A document 123 million Americans tuned into this week’s Super Bowl.
However, they also received six 30-second commercials for Temu, a Chinese-owned e-commerce business, as well as the nation’s largest recreational event, a movie time performance, and many camera cutaways of Taylor Swift in the crowd.
Temu says it” completely prohibits” the use of required, punitive, or kid labour by all its retailers.
The company, which sells anything from clothes to technology and equipment, initially launched in the US in 2022 and afterwards in the UK and the rest of the world.
Since then, it has consistently topped international software download tables, with just under 152 million Americans using it every month, according to statistics gathered by scientist SimilarWeb.
It’s” Amazon on steroids”, says financial scientist Neil Saunders, and with the motto” purchase like a businessman” it has exploded in popularity, shipping to 49 countries worldwide.
A typical 30- second Super Bowl commercial costs around$ 7m ( £5.5m ), during this year’s event Temu had six of them.
” It’s a lot of money for a very, short commercial”, Mr Saunders says.
However, it is seen by a sizable number of people, and Temu’s downloading have spiked as a result, he continues.
8.2 million people visited the website and app on the day of the Super Bowl, according to SimilarWeb data, which indicates personal visitors to the system were up by almost a quarter on the day of the game. In the same time, Amazon and Ebay’s customers were down by 5 % and 2 % respectively.
According to Mr. Saunders,” They’ve also spent a lot of money on micro-marketing, persuading bloggers to push products and recommend buying items on the program via social programs like TikTok and YouTube.”
These influencers typically have fewer than 10, 000 followers according to Ines Durand, an e- commerce expert at SimilarWeb.
” Micro- influencers have strong communities, so their endorsement means a strong trust towards these products”, she explains.
According to Shaun Rein, the founder of the China Market Research Group, Temu is owned by Chinese giant Pinduoduo, who calls it” a monster in Chinese e-commerce.”
” Throughout China, everyone buys products on Pinduo, from speakers to t- shirts or socks”, he says.
The business consistently competes with Alibaba for the top spot of the most valuable Chinese company listed on a US stock exchange. Its current worth sits at just under$ 150bn ( £117bn ).
Pinduoduo expanded internationally with Temu, using the same model that had ensured its previous success, while the Chinese consumer market was still under its control. According to Mr Rein, who is based in Shanghai, the firm has become a great source of pride and patriotism.
They’re proud that Chinese businesses like Amazon can slay the e-commerce dragons from the United States, he says.
A quick search through the Temu app or website will reveal everything, from steel-toecap trainers to a device made to assist the elderly and pregnant women in putting on socks. A menagerie of manufactured goods, almost entirely produced in factories in China, Mr Rein explains.
” Temu use an amazing, system that relies on, heavy data collection at scale”, says Ines Durand.
” They collect data on consumer trends, the most searched and clicked products, which they give to individual manufacturers”.
Ms. Durand claims that Temu provides this information to producers for free, as opposed to Amazon, which sells it to manufacturers for a sizable sum of money.
The product on sale may not even exist yet, according to Ms. Durand because the platform frequently uses AI-generated images to stay current with the most recent trends. Then they are transported by air.
” It means products do n’t need to be stored. They do n’t need to go to warehouses once it’s shipped by aeroplane, you go straight to the customer”, says Ines Durand.
According to a report from the US Congress, a third of the parcels that entered the US last year were from Temu and Shein, which is a shipping loop known as the de minimis threshold.
De minimis thresholds are used by many nations, including the UK and the USA, to facilitate the importation of goods.
So as Temu’s goods are shipped directly from the factory floors, cutting out the middlemen, they become essentially duty- free.
More regulation may be on the horizon to close up shipping loopholes, however, according to Mickey Diaz, chief operating officer at global freight company Unique Logistics.
” The UK has already started to look at Temu with some scrutiny,” she says, noting that some weapons were being imported because of these flaws.
Temu has received criticism for its supply chains, as well as from UK and US politicians who accuse the online retailer of allowing products made using forced labor to be sold on its website.
Temu says it” completely prohibits” the use of required, punitive, or kid labour by all its retailers.
It recommended that anyone doing business with the BBC follow all regulatory standards and compliance requirements.
” Temu’s merchants, suppliers, and other third parties must pay their employees and contractors on time and comply with all applicable local wage and hours laws.
Our current standards and practices are comparable to those on other major e-commerce platforms that consumers can trust, and any allegations made in this regard are untrue, according to a spokesperson.
Despite the controversy, analysts expect further expansion for Temu.
Retail analyst Neil Saunders predicts that “we’ll probably see teams start starting to round out its offer more, perhaps pushing into some slightly higher priced products.”
The goal, in the eyes of Shaun Reid, will be to capture a bigger share of the market.
Their strategy is only to increase brand awareness and market share for the next two to three years. They do n’t care about profits.
” That’s exactly what happened with Pinduoduo when it first launched in China. They were offering incredibly low-cost deals just to increase market share.