Temu Shakes Up eCommerce Industry, Overtakes Shein, Amazon and Walmart

Newcomer eCommerce app “Temu” is taking the spotlight from eCommerce giants Amazon, Shein, Target and Walmart with its affordable offerings, weeks after becoming the most downloaded app in the U.S.  

The Boston-based eCommerce app claims to have the best deals customers can find online. The new platform, launched last September and boosted its marketing this year, prides itself in being an all-in-one shopping app housing 250 categories — from beauty to clothing, to food and gadgets.  

The platform encourages shoppers to “shop like a billionaire” and is known to hold frequent sales and new weekly deals. Just last week, Temu’s President’s Day sale went live on its website, with prices starting at $0.39 and sales of up to 90% off.  

“Through the largest stage possible, we want to share with our consumers that they can shop with a sense of freedom because of the price we offer,” a Temu spokesperson shared with CNN. 

The Boston-based company found its footing in the U.S. eCommerce market most notably through its Super Bowl ad featuring celebrity endorsers such as Jason Derulo and JuJu Smith-Schuster. Apart from this, Temu also pursued several social media campaigns that helped the platform reach the top and rank #1 in Apple’s App Store for the majority of 2023, leading over Amazon and Walmart. 

Temu has also gained massive traction from users in TikTok, with over 300 million views on the videos using the hashtag #temu, most of them consisting of Temu hauls and commenters asking other TikTokers to swap discount codes. 

Though based in Boston, the app is a subsidiary of the Chinese multinational commerce group PDD Holdings Inc is developed to perfection and is supported by many third-party payment services such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal and most types of credit cards. 

As of last week, Temu has accumulated 24 million downloads upon release.