App Review: Temu

Recently, there are been an App that has garnered attention due to it's affordability and array of practical and useful products. I stumbled upon Temu when it's promotion was at it's height and it was the most reviewed and written about App, and was dubbed "The hottest app" in the market.

I happened to jump onto that bandwagon, enticed by the prices and the potential for finding a possible gem of an app, hoping that for the price point, that the quality was there. While it can be compared to other similar apps such as SheIn and YesStyle, this app provides the best of both worlds.

Temu can be seen retaining the hit and miss aspects of SheIn's products (Getting a good quality versus a bad quality item despite what was in the product picture), it can have the good production quality of YesStyle. Both of which are Chinese owned and based and have both a website and an app to shop on. What they all tend to have in common, is affordable and reasonbly cheap prices, especially when it's from a "larger" retailer.

While Temu can provide quality items at an insanely cheap price, with the cheapest product being a mere US Dollar. I've gotten everything from homeware (Rose mandala lamp and a pretty rose water bottle), electronics (Gaming headset for Laptop/PC), clothing (better quality and almost on par with a store such as Target or Kohls), beauty products (makeup and nail items) and accessories (bags and jewelry). Temu also constantly has sales in app and in the site that offer severely cut prices to entice potential buyers.

While some things were a hit or miss (aforementioned Rose Lamp and water bottle) in terms of quality, for the price point, it is an app that I recommend that you try initially, then decide for yourself whether the app and investment was worth it.

Talking about navigating in app, in itself, the app is a bit complicated, but still easy to use. You can add multiple items, and select which ones you want to buy now, and even add on items to your cart, and are able to cancel a whole order or parts of an order as long as it is still in process. Reviews are possible after a certain amount of time has passed. Unfortunately, the interface is not intuitive and you need to scroll either the the side of the product picture, or a little downward to get any sense of what the product you're buying even features, since there is only a title, but no comprehensive description of the product.

Most products I received are shipped via an international (Chinese) source, with an occasional shipment based in Los Angeles, or Canada. Most of the "shops" found in the app hail from Chinese based sources, with the occasional international source, often products are similar to one another that once a certain product sells out, there is some chance for the same product to get restocked.

While the quality is good for it's price, to be more discerning, you would need to take into consideration the source of the items being shipped, how they're being made and distributed. While there are currently no expose's similar to SheIn, it does have drawbacks. One being that Temu's popularity seems to have soared, and they are slow to change how they ship products, with many of the items I've ordered coming with beat up boxes due to poor packaging (literally only used a thin plastic bag envelope with no padding unless it's included with the item you've ordered) and another being the "hit-and-miss" quality of some of the products. For that aspect, I suggest you follow the common sense method of "the more expensive it is, the better the quality" when shopping on this App.

In short, Temu depends on people's sense of frugality and potential for good quality products in order to make sales and draw in more consumers to use and promote the app, and it still stands to question whether the longevity is still there after the initial wave of interest has passed.

Review by: Chrystal R.