Addressing the Elephant in the room; the Temu, Shein & TikTok Shop threat
As Amazon sellers, Amazon is our ally and Temu/Shein/TikTok Shop are now our shared competition. For the first time ever we are all in the same boat; Amazon and every Amazon seller is united by this challenge.
I believe a discussion on this issue is both warranted and could foster a sense of community.
This threat impacts all of our mutual success in e-commerce. There are some important questions to be asked to both Amazon and to Sellers in terms of what strategies we can adopt to compete with this.
- What strategies are you as sellers adopting to address the risks of lost sales and IP infringement to Temu/Shein/TikTok?
- What can the seller community do as a collective to help defend against this offensive?
- Is Amazon itself taking any actions (legal, marketing or otherwise) to defend itself (and Amazon sellers by extension)?
- Is there any type of government regulation that could help protect our US e-commerce industry?
- Is this ecommerce threat and the risk to US jobs in ecommerce well understood by our political representatives?
- Are there channels to escalate specific issues of IP infringement for products found on Temu or Shein?
I don't know the answers to these questions and I know there are many more. My hope is that the seller community is ready to engage on this discussion and that we could attract the attention of the Amazon executive team so that they know we are ready to be a part of the response as well. I appreciate your thoughts and contributions to this post.
Addressing the Elephant in the room; the Temu, Shein & TikTok Shop threat
As Amazon sellers, Amazon is our ally and Temu/Shein/TikTok Shop are now our shared competition. For the first time ever we are all in the same boat; Amazon and every Amazon seller is united by this challenge.
I believe a discussion on this issue is both warranted and could foster a sense of community.
This threat impacts all of our mutual success in e-commerce. There are some important questions to be asked to both Amazon and to Sellers in terms of what strategies we can adopt to compete with this.
- What strategies are you as sellers adopting to address the risks of lost sales and IP infringement to Temu/Shein/TikTok?
- What can the seller community do as a collective to help defend against this offensive?
- Is Amazon itself taking any actions (legal, marketing or otherwise) to defend itself (and Amazon sellers by extension)?
- Is there any type of government regulation that could help protect our US e-commerce industry?
- Is this ecommerce threat and the risk to US jobs in ecommerce well understood by our political representatives?
- Are there channels to escalate specific issues of IP infringement for products found on Temu or Shein?
I don't know the answers to these questions and I know there are many more. My hope is that the seller community is ready to engage on this discussion and that we could attract the attention of the Amazon executive team so that they know we are ready to be a part of the response as well. I appreciate your thoughts and contributions to this post.
70 replies
Seller_5OoNWIikvQ4cB
You should probably frame this in the context of who you are. For example, we are a reseller and for us Temu is just another sales channel, like eBay.
SEAmod
Hi @Seller_0qyRtqm32cQSi
Thanks for your post. I understand your concern and desire for discussion. At this time, Amazon has no comment. However, I will be watching this thread and I will relay seller sentiments to the leadership team.
Susan
Seller_i4DsYZVUgBKOw
Temu has changed where here has not. Temu now advertises US based warehouses. They saw the money trail and followed it. So that (Temu) takes the shipping time frame delay right out of the picture .
Seller_WYyNhCj1Yytip
It is our impression that Temu and Shein represent non-brand name, usually inferior products. As Brand owners, we are concerned that Amazon is trying to emulate much of this approach as we see many new competitors springing up from China on the Amazon platform. We can see that some of them even claim to be made in USA (but a cursory look at the bullet points, images and packaging) shows they clearly originate from China.
The overabundance of product choice on the platform creates buyer uncertainty and hesitation. We have seen recent crackdowns on bundling and on resellers. Overall, we would like to understand the overall Amazon strategy and long term plan. Brands need to make their plans and aligning with Amazon makes sense.
Seller_zc50DVO3FE5fz
Write to your senators and congressman and tell them to ban all these Chinese shops that are homes to blatant, illegal copyright and theft.
Seller_Ggt6s7zXEwLbA
On September 13th President Biden announced a new effort to increase the number of <$800 products being sent to the US that are subject to import duties, taxes and tariffs. A primary reason is Temu, etc. I can't link to the White House press announcement, but it is easy enough to find. In part it states:
"Over the last ten years, the number of shipments entering the United States claiming the de minimis exemption has increased significantly, from approximately 140 million a year to over one billion a year. This exponential increase in de minimis shipments makes it more challenging to enforce U.S. trade laws, health and safety requirements, intellectual property rights, consumer protection rules, and to block illicit synthetic drugs such as fentanyl and synthetic drug raw materials and machinery from entering the country.
The majority of shipments entering the United States claiming the de minimis exemption originate from several China-founded e-commerce platforms, putting American consumers at risk, undercutting American workers and businesses, and resulting in the importation of huge volumes of low-value products such as textiles and apparel into the U.S. market duty-free. A shipment is eligible for the de minimis exemption if the aggregate fair retail value of the articles imported is $800 or less. De minimis shipments enter the United States with less information than other imports and are not subject to duties and taxes."
Seller_2IsyAMZgtkkHG
I have not really explored what Shein and TikTok have to offer consumers, but I did search for various products on Temu recently. I honestly found the offerings disappointing and very cheap-looking. Something about the Temu website also did not inspire enough of my trust to want to make a purchase from it.
What can we do as a seller community on Amazon? I would say, focus on selling higher quality, trustworthy items.
Seller_Ha6JyVvDK6Ybs
At the same time Amazon is pushing sellers off the platform as we now do most days the same sales on ebay as Amazon with items that Amazon has wrongfully killed listings, eliminated buy boxes telling customers items prices or sellers don't meet standards of simply eliminating items claiming high pricing error with either no data or price fixing items to sometimes a decades old MSRP so in reality the monster coming for Amazon was created by Amazon. Listings are always being sabotaged incorrect titles, images that are clearly customers image being used as main image and is seems Amazon is not a leader as many items listing are copied from Walmart.
Seller_OzVR08ROodNsi
The truth is Amazon, TEMU, Shein, etc. are all selling the SAME things. Amazon has gotten way to expensive and now that TEMU has U.S. warehouses and can ship products in 3-5 days, people are shopping from them. For example, I bought a complete patio set this summer from TEMU for $74.99 (arrived in 3 days), the SAME EXACT patio set was $279 on Amazon. The only things TEMU can't sell are food stuffs, supplements, etc. But if buyers in this economy want anything else, they can get it at the same time as Prime and over 60% off.
