Since last year I have been receiving daily promotional emails, seeing commercials that are hard to resist and noticing influencers on TikTok and Instagram promoting a rapidly growing e-commerce platform named “Temu,” which is popular in China like “Shein.”
The emails have tempting subject lines such as: “Enjoy 90% off on everything!”, “Limited-time offer!”, “It’s almost gone!”, “Giveaways and coupons!” and “Shop like a billionaire!” And I’m not the only one being targeted by these irresistible and powerful campaigns, but Temu's success lies in a darker reality.
What is Temu?
Temu is an online discount marketplace. It is an e-commerce platform that has become popular in recent years by offering deep discounts on a wide range of products that are already extremely low-priced. It provides a wide range of products including clothing, beauty products, tools and appliances. Temu ships products directly from China to consumers in 50 countries and utilizes China's low-cost manufacturing and cheap labor to maintain low operational costs and product prices.
Is Temu eco-friendly?
This fast-fashion brand harms the environment because its business model encourages customers to purchase frequently. Most of these items are of poor quality which isn’t surprising given their low prices and after a few uses, they end up in landfills. This leads to increased production of disposable products, excessive use of packaging materials and increased carbon emissions from global shipping. Temu sends almost one million packages around the world every day besides transportation.
At the same time, Temu creates the false reality that they are committed to environmental sustainability. Its website claims to offset carbon emissions for every order and encourages customers to combine small orders to reduce waste in excess packaging. They also highlight a partnership where they contribute towards tree planting to reduce their carbon emissions. These trees were planted by Temu and its users. When you are ready to place an order you can check the "Plant with Temu" box at checkout by paying some extra money.
With this being the only apparent step made towards sustainability, with no significant sustainable efforts made within the company itself, coupled with accusations of greenwashing to mask their environmental and social impacts, could we really say that Temu is a sustainable and eco-friendly brand?
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27 w
Behind the extremely low price, it's the exploitation of workers, the non-viability of many traders, and the coming drop of employment. PDD(拼多多), the company behind Temu has a long history (since 2015) in China before expanding to the global stage and its reputation was pretty bad. But their target customers are normally non-academics or those who can't afford the high price, and they often don't see the environmental, economic, and employment rate impacts behind the low price.
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31 w
As a young person I am bombarded by Temu ads of free gifts, cool inexpensive gadgets and the phrase: shop like a billionaire. As billionaires are some of the most polluting people in the world I don't think it is something to strive for! Also, billionaires don't buy cheap crap from China that breaks within a week and contains dangerous toxins cause it's not regulated!
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31 w
@Jennie_849 indeed, very shameful
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31 w
Such companies should be put on hold
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31 w
It's troubling to see Temu's rapid rise in the e-commerce world, especially with its aggressive marketing strategies and influencer endorsements.
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31 w
Such industries that poses danger to the environment should be held accountable and be fined heavily
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31 w
Cheap tatty rubbish that just creates more rubbish on our planet.
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31 w
Every firm should be responsible for their in impact on the environment and hence Temu should be more committed to be more environment sustainable
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31 w
@jane_wangui For a business to continue in an ethical manner, it must respect the planet by limiting its impact on the environment as much as possible.
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31 w
I got an online friend who ordered from Temu tempted by their crazy offers. Everything he received was flimsy or already broken. The clothes were very low quality. I even got mad at him because I warned him, being him also tight on money. Such a company should not exist. It doesn't only damage the environment, it also exploits their workers and it literally scams the customers with horrible quality items. Customers who, very often, are not in good economic conditions, making them believe they can have a lot of stuff for a stupidly low price.
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31 w
This is worrying!! And this underscores the industry's unsustainable practices!!!