Two from Rest of World, November 14:
Chinese e-commerce platforms like Shein, Temu, and TikTok Shop are going global with big ambitions.
ales at Yiheng Battery were stagnating in the fall of 2022. The company, based in the eastern Chinese city of Yiwu, had done good business for 30 years selling button cell batteries — used in watches and other small devices — to customers at its factory and on Chinese shopping platform 1688. But the Covid-19 pandemic had taken a toll. “The [Chinese] economy was not doing well, and people were not spending,” Huang Qianqian, whose parents own the factory, told Rest of World. That October, Huang, 28, quit her job at a tech company to help out the family business.
Huang’s friends eventually told her about a new e-commerce platform, Temu, which had just launched in the U.S. Temu is owned by PDD Holdings, which also owns Pinduoduo, a Chinese online shopping app that is popular in China for its low prices and gamified features. Temu used similar tactics, but targeted American customers.
Huang convinced her parents to give Temu a try. It could be an opportunity, she reasoned, to take the business international. “A lot of second-generation factory owners like me will seek to break new ground when they start to take over the family business,” she said. “Temu’s launch felt like just the right time.” Yiheng Battery joined the platform in December.
Temu has caused a stir in Yiwu, which is famous for its sprawling wholesale markets. “Every time a platform rises to prominence, a large number of suppliers get rich here in Yiwu,” Huang said. “It used to be Amazon, [domestic e-commerce app] Taobao, and then Pinduoduo. Lately, a lot of people want to hop on the Temu train.”
China has been “the world’s factory” for decades, with made-in-China goods reaching global consumers through foreign brands, shops, or sites like Amazon. And the country has had a vibrant domestic e-commerce sector, with companies like Alibaba and JD.com growing into juggernauts.
But recently, Chinese-owned shopping platforms have begun looking beyond China’s borders. Temu joins ultrafast-fashion platform Shein and TikTok’s shopping feature TikTok Shop to herald a new, global era for Chinese e-commerce. Yao Kaifei, founder of e-commerce startup BrandAI, told Rest of World the country’s e-commerce sector is desperate to chuhai, or venture overseas. Sellers and platforms want to shed the reputation of selling cheap “made in China” gadgets, and make a name for themselves exporting whole brands and business models.
By September 2023, roughly a year after its launch, Temu had more than 61 million monthly active users in the U.S., according to research company Data.ai. It now sells in 48 countries around the world. Shein is one of the world’s biggest fast-fashion companies and has branched out to selling other products, such as homewares and electronics. It has been the top-ranked shopping app on the Google Play store in 115 countries, according to Data.ai. TikTok Shop, meanwhile, has seen quick growth in Southeast Asia, and launched in the U.S. this September....
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What is this thing? Guess Temu’s weirdest gadgets
Chinese e-commerce site Temu uses its most bizarre products in online ads. Rest of World tested them so you don’t have to.
If you’ve spent time online over the past year, you’ll likely have come across ads for some strange products. Some sort of yellow slime, a squishy toy with eight legs … What actually is that thing?
Online shopping platform Temu — owned by Chinese company PDD Holdings, which also operates the local e-commerce juggernaut Pinduoduo — launched in the U.S. towards the end of 2022, and is now in markets across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Oceania. This rapid expansion has been accompanied by an aggressive digital marketing and advertising campaign, enticing people to “shop like a billionaire” with ads for low-cost and often highly peculiar products.
Temu’s general marketing strategy centers around a value proposition, according to Shasha Wang, a senior lecturer at Queensland University of Technology who has been analyzing the platform. Its products — unusually cheap but still of relatively high quality compared to its competitors — are “challenging the existing perception about ‘Made in China,’” Wang told Rest of World.
emu’s choice to highlight “cheap but innovative” products in its ads, Wang said, stimulates curiosity and may induce a “treasure hunting” experience. Wang compares the strategy to supermarkets advertising cheap milk. “The reason why they have it is to get people into their shop and then people will buy other stuff,” she said. Come to find out what those odd pink shorts are for, stay for the surprisingly cheap kitchen utensils.
Rest of World rummaged through Temu’s smorgasbord of curiosities and filled a cart with 17 of its most confusing items to test out for ourselves. Can you tell what these items are?....
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