Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Temu pulls its U.S. Google Shopping ads

searchengineland.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

631–640 of 721 posts

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

#631

Post by plorg »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #544
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.

It's easy to find "real brands" if one looks outside of Amazon, Alibaba, etc. Surprisingly, I find I am more pleased with purchases I make outside of Amazon despite all of Amazon's perks. "Platforms" like Amazon and fake "brands" aside, online retailers that only sell "real brands" are still around; they never disappeared despite Amazon's meteoric rise. Many sell through Amazon but also sell outside Amazon, too. Some…

I'm going to genuinely miss the bicycle headlight I have bought under like 4 different brand names. I won't miss the 36 other grotesqueries sold as alternatives and produced by the same business and manufacturing environment, but I'm also not excited about having to choose between 6 $50 lights of similar quality that are locked to a GPS company's equipment. It would be great if in 10 years I could get a similar light for 25% more than the current price adjusted for future inflation. But there's no reason to believe that tariffs are going to make American products better, just that it makes the cheap products American. And there's nothing else about Trump's (or for that matter his Democratic counterparts'-) industrial policy to encourage that either.

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

#632

Post by mvdtnz »

evan_ wrote: post #449
oth001 wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free seeds?

Sites like Amazon and probably aliexpress/temu require a documented shipment before you can write a review. Shippers sometimes send extremely inexpensive stuff like seeds to random US/overseas addresses and launder the shipping receipt into a fake review for something more expensive.

This sounds fake. Why send seeds, of all things? Why not some equally cheap item like electrical wire insulation off-cuts, a piece of scrap bubble wrap or just a note (or just nothing)? Seeds are likely to set off alarm bells for biosecurity at many borders for no benefit.

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

#633

Post by owenversteeg »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #204
Semaphor wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoy the cheap shipping (from Aliexpress China warehouses to Germany), but I really wish this would be improved. It just seems nonsensical. There should be a closer relation to actual cost, but paying 4-5€ for a national shipment, versus essentially nothing for Chinese shipments, is mad.

I don't think the price of those small shipments from China is necessarily crazy. Looking at flights for people: you can get a return flight to China from the UK for less than £350, which means less than £175 one way. Let's say that's about 100kg (person plus luggage) then this means that flying 100g from China to the UK costs less than 17.5p or 20c in euros. I expect that cargo will be cheaper than passenger plane,…

Air freight rates vary wildly by demand/bulk discounts/route/etc but $2-8/kg is typical, with a median around $4/kg. Commercial flights are often cheaper, and especially when you consider the weight of seats/water/food/crew/etc.

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

#634

Post by Rebelgecko »

gblargg wrote: post #197
Rebelgecko wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon took down one of my reviews because I included a picture of the item's manual which had a page offering to pay for Amazon reviews (the item had unanimous 5 star reviews). To me that seemed like valuable info and legitimate context to include in a review but even after I appealed they disagreed because my picture was "irrelevant".

You're supposed to report review manipulation offers to Amazon. Reviews are for the product itself, not the seller (in theory multiple sellers can offer the same product, but for alphabet soup brands that's never the case).

The review manipulation offer was boxed up in the shrinkwrapped package so from my POV that made it part of the product. If the seller is altering the product then IMO its fair game to review. If a seller removed the batteries or put a sticker on the product I'd consider that an alteration to be part of the product itself... as opposed to when reviews complain about stuff like the seller's shipping speed which is orthogonal to what's in the box being shipped.

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

#635

Post by mvdtnz »

Aurornis wrote: post #72
tyleo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying a consumer will pay $75 later if they order a package from China now and it comes in May?

There is a minimum fee for packages, yes. At this point I've lost track of all the changes but at one point I remember seeing $100 or $150 per package under some conditions. Carriers will also charge a fee for brokering it. USPS has a $9 fee, other carriers are higher. We went from being free to order things internationally to having out of control fees and taxes on top of everything. There's a lot of sneering at Tem…

> the hobbyist and electronics worlds are about to get hit extremely hard

Speak for yourself. I am in this world but I am not in USA and I won't be subject to your stupid tariffs. Good luck to you.

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

#636

Post by tpolm »

roboror wrote: post #619
synergy20 wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Build essential stuff locally, not junk of course. Or else the virtual economy can not sustain forever based on borrowing money while producing very little locally.

What is "essential stuff" to you?

well, produce own steel. Own processors, own drug precursors...

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

#637

Post by themaninthedark »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #284
philjohn wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not entirely. For cycling there are now a group of trusted companies that many people purchase from - WinSpace, Magene, iGPSport, that stand behind their products. I have a Magene p505 crank-based power meter - £250 delivered. It's as accurate as ones costing 4X as much, and has not shown any signs of issues in the year+ I've been using it. The idea that AliExpress is just for cheap tat is less and less true, and pro…

> The idea that AliExpress is just for cheap tat is less and less true, and products in certain sectors coming out of China are just much better value for money (and often, as good as, or better quality) than you'd find from homegrown companies. Not just better value for money, I often find that AliExpress sells things I simply cannot find anywhere else. A recent example: I was looking for something to balance the 3r…

>These are basically just machined pieces of metal so not really anything than can break.

Nothing can break but the metal can be alloyed with lead to make it easier to machine or coated in something toxic.

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

#638

Post by codazoda »

mbesto wrote: post #621
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to find "real brands" if one looks outside of Amazon, Alibaba, etc. Surprisingly, I find I am more pleased with purchases I make outside of Amazon despite all of Amazon's perks. "Platforms" like Amazon and fake "brands" aside, online retailers that only sell "real brands" are still around; they never disappeared despite Amazon's meteoric rise. Many sell through Amazon but also sell outside Amazon, too. Some…

This is why I have a bunch of stock in Shopify. It's slowly started rolling out discovery features in its Shop app that federates its stores. I try to limit my use on Amazon to things I know can't be faked and things that are so much cheaper that I can deal with it being fake. My purchasing trends have definitely moved toward the edges - aliexpress for chinese stuff (that would normally be on Amazon) and Shopify for…

Is there a Shopify store? Their website is catered to the business they do, which is to setup shop for businesses. How do you shop on Shopify?

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

#639

Post by [deleted] »

kccqzy wrote: post #569
constantcrying wrote: post #186

I hope temu and the other Chinese companies in that segment stop selling overseas. Their model is just incredibly destructive to the environment, they ship over the lowest quality garbage imaginable and create so much pollution and waste in the process. I also have quite a bit of disdain for people using these sites. Nobody needs this and it is just harmful all around.

It's just a natural byproduct of poverty and a shrinking middle class in the United States. HN readers are not the target customers of Temu. It's those people who are living paycheck-to-paycheck and can't afford quality goods whatsoever. It's the same as the low quality garbage found in predatory dollar stores in poor neighborhoods.

[deleted]

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

#640

Post by wampwampwhat »

codazoda wrote: post #638
mbesto wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I have a bunch of stock in Shopify. It's slowly started rolling out discovery features in its Shop app that federates its stores. I try to limit my use on Amazon to things I know can't be faked and things that are so much cheaper that I can deal with it being fake. My purchasing trends have definitely moved toward the edges - aliexpress for chinese stuff (that would normally be on Amazon) and Shopify for…

Is there a Shopify store? Their website is catered to the business they do, which is to setup shop for businesses. How do you shop on Shopify?

https://shop.app is their federated retail platform
Post reply on HN