!
by maxehmookau
0 subcomment
- I wonder what the environmental impact of this would be.
- No loss there
- Temu's whole grift was subsidized products and subsided shipping and both of those things are no longer available why would they continue to worry about the US?
- Oh no!
anyway..
- temu and shein are cooked
- [dead]
- [flagged]
by animitronix
0 subcomment
- Finally
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