{"id":610184,"date":"2025-09-09T13:02:47","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T11:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=610184"},"modified":"2025-09-09T13:05:43","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T11:05:43","slug":"temu-fighting-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/business\/610184-temu-fighting-back.html","title":{"rendered":"Temu fighting back"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After months of turmoil from Donald Trump\u2019s tariff changes, e-commerce platform Temu<\/a> is charging back into the US market with deep discounts to regain ground against rival Shein Group Ltd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least two dozen of Temu\u2019s best-selling products tracked by Bloomberg have seen prices drop by 18% on average in early September compared with late April, when small parcels still enjoyed duty-free access to the US under the so-called \u201cde minimis\u201d tariff exemption. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some items have seen cuts as deep as 60%. The push comes after Temu \u2014 hit hard by the levy changes \u2014 briefly retracted from the US market,\u00a0pivoting\u00a0instead to Europe and other parts of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The discount retailer\u2019s US sales plunged more than 30% during some weeks in June and continued to fall by more than 10% in July and August, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Second Measure, which analyses credit and debit card transactions in America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The PDD Holdings Inc.-owned platform now appears to have had a change of heart amid Shein\u2019s return to growth in the US even with higher prices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides the deep discounts, Temu has stopped charging buyers import fees that caused prices to increase steeply \u2014 at times forcing customers to pay taxes that exceeded <\/a>the cost of the items themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company, which built its business around shipping goods in small parcels from Chinese factories to other countries, found the model shaken after US President Trump removed the de minimis exemption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Temu did not respond to queries on the price cuts. But it\u2019s been pushing merchants to restock for the US holiday season with deep discounts, people familiar with the matter said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One merchant said Temu has recently boosted alerts on a portal meant for sellers, urging them to cut prices in exchange for better app traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company has also stepped up its advertisements in the US, whose daily new ad numbers have jumped to a few thousand or exceeded 10,000 on some days after dropping to just a few dozen or less most days in the second quarter, according to data tracked by Appgrowing Global.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Struggling despite resurgent advertising<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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That said, marketing efforts remain subdued compared to the pre-tariff peak, when the platform was flooding consumers with more than 20,000 new ads a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While several Temu merchants in China told Bloomberg News they are largely willing to cut prices and welcome more channels to boost US sales despite thinner margins, growth remains elusive so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four of them reported continued declines, with one citing as much as a 20% drop in recent weeks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those selling across multiple US e-commerce platforms, Temu has slipped to become their lowest-performing channel since cutting its ad spend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, Shein\u2019s sales in the US recovered after a brief dip following the end of the de minimis tariff exemption. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company has raised prices since, though growth has slowed in recent weeks and contracted toward late August, according to Second Measure data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Temu is working with third-party courier services to build a comprehensive logistics network \u2014 from cross-border shipments out of China to the US, warehouse storage and last-mile delivery, the people said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company has encouraged sellers using alternative logistics providers \u2014 or those with no arrangements of their own \u2014 to adopt its services, they added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this year, Temu had asked merchants to ship their products in bulk and find warehouses on their own in the US. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then many small merchants without logistics options of their own left the platform. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some bigger merchants involved in cross-border e-commerce on other platforms, such as Amazon.com Inc., have been using third-party courier services to ship their Temu orders to consumers, including Amazon\u2019s fulfilment services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After months of turmoil from Donald Trump’s tariff changes, e-commerce platform\u00a0Temu\u00a0is charging back into the US market with deep discounts to regain ground against rival Shein.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":524604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[11165,10412,94771,58662,80653,87953,59479],"class_list":["post-610184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-e-commerce","tag-online-shopping","tag-pdd-holdings","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-shein","tag-temu","tag-us-china-trade-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610184"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610184"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":610267,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610184\/revisions\/610267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}