That many people are unsure about how to pronounce its name hasn’t stopped Temu from taking Europe by storm. Consumers have flocked to the platform, drawn by its strikingly low prices, endless discounts and fast deliveries.
The Chinese online marketplace, which launched in Europe in 2023, was the most downloaded shopping app in France and Italy in 2023, with 12 million and 9 million downloads respectively according to Business of Apps. As many as 75 million Europeans use it at least once a month. It even has Amazon worried.
But the real question is whether consumers who do some shopping on Temu can be safe, or sorry.
BEUC complaints
In May 2024, we came to our conclusion: consumers deserved better.
A quick search on the platform tells you that you are buying from companies mainly located in China that, at least in May this year, you often had no means of contacting if something went wrong. There was frequently no indication of whether the product you are buying met EU product safety standards.
Temu seems to have adapted this practice since, but we need more time to see if these are sufficient and meaningful changes.
The platform was also rife with harmful design techniques to trick consumers. We clicked on items from the product results pages which would then lead, on the next screen, to altogether different quantities, prices or even products. We tried closing our account down and saw how many loops we had to jump through to get there.
The good news is that European law including the Digital Services Act, product safety and market surveillance rules protect consumers and punish such behaviour. That is why BEUC and various national consumer groups that are members of our network, filed complaints with the European Commission and national authorities in May to ask them to launch investigations and take deterrent action against the company.
Testing of products on sale reveals scale of problems
Since then, a series of product tests have confirmed that many items bought on Temu carry unacceptable safety risks.
In July 2024, the Italian consumer association and BEUC member Altroconsumo undertook product testing on items bought on Temu. The results are damning for the Chinese company.
Most of the 25 products bought did not respect either national or EU rules on product safety. For instance, products marketed for teething babies too easily fell apart, creating a risk of suffocation. Children’s toys, marketed as large puzzles but which were actually construction games, did not contain sufficient instructions. Altroconsumo also tested party balloons which carried a worryingly strong chemical smell that was difficult to identify but that is typical of solvents or silicone.
A month later, the Danish consumer group and BEUC member Forbrugerrådet Tænk revealed it had carried out tests of products used by children, such as toys or baby carriers, electrical products, like adapters and cameras for surveillance, cosmetics and detergents.
They found that 30 out of the 38 products did not comply with EU product safety rules. Eleven of the 15 child products failed safety tests and 3 out of 6 sunscreens contained an ingredient that was no longer used on the Danish market and which will be banned across the EU from 2025. Two out of four adapters failed the high voltage test and therefore carried a real risk of electric shock. Some of the labelling on the products was downright misleading. Although Temu removed the products in question after the tests went public, they point to a more systemic problem.
These are not isolated tests. The UK consumer group and BEUC member Which? found dangerous electrical heaters on sale, as well as illegal weapons without any age verification made to see if they ended up in the hands of minors. And that’s before we get to its app’s worrying data hoovering practices which our German member Stiftung Warentest uncovered.
Sacrificing safety for low prices?
Temu is evidently capturing markets through its ultra low prices while the cost-of-living crisis continues to hit Europe. But it is doing so by sacrificing the safety of goods on offer and the things consumers in Europe either take for granted or deserve by law.
This cannot stand.
Authorities around the EU must step in and ensure that Temu is meeting its obligations, both at European and at national level. It cannot pay to break the law and endanger consumers, nor is it fair for all the companies out there who are making an effort to comply with existing laws. You should be safe when you go shopping on Temu.
The good news is that the cogs of enforcement are in motion.
Shopping on Temu must be made safe
Several of our complaints filed with national authorities have been transferred to the relevant Irish authorities whose job it is to enforce the Digital Services Act for online platforms which have their main EU office in Ireland (Temu is one of them). The European Commission, who can take over enforcement from national authorities for the very large platforms, has requested further information from Temu to assess what the company is up to. These are encouraging early signs, but authorities must keep up this momentum and bring about change at Temu.
It would also be very helpful if online marketplaces like Temu could be added as a category of economic operator under product safety and market surveillance rules. It would mean they would then have the same obligations as other players in the supply chain in ensuring the products sold are safe.
In the meantime, shoppers should be wary when they head to Temu. Things might be cheap; they might also be dangerous and illegal. Temu has a big job and responsibility on its hands if it wants to be more than a one-hit wonder on the EU market.