What is Temu?

Like Amazon, Temu sells almost anything- from clothing to cleaning goods, you name them! They even cover some niche areas, such as mechanical keycaps and dice for table role-playing games. You can also find many convenient gadgets for the household. Many are recently showcased throughout many short-formed videos on social media.

Their wide coverage of product types is already surprising, but here’s what makes Temu even more attractive. Most products you find on Temu will cost less than $15. This includes branded electronics like Lenovo wireless earplugs. If you look up Lenovo’s product line on its official website, you can find that the cheapest product will still cost around $45. A branded wireless earplug sold at less than 50% of its original price? It seems too good to be true, but we’ll get to that topic of authenticity a bit later.

The last factor that characterises Temu is the large number of gamified offers. You’ll see many popups as you navigate through its app version. For example, Temu will ask you to send referrals to your friends for a chance to win a free product. They also have popups of mini-games, where you can collect tokens for a future discount. Besides these, you will also see many countdown clocks on its platform. The clocks try to push you into purchasing products with limited discounts and free shipping. If free shipping piques your interest, be aware that this is a part of their launch campaign. It’s not clear whether they’ll continue to provide unconditional free shipping after the timer ends, so we’ll have to see later.

Some say the product quality was terrible, and some say the product quality was superb. There’s a possibility that the positive reviews were sponsored reviews, so who knows what to believe? The most balanced reviews are the reviews saying it’s fair if you consider the price. It is like getting something at the $2 shop, it might do the job, and that’s it. So, if that’s okay with you, you can give it a go.

Another aspect to take note of is that Temu sells cheaper or fake versions of brands. It also means it’s stealing IP, and some smaller business owners are not happy about this. Anyhow, you can imagine the quality of fake versions, right? 

If you want high-quality products from Temu, try ordering Chinese-brand products like Xiaomi, Huawei and Lenovo. You will likely get the real thing, considering that Temu’s parent corporate originates from China. Especially for Lenovo products, make sure you buy a product with a blue verification badge. It should also say, “Direct from Lenovo”.

The shipping experience also vastly differs depending on the person. Some say it took very long, and some say it was faster than they thought. Users say an ‘urge shipment’ button is on the app, but it’s likely just a part of Temu’s gamification scheme and doesn’t have any effect. For those who did get their order, overall, shipping seems to take an average of 10 days. The time given is within the timeframe that Temu presents, 7-15 business days. But it isn’t if you look at its express shipping timeframe of 1-3 business days.

Why did everyone experience a different shipping speed? It seems the fulfilment process is the one that takes up time. Temu has written that order processing can take 1-3 business days. But it doesn’t seem to be the case. Because fulfilment takes time, people won’t be able to see any tracking until Temu ships the order out. It makes it feel like it takes longer.

At least Temu has a shipping policy: if an order is not shipped within 15 days, it will issue a refund. Any transaction from Temu will usually be made within 5 minutes. You can also choose to receive Temu credits instead, which will be instantaneously provided. It could take 5-14 business days for the refund to be reflected in your deposit, depending on your financial institution. At the longest, it could take up to 30 business days.

On the other hand, Temu’s packaging method seems to be convenient. Instead of separately sending products, Temu combines your order products into one parcel. That way, you won’t have to wait for many packages. As long as your orders get fulfilled, it’s likely that you will get your orders in due time.

The only problem with packaging is that the products get shipped in a bag instead of a box. It means if you order anything fragile, it will get damaged at a high possibility.

Remember that Temu has lots of gamification? Almost everyone says that the promotions are all a scam. There are few reports of getting gifts or discounts. Some people say referrals also don’t gift you with anything. Once you realise that, the popups get annoying with their frequent appearance.

Temu’s free shipping campaign is also a bit iffy. It promotes free shipping as if there are no prerequisites. But later, it shows a $20 minimum spend to get free shipping. There are more cases of sudden costs in Temu. People have seen pricing for a product changing between pages. It would be shocking, especially when you realise the changes when you’re about to checkout.

Now, let’s look at Temu’s returns process. Temu accepts returns with free shipping within 90 days of purchase. The timeframe is longer than the average for other platforms. One thing you need to be aware of is that it is from the day of purchase. Not from the day of receiving your order. Your return has to be postmarked within 14 days after you submit your return. Otherwise, your return will be terminated and you won’t get your refund.

Refunds for returns work similarly to what was mentioned in the shipping section. The only difference is that Temu will start processing your refund after they receive the return and inspect the products.