I’m often skeptical of purchasing items from online stores outside our borders. I downloaded Wish a few years ago, along with the Amazon app, but never saw it through.

Temu
Image: Foundry

The one time I did try buying something was when I ordered a poster for my wife’s birthday from Etsy in 2022. Unfortunately, it didn’t arrive (seller blames our postal service) so I ordered again five months later and gave my father-in-law’s address. Well, I hope someone at the Post Office enjoys Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Temu purchase timelines

Like many of you who are reading this I was recently inundated with ads for Temu and a few things convinced me to pull the trigger – free delivery, provided you purchase minimum of R200 worth of goods; courier to my door – no more dealing with SA Postal Service; one click payment for tax and customs, I don’t know if others offer this but I appreciated it; and a ridiculous variety of items that were really cheap, including a PSP memory card adaptor I couldn’t find locally.

I placed an order on the app on Friday 8 March, ordering a chicken shredder, 10 pack of NFC tags, the PSP memory card adaptor, a Lord of the Rings metal wall hook, a mini kalimba, a docking station, video capture card, some luminous garden alien figurines, and a few other things. It came to about R500.

There were a variety of payment options including Google Pay and I’m told Apple Pay by a friend; I have an Android. Payment was easy, felt secure and painless. Temu gave me an eight-hour window to add a few more things to my cart before processing.

A few days later on Tuesday, 12 March, I received an email and text informing me to pay Customs. It came to around R75. We’ve ordered a few more times since and it’s always been about 15% of the total. My parcel was delivered to my home the following Wednesday, 20 March and I was really happy with most of my purchases.

How to: Shop at Shein

All the electronic gadgets worked well, the kalimba is fantastic – I’m learning to play Saria’s song from Legend of Zelda; the Lord of the Rings wall hook is up and the chicken shredder made quick work of two fillets we wanted to shred for toasted chicken and mayo sandwiches. My wife hates shredding chicken, so this was a Godsend.

The only thing that was underwhelming were the garden figurines as I expected them to glow a little brighter, but it wasn’t a big deal as they do look cool in my pot plants. A big plus is that Temu has a price adjustment policy so customers can get refunds on products that have dropped in price within 30 days of ordering. This shaved off about 10 percent of the cost and was added as credit to my account.

Temu public perception and feedback

I posted about my experience on Facebook and a few friends commented that they do not support Temu because of allegations of forced labour, privacy concerns and exploitation. While some of the coverage does come across as anti-Chinese propaganda, it’s worth reading up on it as part of your decision-making process. I’m going to try and read more about it.

Temu denies these allegations vehemently so it could become a ‘he said she said’ conversation. There are also concerns that Temu’s aggressive marketing campaign is driving up the price of digital advertising, making it more difficult for other brands to compete.

This is both a challenge and opportunity for other brands to consider different tactics and approaches, especially those who can add differentiation and tangible localised experiences/sampling.

Another issue and perhaps one that is commonly associated with ‘fast fashion’ is the concern around the waste and clutter.

I can see how easy it is to fall into the trap of buying things you want as opposed to things you need – in a whimsical manner, I don’t want to demonise buying stuff you want as it’s ok to get stuff that makes you happy, like a kalimba, and how excessive consumption could lead to increased waste, especially as there is a carbon footprint associated with the logistics of getting the goods here.

Like the labour concerns, Temu has a response for this, but it’s good to sleep on it before you checkout.

Hope this helps. Leave a comment if you’d like to know more.