Do you know when, affected by insomnia, you find yourself in the middle of the night shaking social media, hypnotized by reels in which appear unimaginable objects such as shrimp peelers, organizers for phone chargers, oil sprayers or tools for cleaning headphones? All objects so specific that they do not have a name but a description of at least three lines. Here, you’ve probably stumbled upon Temu, an e-commerce platform that has made social commerce its sharpest weapon.
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Temu is a subsidiary of PDD Holdings, a Chinese e-commerce giant: a group born in China in 2015 with the aim of creating a digital platform for the meeting between Chinese farmers and final consumers. A digital experiment that brought together over 12 million farmers and 600 thousand Chinese traders, in just four years: exponential growth, unimaginable in Western markets. But what are the points of contact between this platform and the current app? Surely two: cost reduction and interactivity of the purchase experience.
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Let’s see some prices: men’s watches for 2.96€; mini camera for 5.48€; mascara for 1.77€; leather backpacks for 6.70€; vacuum cleaner for 11.60€. An endless series of limited offers, products sold for a handful of cents; large quantities at ridiculous prices. You are tempted to give in to the add-on cart, then you remember that you don’t really need “50 Titanium Coated Drill Bits”, even at 2.82€. You are moving the cursor to the top right to close everything but the eye flies in the opposite corner, where a countdown warns you that shipping is free for all orders: losing the straight away is a moment, falling into a whirlwind of crazy e-shopping too easy.
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How does Temu maintain such prices? Applying first of all an economy of scale, which lowers the initial cost of the asset: as the company itself mentions in its site, “Temu can practice better prices by buying large quantities”. Moreover, the Chinese company cuts in the logistics, bypassing the great warehouses of storage, putting in direct communication the producer with a capillary net of distributors.
All beautiful: but we are not learning to understand that behind a low final price, often hide poor quality (would you use a mascara for less than 2 euros?), questionable working conditions, a not negligible environmental impact? Is that Temu’s case?
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A budget item that eats savings in logistics is certainly that of communication: the real strength of Temu are in fact social. The official accounts, one per European country, sprout like mushrooms; the numbers on Tiktok grow exponentially: 600 thousand followers and 4.9 billion uses of the hashtag #temu. It is the perfect example of social commerce, of a company that has created a community, before fans that customers, around their brand, which automatically become promoters of the same. It is not surprising that on their site there is an “Affiliate and Influencer”section, in which creators and users are invited to sign up and spam discount codes.
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Social media is tinged with orange; what we would have skipped a few months ago is now sought, reversing the balance between content and ADV, in a new media mix that has already created addiction. Unboxing, meme, reaction: Temu has the ability to be chameleonic, to arrive in every feed, creating a previously non-existent need; perhaps a need to belong to a community first, a good then.
While this marketing strategy can be exciting, the effects it can have globally cannot be hidden. Is Temu a sales model that can coexist with the historical moment in which we live, where we are threatened by climate crises and microplastics everywhere, where consumption patterns are categorically to be reviewed? As we compulsively shake on our screens, we can think about it.
Illustration by Gloria Dozio - Acrimònia Studios
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