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Temu?

Chuck(G)

Chuck(G)

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Joined
Jan 11, 2007
Messages
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Location
Pacific Northwest, USA
On various repair discussions, mostly dealing with auto repair tools, etc. the subject of getting goods from Temu has come up. Temu seems to be set on unsettling the usual Chinese goods suppliers. Stuff offered is cheap and ships quickly. I decided to take the plunge and order a few things to see how it all works out.

Shipping is by USPS and UPS as far as I can tell and you're advised of the shipment progress.

I picked up some odds and ends (flux, iron cleaner, solder suckers) and a hot-air rework station (HX-33). Total came to about 40 clams. The solder sucker (a clone of the 13" Edsyn Soldapullt) was an exact match to my 30+ year original made-in-England unit--the parts even interchange. The hot-air rework station comes with the usual iron and air gun. It appears to be well-made, and does work. I wish the iron and air gun would have high flex silicone cables like my old Weller TCP, but for the money, not bad at all. The manual is pretty decent, describing how to calibrate the temperature sensor as well as switch between C and F. Kit comes with a selection of tips for both the gun and iron, as well as a small solder sucker, straight and curved forceps and a roll of solder.
Thus far, my impression is positive.
 
Sure, but for light (my job doesn't depend on it) use, it'll probably be fine. After all, even the name brand stuff likely has innards made in Cathay.
 
Thanks for the report. I've been struggling with some counterfeit chips received from Ali Express. So far they've agreed to a return and refund but I'm trying to convince them that shipping back a pile of remarked fakes isn't worth the effort or cost. My first video to them only showed one of the ten being tested so that was their hangup. Just sent a video showing all ten not functioning. They reacted viscerally to my assertion they chips are counterfeit and came back saying since there is a Fujitsu logo on them they can't be fake. They are supposed to be MB8877A FDC chips and Fujitsu has a very unusal and distinct DIP40 package. The sanded down and remarked who-knows-what these are isn't even close. I wonder if Temu is equally difficult to deal with if there's a problem.
 
There is a MASSIVE amount of scam items on the site. They sell flashlights that output 10,000 lumens, as an example. which is obviously impossible. But with a bit of scrutiny, its pretty easy to avoid the worst of the scam items. All that said, i've probably spent about $500 on the site. I have a huge stockpile of electronics parts for repairs now. Its also great for getting cheap knick-knacks for kids. I would spend $3 on some keychains that would have costed $20 off amazon.

So at least for my use case, its been positive.

I've returned only 3 items, and the process is as easy as you can want. they give you a label to print, you slap it on a box and into the mail, and once they receive it, you get a refund or credit.
 
The first time I heard of Temu was a few weeks back when I received a scam email pretending to be from them. I had to do a search to see who they are, and found lots of unflattering comments about the quality of their goods. So, off to a bad start.
 
Like anything else online, you do your homework before parting with any of your feelthy lucre. The hot-air rework station that cost $33 got its firs use yesterday and it worked flawlessly. Others have reported the same.
 
Chuck(G) said:
I don't know if I'd go to Temu for components; didn't know that they carried them.
Click to expand...

oh yea, all kinds. Nothing too specific, just the jelly-bean parts. Everything i've gotten has been within spec, at least as far as I can test them. Most of the parts I get are for troubleshooting and repairs. Replacement USB sockets, switches, etc. I tested a few the 2N2222's I got and all worked. I got huge packs of LED's and all have worked as expected so far.

I got packs of caps/resistors and they are nowhere close to 1% tolerance, but are good enough to fix the random stuff that crosses my bench. If I was doing a full restore on a motherboard, i'm still going to mouser for nichicons, but to get something fixed, these part grab bags are pretty awesome.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Temu seems to be set on unsettling the usual Chinese goods suppliers.
Click to expand...

The practice is called "dumping" and, sure, I guess you can argue that getting stuff at less than cost is at least, in the very short term, "good for the consumer", but it takes only a trivial amount of research to find plenty of articles about what a slimy dumpster fire of a company Temu is.

Here's a 17 minute YouTube video about the company, but since I'm sure nobody ain't got time for that I'll jump straight to the link to their sources document for a bunch of URLs to news stories about the company, which you can of course extensively augment on your own with just a few minutes poking around the search engine of your choice. Starting with this Wired article, Temu is intentionally eating an average of thirty bucks an order to undercut its competitors, both other Chinese companies like AliExpress and, of course, international companies like Amazon. Temu's network of suppliers are essentially agreeing to be exploited by the company in the hope that over the long term the gain they get from building up an international customer base (which, presumably, they'll eventially be able to charge enough from) will overcome the immediate losses. In order to dodge any possible sanctions against dumping Temu happily takes advantage of trade loophole that allows packages valued at $800 or less to skip tarriffs...

Dumping is problematical on its own, and it's not like Amazon wasn't/isn't guilty of it. (It's a not insignificant factor in why Amazon managed to destroy the bookstore industry.) But Temu takes it to new heights; not only do they actively promote the manufactures of "rip off"/clone products, they apparently regularly clone entire Amazon storefronts and marketing assets. The company is also notorious for feeling perfectly entitled to do whatever they feel like with any data you share with them; Google banned the app for Temu's sister storefront in China from the App store because it was actual data-stealing malware, and Apple briefly pulled the Temu app because the company was lying about their data usage policies.

In short, the company sucks and if they succeed in driving their competition out of business all of our lives will be just that much worse but, well, sure, cheap stuff rules, right?
 
That's what we have politicians for. Temu isn't significantly cheaper than Aliexpress, and in many cases, more expensive. They're not the first business (domestic or foreign) to take a hit to cement a hold on the marketplace. I recall that I collected $20 from Paypal for signing up...
 
Macroeconomic concerns aside (which, sure, aren't really a thing any individual can fix), well, just watch yourself. They are very much a known offender when it comes to sketchy behavior on the customer facing side, not just the back end.
 
For me, it was an experiment. I had to search their site for something that I really wanted and set a target of $50 for my expenditures. My total cost came to around $43, so I fell a bit short--I couldn't find anything that I really wanted to make up the total.

Will I go to them again? Probably not--they don't have a lot of what I'm looking for.

Ebay and Amazon aren't that great in the niche categories either--eBay is suffering greatly from drop-ship-itis. I wanted a screen light for my system. I found two sellers on eBay offering a 33 cm light. I bought from the first seller, only to be contacted with a refund because there was no stock. So I ordered from the second seller, only to be contacted hours later with a refund saying that they didn't have the item either. I suspect drop-shipping there from the same source.

Eventually, I went to Aliexpress and purchased a 55 cm lamp for less than either of the eBay sellers' prices. It does the job.

I'll let the forum know how my experiment with the X99 system goes when it arrives.

Depends on what you're after. Buying use-once tools? Maybe.

As my late father told me "Never buy cheap shoes--you'll save money but suffer in the process."
 
I noticed Temu has been getting Youtubers to review their products and services. I noticed this with reviewers of tools, guitars, camping gear, and clothing. Temu would give them $200 of credit, then they'd buy some items then review them. Mileage varies depending on items purchased.
 
i'm curious about the electronics microscopes. I know if its trash I can just return it. but after the knee-capping I took buying xmas stuff...
 
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