After my experience with wish, I'm never falling for these cheapass Chinese marketplaces again
this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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I've had pretty good luck with the random kitchen accouterment or phone case from Aliexpress but probably due to marketing, Temu seems to have overwhelmed several countries' postal systems so I'll also be steering clear. These companies (amazon included) all massively contribute to exploitation though so I wouldn't recommend going hog wild on them with 100 orders of random shit.
Just turns out that it's really cheap to make various types of garbage in China and ship it the cheapest possible way that takes 1+ months to arrive. Many of these products lack fancy packaging and marketing as well which also slashes costs.
Scam isn't really the right term. You get what you pay for and some people do in fact enjoy the dopamine hit of buying something or getting a 'deal' even though they probably don't plan on using what they get very much. Wish proved the concept, Temu is just iterating on it
I’ve used Temu a few times. Last year we were shooting for stocking stuffers for my girlfriends children. She’s seen an ad for Temu and we decided to give it a try. We figured that worst case scenario we’d be out $15. Ordered it. Constant shipping updates were provided and a week and a half later stuff showed up just like it should have. The products were fine.
Most everything I’ve purchased have been legit. A lot of it is exactly the same as you’d get from Amazon for a fraction of the price. Even the photo of the products are the same.
I’ve even bought automotive accessories from them - cup holder insert from US based retailers $20. Temu <$5. Windshield sunshade from Amazon $17-27. Temu - $6. Exact same product.
I’ve had a problem with two things I got from them - an AirPod knock off for GF daughter ($8 for true wireless with active noise canceling that worked well) that fell and broke and a set of two PD chargers that turned out to not be what they said they were - refunds for both were issued almost immediately.
Other small items like funny keychains, pens, pins and other small items bought as gifts for my employees, have been big hits.
My girlfriend wanted some anti fatigue mats for the kitchen. She found some and picked some out and had them in her list on Amazon. They want in sale one day ($33 or something like that I think) and before I ordered them I checked Temu - $9. Same product photos and everything. They’ve been great.
You just have to be careful what you get. Some things have been more expensive through Temu, so bonus in faster shipping from elsewhere. I’ve received orders in 7 days or as long as 14 days once. But typically 10-11 days.
As far as seeing ads everywhere - I have a nice ad blocker on my laptop and phone so I think I’ve seen a Temu ad once.
Are these ads in your browser and, if so, does your browser support the extension uBlock Origin?
I've started seeing them in a few free apps on my phone.
Mostly it's Instagram and YouTube. I expect see ads in both of those apps, but not the same ad over and over again for months and months
I've stopped using the YouTube app entirely and watch videos in my mobile browser with the ad blocker due to that stuff. Even the pihole isn't touching some of those in-app ads since their data can be routed through the same servers as the content you're trying to view. Not sure about Instagram but the mobile browser might work there too. One possible complication would be if going to their mobile site prompts you to install/use their app but if that happens, you could try toggling the browser's option to request the desktop version of the site. As far as I know, the most commonly-used mobile browsers have that feature but I haven't checked them all.
I pretty much only watch YouTube on my TV lately, so there's not much I can do there. Instagram isn't really worth any more effort than just opening the app. Again, I don't actually mind the ads that much generally since it means I'm not paying to use the apps, it's just that these Temu ads are kinda taking over and they are terrible
Fair enough, that's a tougher nut to crack. I'm not a big fan either.