Temu is an online shopping megastore offering just about any product you can think of. You can buy car accessories, clothing, small home appliances, outdoor furniture, power tools, baby clothes, and everything in between.
Temu is based in Boston, but its parent company is in Beijing.
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But the most stand-out feature about Temu is that many of the site’s products are incredibly cheap. You can buy sunglasses for $2, necklaces for $1, and glow-in-the-dark pet collars for $3. If you can imagine it, it’s probably on Temu for less than $10.
Temu is a globalized version of Pinduoduo, a Chinese e-commerce company. Like Shein, AliExpress, and Wish, Temu advertises products for a low price and can do so because of lower manufacturing costs in China.
But AliExpress and Wish never caught on with American audiences, mainly because the product listings were often fake, cheaply made, and arrived significantly later than expected.
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Temu launched in late 2022 and quickly rose to the top spot in the App Store and Play Store’s shopping categories. People found out about Temu from ads and were attracted to the site’s low prices. According to Meta’s Ad Library, Temu has run about 3,400 Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger ads since November 19, 2022.
According to MIT Technology Review, similar apps like Shein and AliExpress only promote dozens of ads once.