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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

#691

Post by Aurornis »

petersellers wrote: post #94
Aurornis wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're overthinking it.

They're not deliberately plotting some anti-tariff surprise campaign. They're just doing business as usual.

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

#692

Post by bamboozled »

pixl97 wrote: post #508
bamboozled wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what will happen, it's why Americans and American got into the cheaper, Chinese made goods thing in the first place, there was a LOT of demand for cheaper stuff. People will just do less, become more poor and have less opportunities or work around the system by smuggling things from Canada or something.

Maybe there was more demand for cheaper stuff in the US because wages had been rather stagnant in relation to production efficiency for decades? I mean you're entire premise is not great at all. Capitalistic markets require competition to work. The US itself has mostly given up on 'competitive product' competition and instead fight each other with buyouts and other financial funding means. Kicking China out of the ma…

Maybe there was more demand for cheaper stuff in the US because wages had been rather stagnant in relation to production efficiency for decades?

There is absolutely no way people with money just choose to pay more for goods, it just doesn't happen. People with money are shrewd.

People choose to buy cheaper because they can get more with their money. It's really as simple as that.

I personally buy Patagonia clothing for all sorts of reasons, but I could still get a somewhat comparable jacket for 1/5th or less of their stuff. Most people just buy a down jacket from uniqlo even though they could afford to buy from Patagonia.

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

#693

Post by bigiain »

ipsum2 wrote: post #74
ryao wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monoprice has low cost cables.

Monoprice cables are made in China. They'll also cost 10x.

I'm not certain, but I suspect this'll work out better for Monoprice than it does for individuals.

I _think_ Monoprice will pay the couple of hundred dollars "per package" fees for the pallet or container full of cables they bring in, amortising that cost over thousands of items. They'll still get charged the 145% tariff though, but they'll probably cost something like 3x rather than 10x. (Until they work out that they no longer compete with individuals buying from AliExpress/Temu/Shein, or probably even with side hustle Fulfilment by Amazon micro-importers).

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

#694

Post by diamondage »

mrguyorama wrote: post #558
macNchz wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ordering pizzas cash-on-delivery to someone’s house is already a fairly common form of online harassment (sometimes also a precursor to swatting).

And because they aren't morons, Pizza places will generally deny an order of 20 pizzas, pay on delivery, to an address they don't have an existing relationship with. Cops haven't seemed to figure out that way of reducing abuse. Maybe if we pay them what we pay pizza delivery workers they will figure out how not to swat people.

You can not deliver a pizza based on a 2% chance of fraud. If there's a chance of bomb, shooting etc the same threshold doesn't apply. So the police have completely different criteria.

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

#695

Post by prolly97 »

This might more be a European thing, but over here some of the sellers on marketplaces like Amazon, are linked with organised VAT/Tax fraud. While I can't say it's all, it'll all things being equal, be baked in to the competitive dynamics. Thus undercutting legal operators, or destroying their profit (incentive) to provide good or domestically produced wares. There's a podcast episode from some ML (money laundering) specialists, that make mention of it. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/trigger-warning/id1448...

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

#696

Post by kristopolous »

bitmasher9 wrote: post #679
kristopolous wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I went to Shenzhen I found some of these brands with stalls in their vast malls. They're real places. As you walk through you navigate around an obstacle course of dollies, hear endless packing tape and occasionally point out, "oh look, there's Owawuwo, I got a cheap projector from them". Americans can get a Shenzhen-only 5-day Visa on arrival (VOA) from Hong Kong through the Luohu entry at the LoWu station via…

I went a decade ago (on a standard tourist visa, was easy to get but I had to plan far ahead ). It was neat, but I wouldn’t say it’s a must visit, or a top 5 Chinese destination. The one cool thing was seeing new products at Shenzen, and then a couple months later starting to see those products in American retailers. Seeing the markup and the flow this way really opened my eyes to how the American consumer is exploit…

Sure but if you happen to be in Hong Kong, which you can just fly into as an American with a standard passport, and you want to go to Real China and didn't bother with the Visa interview, then you actually can with this "one weird trick"!

It's certainly a hard border, Shenzhen is as China as Tijuana is Mexico. So if you're in HK and have a day to travel around, give it a go, it's a fun adventure.

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

#697

Post by fastasucan »

999900000999 wrote: post #367
vultour wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading this thread is mind-boggling. People complaining that cheap garbage from Temu is falling apart. People proudly proclaiming that they order Chinese crap almost daily. An argument about whether one crap peddler is better than another one. Am I taking crazy pills? Am I the only one who buys things a few times per year? This rampant consumerism is depressing.

Buy item X from Amazon, which is effectively a Temu product+ a 50% markup. Or buy direct from Temu/AliExpress and save money? It's not a hard choice. I like watches. While I still pay retail for most of my watches, the bands are like 2$ on AliExpress and 15$ on Amazon. Phone cases are much much cheaper. Certain phones aren't released domestically at all, so now I'm looking at a 100$ fee to import them. If I want to w…

Don’t you have more than those two options where you live?

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

#698

Post by yread »

baq wrote: post #226
yread wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have written more than 200 reviews on Amazon Why did you do that? Did they pay you? Or did you get the stuff for free?

You forgot to ask 'Do you live in a high-trust society?' - or maybe you didn't?

Building common goods is one thing. Free labor for a corporation (that can at any time decide to throw it away if it's not profitable enough) is another thing.

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

#699

Post by simgt »

overfeed wrote: post #653
simgt wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify, I'm not defending the tariffs or the way this whole thing is implemented. I'm sure it puts a lot of people in trouble. I'm only criticizing the race to the bottom that the platforms and kind of consumption mentioned are part of. Sure at the individual level we can find advantages to it, but I'm arguing that we're collectively worst off.

> I'm only criticizing the race to the bottom that the platforms and kind of consumption mentioned are part of. You're going to (collectively) need to increase the incomes at the low-end if you want people earning minimum-wage to still be clothed and able to furnish their homes. A significant portion of people who by from Shein have no other options within their budgets, and their existence tends to be ignored in con…

There is no dissonance here, workers being put in competition with much cheaper ones on the other side of the planet is absolutely going to drive their wages down. They got 30 years of that... and many of us in Europe did too.

Wages may have to go higher at the lower end, but consumption also needs to change. Most of the price of "food" is packaging, transport and marketing, not farmers' wages. Here in France people buy on average 50 items of clothing a year, 50! The amount of items has increased by 50% in the last 15 years.

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

#700

Post by stavros »

kergonath wrote: post #343
stavros wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that the case? If an item (from every manufacturer) costs $5, and there's a new tax on it, making it cost $10, why would this be split between buyer and seller? The seller needs to make a certain margin on it, and it's not like the competition can sell any cheaper, or they already would have been.

If demand is elastic, then the seller has to lower prices (and their margin), otherwise people don’t buy their stuff (because they can do without). In this situation, the seller eats the tariffs, That’s the case for nice-to-have things like luxury goods and entertainment. If the seller cannot do that, e.g. because their margins become negative, they will just stop doing business (in the US or entirely). The other end…

Thanks for the explanation, that makes sense about the elastic demand.
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