Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads • Hacker News Board

Re: Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

#91

Post by blitzar » Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 6:06 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #27

geor9e wrote: post #20

I loved temu, aliexpress, and shein. I probably averaged 1 item per day arriving to my house, for years and years. Mostly little electronics parts and specialized tools for my workshop. Buying from Amazon or locally would have cost me 10x as much. Obviously it's over now. Anyone getting a package in May will be hit with a $75-$150 or more bill per package, even a 75 cent envelope will be charged +$75. I feel bad for…

Aliexpress my impression is you can get "useful" stuff that are odd but usable. But I've had the impression that temu and shein was all "direct to garbage" devices, was this not the case?

They are all different frontends for the same backend - amazon is also a frontend to the same thing but with prices 2-3x'd.

Re: Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

#92

Post by ljf » Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 6:07 AM UTC

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #62

astar1 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

too little too late for Forever 21 and it's 350 locations which once employed 43,000 people at it's peak: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/17/forever-21-files-for-second-... The temu/shein loophole should been closed ages ago.

I'm surprised the Chinese sellers are able to compete for fast fashion. Clothes are the one thing I don't really buy online because getting sizing right is already hard even when you're not dealing with Temu-style "well actually we said there's a +- 25 tolerance in the fine print and this is within tolerance" bullshit. AliExpress is indispensable for small technical items. If they're available locally at all, shippin…

No idea about Shein, but I was shocked how easy/good Temu return policy was. My wife bought some rugs and some prints and they were not as described/pictured.

Took a minute in the app to generate a qr code, then I had it to the post shop the same day and they refunded within 3 days.

I wouldn't (personally) buy clothes to wear normally from them, but something like beach shoes or a poncho for a festival I'd maybe get there.

Re: Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

#93

Post by fastball » Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 6:09 AM UTC

whatever1 wrote: post #78

Ads was THE thing that our tech industry was exporting to the world. I was astonished with the people who thought that tech would be not affected by the tariffs.

That doesn't make sense, as ads are useless without consumption (i.e. imports). We did manage to monetize our consumption thru ads though.

Re: Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

#94

Post by petersellers » Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 6:10 AM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #80

throw310822 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm surprised the websites don't even acknowledge this yet. Well, why would you waste the opportunity to enrage Americans against their government, for free? "Your $5 package has arrived on time, now you only have to pay the $75 extra that the candidate you voted for has decided to take from you". It's the best ads campaign ever, and it's entirely free.

It's not that complicated. They don't pay the tariffs. The person receiving the package does. Many carriers will slap you with the tariff charge, a brokerage fee, and then send you to collections if you don't pay it. The vendors don't care because they're making the sale and the tariffs are the other person's responsibility. Caveat emptor.

The person you are replying to isn't claiming that the seller pays the tariffs, they are saying that it's not in the seller's interest to notify buyers of the tariff charge because it's essentially free anti-tariff messaging once buyers are hit with the sudden fees.

Re: Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

#95

Post by BiteCode_dev » Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 6:16 AM UTC

bufferoverflow wrote: post #50

I used to buy a lot from Temu. Till I got a product that fell apart after three months. I tried to leave a bad review, but Temu wouldn't allow it. If you're trying to leave 3 star rating or below, they redirect you to customer service. But since customer service only dealt with items under 45 days (as far as I remember), they would just tell me something like "too bad, you're out of luck". So I can't get a refund, I…

I had bad reviews been supressed by amazon several as well, so at this point I'm assuming any review system is theater.

Re: Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

#96

Post by beAbU » Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 6:17 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #27

geor9e wrote: post #20

I loved temu, aliexpress, and shein. I probably averaged 1 item per day arriving to my house, for years and years. Mostly little electronics parts and specialized tools for my workshop. Buying from Amazon or locally would have cost me 10x as much. Obviously it's over now. Anyone getting a package in May will be hit with a $75-$150 or more bill per package, even a 75 cent envelope will be charged +$75. I feel bad for…

Aliexpress my impression is you can get "useful" stuff that are odd but usable. But I've had the impression that temu and shein was all "direct to garbage" devices, was this not the case?

You can't lump shein and temu in the same bucket. My wife is an avid shein user and from what I can tell the quality so far is really good for what you pay.

Shein is in reality just an aliexpress/baba wrapper, but they put huge amounts of effort into accurate sizing charts for their clothing, and their customer reviews system actively incentivises buyers to upload pictures of themselves wearing the purchased clothing. So as a potential buyer you can actually see the piece of clothing being worn by someone with a similar body shape than your own.

My impression of temu is they are trying to be as misleading as possible with their listings, and the value for money is absolutely terrible because of that: you think you are getting a 6' xmas tree for $20, but when it arrives it's 6".

Re: Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

#97

Post by BiteCode_dev » Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 6:18 AM UTC

geor9e wrote: post #20

I loved temu, aliexpress, and shein. I probably averaged 1 item per day arriving to my house, for years and years. Mostly little electronics parts and specialized tools for my workshop. Buying from Amazon or locally would have cost me 10x as much. Obviously it's over now. Anyone getting a package in May will be hit with a $75-$150 or more bill per package, even a 75 cent envelope will be charged +$75. I feel bad for…

I'm in France, maybe I should open a proxy. You order through me, I reexpedite to the US, with a French stamp lol.

Re: Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

#98

Post by IshKebab » Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 6:19 AM UTC

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #95

bufferoverflow wrote: post #50

I used to buy a lot from Temu. Till I got a product that fell apart after three months. I tried to leave a bad review, but Temu wouldn't allow it. If you're trying to leave 3 star rating or below, they redirect you to customer service. But since customer service only dealt with items under 45 days (as far as I remember), they would just tell me something like "too bad, you're out of luck". So I can't get a refund, I…

I had bad reviews been supressed by amazon several as well, so at this point I'm assuming any review system is theater.

Amazon definitely don't do anything like this.

Re: Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

#99

Post by frankacter » Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 6:23 AM UTC

seydor wrote: post #68

i dont know how long temu will last without americans, but it feels surreal that europeans have more buying power than americans

latest stats I saw had US at ~53%, followed by 12.9% Mexico, 7.4% United Kingdom, 6.4% France, 6.0% Germany, 4.6% Spain & 9.8% Others.

Re: Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

#100

Post by adrianmsmith » Tue, Apr 15, 2025, 6:23 AM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #98

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had bad reviews been supressed by amazon several as well, so at this point I'm assuming any review system is theater.

Amazon definitely don't do anything like this.

I've only ever left one bad review on Amazon. Chopsticks, they came bound together with some sticky tape. Sticky tape left a very sticky area just where your hands go that I was unable to get off despite a lot of effort scrubbing, washing, and so on. I left a polite constructive review saying they were good chopsticks but watch out for this stickiness issue. My review was declined by Amazon on the grounds it didn't meet their "community guidelines" (without elaborating further on which rule I'd supposedly broken).