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Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

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

#521

Post by genewitch »

constantcrying wrote: post #349
d3nj4l wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s amazing how not only can you decide what others can and should buy, you can also decide the quality of that item for them sight unseen. You should reach out to TV producers - this skill would be very entertaining in a show!

Yes, I am very intelligent for figuring out that products, made under near slavery conditions with the sole goal of making them as cheaply as possible by companies who have exactly zero reputation and whose customers have no way to retaliate are in fact bad. This was an extremely complex deduction on my part and in no way totally obvious. Also, things that are very bad for the environment should be banned. Not by me,…

I guess, like the rest of the positive comments, they conflate quantity of choice with quality of choice. I stopped buying stuff online mostly a few years back, covid completely destroyed my trust in online retailers, especially ones with China backed products.

I don't get the desire to pollute some other country just so one can have a hobby, go volunteer at a shelter or something useful.

Externalizing our negativity got the US pretty far, and if walking that back sucks for most people because they're used to buying literal land fill, then that's too bad.

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

#522

Post by ronbenton »

zamalek wrote: post #411

I wonder if we can look forward to the end of the letter soup brands on Amazon, it's ridiculously difficult finding real brands in between them. That would be one silver lining in all this mess, at least.

All of them made out of balsa wood yet have 10,000 5-star reviews. It’s a joke

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

#523

Post by dymk »

echoangle wrote: post #162
nottorp wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Temu/Aliexpress/etc are for buying very cheap clothing. 2 out of 3 items fit and 1 out of 3 is decent quality. That's still cheaper, depending on what tariffs your country is charging. I wouldn't buy something where a warranty would be useful from them. Ok, maybe very niche hobby products, but then I wouldn't expect a warranty.

AliExpress is great for electronics. Not the „I need a phone“ stuff (although for that it’s fine too, I think), but more the „I need an ESP-32 module“.

It's basically McMaster with slow shipping for my hobby projects. I don't need the $1000 quality and warranty of a McMaster ball screw and linear guideways, the $80 BSTMOTION brand(?) stuff has been working for me for years and is plenty accurate.

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

#524

Post by dragonwriter »

idopmstuff wrote: post #490
wahnfrieden wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love it in terms of consumer experience. I like several products from AliExpress and the like, but sometimes find they're available for the same price or cheaper and faster with better customer service from Amazon. I don't care that they have generic brand names in either case

I'm with you. I don't really understand the complaints, since Amazon's return policy means that you aren't really taking a risk when you buy, even from randomly-named brands.

Not all harms of using inadequately QC’d or deceptively marketed products are adequately remedied by a reasonably easy return and refund policy.

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

#525

Post by genewitch »

anothernewdude wrote: post #111
probably_wrong wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think two things can be true at the same time: these taxes are ridiculous, and ordering a 75-cents part from the other side of the planet is a massive waste of resources.

Yes, and it created an actual problem that (knowingly or not) Trump was responding to - America essentially was getting further and further in debt to enable such high consumption. I think we'll find that quite a bit of "American Exceptionalism" has been low interest borrowing. I'm not sure to what level, but I think anyone who relies on the S&P 500 as their only investment is going to be disappointed in the future d…

The futures graph for S&P looks real close to the national debt graph, and both look like they're at peak bubble.

Probably doesn't mean anything.

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

#526

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #440
zamalek wrote: post #411

I wonder if we can look forward to the end of the letter soup brands on Amazon, it's ridiculously difficult finding real brands in between them. That would be one silver lining in all this mess, at least.

15 different variants of the same product, all obviously cheaply made from the same factory, with varying degrees of quality control and reviews strewn about the various “brands” of the product so that it’s much harder to have a negative review everywhere. Yeah, this sucks. Though the correct thing to do here is to enforce this hygiene on the platforms themselves. They have every resource and means to be able to prev…

There are flecks of gold in the midst of all that dirt.

I needed to make a 3/4" hole in a 1/8" thick mild steel angle to repair a cart. Didn't have a drill bit that size and quickly realized that a hole saw would be a better choice. Off to Amazon. After some browsing, found the same 3/4" carbide-tipped holesaw from a million resellers. Found a package of two for $13. Following the logic of "even if they only last for one hole, it's still cheaper than buying a good drill bit that I'll never use again", I ordered it. Item arrived and it looked as cheaply made as the photo!

But what do I have to lose? For $13, it's worth a shot.

Chucked up the holesaw, dripped some cutting oil on the metal and went to work. Fricking thing went through the steel like it wasn't even there. I was fully expecting that the teeth would chip off and go flying about halfway through, or it wouldn't do crap and the metal would work-harden, making my job even harder or worst case, the entire flimsy-looking thing would shatter (I have excellent safety glasses BTW). No, about 1 minute later I had a nice clean 3/4" hole with perfect edges that didn't even need deburring.

That led to the first Amazon review that I ever wrote: I was that shocked at how well it performed. Turned on my (Amazon-bought) stick welder and finished the repair.

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

#527

Post by anal_reactor »

constantcrying wrote: post #385
anal_reactor wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I am a troll, because I believe that shipping cheap trash from China is harmful for the environment and that the quality is low? How deluded are you to believe that this is some kind of disingenuous belief that I hold. Do you think that environmentalism in general is also another troll operation, as I am sure that any person who cared a lot about the environment would agree with me, at least in part.

> How deluded are you

Very much, thank you, what about you?

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

#528

Post by WorldPeas »

RankingMember wrote: post #496
bognition wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, their ads are incredibly invasive, often taking over the majority of a page.

Whoever's doing the "design" on Temu and Ali seems to think all Americans want to feel like they're in Vegas while shopping. It's very obnoxious, to the point that people have created plug-ins to clean things up (e.g. AliTools Shopping Assistant, AliRadar).

Thanks for pointing that out. Several times I’ve seen adapters or tools I could use only to click them and it sends me to a sale list I can’t find the original product in. How hard is it to have a grid of clickable jpegs

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

#529

Post by AlwaysRock »

_fat_santa wrote: post #432
0xTJ wrote: post #316

Good. They're pushing overpriced low-quality junk. If you want to buy from Temu but want a better chance at reasonable prices, shop AliExpress.

IMO Temu and Aliexpress/Alibaba market themselves in a very different way. In many ways I consider Aliexpress to be more reputable just because they don't try to pull the wool over your eyes with their products. With Temu they try to make it seem like the products are just as good as what you get at Walmart. With Aliexpress at least they just straight up tell you they are a "front" for all the factories in Shenzhen.…

Compared to everything else it feels pretty minor but I'm fairly worried about the handheld retro gaming market. I really enjoy it as a hobby but it seems like almost all of those devices will no longer be profitable / worth buying if the tariffs are enforced on them.

I've been really enjoying my recent Anbernic RG 406V and it can play pretty much all the systems I want it to so I guess I'll just stick to that if the handheld market collapses.

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

#530

Post by eCa »

genewitch wrote: post #486
neogodless wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean this is the point of a carefully planned, deliberated, executed, and announced tariff rollout, or do you mean that's the whole point of tariffs as they are currently being implemented in the United States?

The tariffs that were announced during the campaign - the same way Ross Perot did - and the reasoning was to bring us manufacturing back to the US and reduce the tax burden on US citizens? Such as writing off car payments if the car is American? People wigged out over non-reciprocal tariffs, where we tariff at 50% what they charge the US. People wigged out at 10℅ flat rate tariffs. "Heard island penguins get charged…

> reduce the tax burden on US citizens

Do you consider the tariffs to be a (tax) burden on US citizens?

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