Temu has ramped up its marketing in Europe over the past year, leaving many tempted to dip their toe into this massive alternative to Amazon. I’ve bought some items from Temu to test out the platform and bring you an insight into what Temu is and whether or not it’s safe for you to follow suit. I’ll also have some tips on how to shop safely with Temu if you are going to try it out.
What is Temu?
Temu is a Chinese online marketplace that connects buyers and sellers, offering a wide range of products including electronics, fashion, and home goods. Founded by tech enthusiasts and entrepreneurs, the platform aims to enhance the online shopping experience through a user-friendly interface, advanced search filters, and personalised recommendations.
Temu’s main draw is the wide variety of low priced products it offers.
Interest outside of China grew as Temu expanded focus on markets like the US and Europe, with massive funding of sponsorship around events such as the Superbowl and the Olympics.
Temu in Ireland
Temu’s expansion ramped up in 2022, with Ireland operating as the company’s European Headquarters. Temu’s marketing launch in Ireland was muted, with general interest being increased from global advertising and advertising on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
While many rushed to position Temu as a massive threat to Irish retailers, the truth is that massive online retailers such as Temu and Amazon usually offer a wide range of products that you simply won’t find on the high street. While these platforms do usually offer many high street products for lower prices, Irish shoppers do tend to support local businesses as much as possible, with as many of 60% of shoppers saying they’ve not shopped on Amazon.
Temu’s offering of an incredible range of products and extremely low prices is the main draw for Irish consumers, often starved of competition, variety and even simple access to certain ranges of products.
Product Range and Quality
Which brings me onto the products I bought. Most of them were just random things I know I was unlikely to find on the Irish high street, or something I’d been thinking about for some time and didn’t want to spend much on.
I’m a big coffee fan and wanted some accessories for my Sage coffee machine. I grabbed a coffee tamper, a portafilter rim, some filters along with a grounds distributor thing.
I also grabbed an extra meat thermometer for cooking, a holster for beer bottles, a Back to the Future license plate, cable management thing and a nosehair trimmer.
Honestly, the variety can’t be beaten, but the quality is very hit and miss, particularly anything with electronics. The nose hair trimmer worked, but I was terrified using this on a sensitive part of my body and haven’t used it since. The meat thermometer was ok, but not as good as a similar one I got from Amazon at the same price that’s much better built.
The test of the stuff is perfect and the coffee tamper I use daily, while some of the other coffee accessories were impulse nerd buys that I really didn’t need.
There’s also a massive part of me wondering where a lot of Temu products come from. The quality of electronics being quite low is worrying, leaving me wondering how many electronics on the site would be genuinely passing EU inspections. In the past, travel adapters were available which left live power ports reachable while plugged in. This product has since been discontinued.
I have to say the silliest thing I bought was the beer bottle holster. It was incredible quality and I ended up giving it to a family member as a joke gift. It got a massive laugh because we always enjoy a beer together and it was quite unique.
Pricing and Value for Money
Price and value for money are two very different things in my eyes. You’ll rarely pay a lot in total on Temu for what you get, but you might pay a lot per use of what you buy.
When I bought, Temu had lots of promotions and mechanisms to encourage me to make a purchase. €20 off when I spent €50 left me adding stuff to my basket I didn’t want because I was losing money by not buying more items. Temu gamifies the purchase experience too, adding a spinning wheel for discounts when you log into your account.
But when the products arrived, I was left using about half of them regularly, and the rest I couldn’t even tell you where they are. So my opinion of the value is mixed. In truth, your ability to control yourself will determine your own experience.
In simpler terms though, buying some items on Temu versus the Irish high street, will be cheaper. You could find items for the home like this knife sharper, 75% cheaper than most shops. These products often come from the same factories and just get a logo put on them at some stage that inflates the price.
Saavy shopping on Temu will bring savings and good value, once you avoid the tactics to suck you into buying tat.
Shipping and Delivery
One of the biggest pities with Temu is that they use An Post. This is an issue exacerbated by the fact I live in Dublin City, but I hate companies using An Post. In my experience, I’ve just had the most issues with them while companies like DPD are flawless.
Typically, I had issues with this delivery too. I was home and a slip was left with no effort to contact me. Basically, An Post regularly just doesn’t carry packages and drops slips instead. Eventually I got the package after a few weeks but only when I flipped to my day time address across the city.
Delivery times are long. While free, don’t order anything expecting Amazon Prime like delivery times. You’re generally looking at weeks, not days and that’s not just because of An Post.
Oddly, a few weeks after my order arrived, my order was refunded because Temu thought it hadn’t arrived. They had also given me a discount on my next order for the delay before the refund. Temu, in general, does seem to be dealing with such cheap products that they are happy enough to offer refunds in the event of issues.
Beyond this though, how can you shop safely on Temu?
How to Shop Safely on Temu
Temu has been the source of many controversial headlines already. Weeding out genuine concerns from xenophobia can be tough when it comes to Chinese companies.
There were concerns that the Temu app was running around in the background absorbing your data, but in my own opinion, quite a few apps do this without getting headlines – because they’re not Chinese.
Regardless, I’m not an app security specialist. But I can give you some tips to stay safe when shopping with Temu, and indeed any other online platform. In general, I recommend a zero trust approach. Take as much control of your data back into your own control.
First of all, I use Revolut. Revolut let me create a disposable card that I could destroy effortlessly after my transaction. Now, I don’t care what happens to that card number. No more charges can be applied to the card, but I can still receive refunds. Absolute security.
Next, I used a “burner email”. Because I use quite a few Apple products this is really easy. Apple lets me create an email for every account I create and routes mails back to my primary mail. Gmail has similar functionality with email tagging, but it’s not quite as good as Apple’s approach. My advise, set up an iCloud email account just for scenarios like this.
Finally, if you have concerns about the app, just don’t use it. Use their website and only use it while incognito or private browsing. When creating your account, make sure your Temu password i unique to Temu, strong and not used anywhere else. This isn’t just advice for Temu, this is what you should be doing all the time, while using a password manager like 1Password.
The Goosed Verdict: Is Temu Legit?
Temu is legit in terms of, you can buy products and you will get them. If there are issues, there’s a way to engage with Temu to get a resolution.
But I do understand concerns around the platform in general. We’ve seen similar concerns about Huawei in the past, leaving quite the bit of confusion as to what is genuine concern and what is politics. But as I look at the news and see divisions being sown over immigration along with rioting, I do hold many concerns about what world superpowers could be doing with technology installed on our phones, and social media platforms that we use for hours daily. Just look at how Facebook impacted the 2016 Presidential Election in the United States.
My advise is, as much as possible, support your local shops on the high street. But if you find something you want on Temu, don’t feel bad about buying it. Take precautions and look after your privacy and card details and you’ll be just fine. You’ll be even happier if you buy this beer holster which is definitely the highlight of my Temu haul.
