What is Temu and is it safe to buy from?
Temu has rocketed in popularity in the UK, creating a huge buzz on social media and beyond.
Word of mouth is everything for this cut-price online marketplace; you may well have heard from a friend who's bought a water bottle for £2 or a pair of trainers for £6.
But are its low prices reflective of items' quality? And if something goes wrong, will you get your money back? Here, Which? dives into Temu and explores its murkier side, from unsafe products to data privacy concerns.
Find out how to shop safely online and avoid dangerous products with our essential guide.
Watch: 5 things you need to know before you shop on Temu
Our expert runs the rule over the popular new online marketplace.
What is Temu?
Founded in 2022, Temu (pronounced tee-moo) is an e-commerce website and app that stocks just about any product you can imagine at rock-bottom prices, and claims that it can help you 'shop like a billionaire'.
In the UK, its app has around 13 million monthly users, making it the second most popular shopping app (after Amazon) according to analyst SimilarWeb.
Temu sells a vast range of goods, including clothes, technology, homeware, cosmetics and toys. Expect to find everything from the commonplace to the downright bizarre - including a gold and diamanté-encrusted baby dummy and rechargeable chin-toning 'instrument'.
It's an online marketplace: it connects shoppers with third-party sellers rather than offering its own products. Temu's sellers are largely based in China and many items are shipped directly from its warehouses.
Temu is headquartered in Boston and owned by Chinese e-commerce giant PDD Holdings.
- Find out more: everything you need to know about online marketplaces
The Temu buzz
Temu has exploded in popularity thanks to its prices but also its marketing strategy, which focuses on encouraging users to promote the app and its products. It has created a huge buzz by combining referrals, social media and a gamified way of shopping.
Temu has a referral system where users can earn credits or gifts by sharing content and discounts with family or friends. Users can also share their referral links or codes on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
This appears to have made its way to reviews of the platform itself. When we checked reviews of Temu on Trustpilot in September 2023, a large number of those giving it five stars shared referral codes that allowed them to earn credits. At the time Trustpilot told us it had removed more than 1,700 reviews in the past 12 months, considered to be either spam or marketing materials such as promotional codes.
Elsewhere on social media, Temu partners with influencers with large followings. They can also offer referral codes, discount codes or free prizes, and are essentially being paid to promote the app.
Users can also earn credits by logging into the app every day, and taking part in competitions or games (which can also be shared with friends).
- Find out more: what is TikTok Shop and is it safe to buy from?
How does Temu keep prices so low and are its discounts genuine?
Temu's headline-grabbing prices are certainly tempting, but how does it keep them so cheap?
It says it’s due to its direct-to-consumer business model that ‘eliminates middlemen’. Most of its sellers are Chinese manufacturers and suppliers while Temu handles the shipping, allowing it to streamline logistics and costs.
Another advantage Temu has is that, as an ecommerce firm delivering to the West, it's exempt from export duties in China. What's more it also – thanks to its rock-bottom prices – nearly always escapes UK import duty, which only applies to orders worth £135 or more.
Temu also controls the app's never-ending promotions. Every product we looked at on Temu had a discount applied, but it isn’t clear how long each product has been at that price or how long it was at the ‘was’ price.
Guidance from The Chartered Trading Standards Institute says pricing practices must be fair and not misleading. It says when considering whether a price reduction is genuine you should consider how long the product was on sale at the higher price compared with the lower price, how recently the higher price was offered and whether significant sales were made at the higher price. This information is not available on Temu listings.
- Find out more: how to get the best price when shopping online
What is Temu’s returns policy?
When you buy from a third-party on an online marketplace, your contract is with the seller rather than the site. However, Temu still handles customer service and has a built-in returns policy: most items are eligible for a refund within 90 days of the date of purchase, which exceeds your consumer rights.
Once you notify Temu of your intent to return, you have a further 14 days to send back the package.
The process for returning an item is done through your account on the app or website. You select a reason for the return and what refund method you would like to use – Temu credits or a refund via your original payment method.
The first return of every order is free. There's a shipping fee of £2.50 for subsequent items, which is deducted from your refund. Anecdotally, we’ve heard that Temu rarely asks for products to actually be returned. Product prices are so low that the cost of processing returned items simply isn’t worth it.
Temu states that refunds can take between five and 14 'business' days. This is not in line with the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, which state that refunds should be with a customer within 14 days.
- Find out more: what are my shopping rights on an online marketplace?
Are products on Temu fake or dangerous?
Temu is awash with products by 'unknown' brands – either completely unbranded or made by manufacturers we've never heard of, and which don't appear to exist outside the online marketplace – much like competitors such as Amazon and Wish.
Most online marketplaces don't verify the products that are for sale on their platforms, and Temu is no different. When we tested electric heaters in early 2024, all three of the heaters we bought from Temu sellers were found to be electrically unsafe and can’t be sold legally in the UK. At the time Temu told us that the safety of its customers is its highest priority, and that proactive monitoring systems had detected and removed two heaters in December.
As part of another investigation, we found Temu sellers listing what appeared to be illegal weapons and products that should be age-restricted in November 2023.
Separately, the British Toy and Hobby Association (BTHA) tested five toys from Temu in October and found three posed a risk of choking or suffocation. Only one of the toys was compliant with UK safety standards. Overall, the BTHA deemed 85% of toys purchased from third-party sellers on 11 online marketplaces to be unsafe.
EU opens investigation into Temu over illegal products
In October 2024, the European Commission launched a formal investigation into Temu amid concerns it is failing to prevent the sale of illegal products.
It is concerned that Temu could be selling unsafe products that don't meet EU safety standards, including toys, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. It's also investigating the app's addictive design and recommendation systems.
Rocio Concha, Which? Director of Policy and Advocacy, said:
'It's right that the European Commission is holding Temu to account by investigating whether it is failing to prevent dangerous products ending up in people’s homes. There are significant barriers to taking similar action in the UK as weak consumer protection laws mean Temu and other online marketplaces are not held responsible for unsafe products being sold by third parties.
'The government must use its Product Regulation and Metrology Bill to give online marketplaces greater legal responsibility for preventing unsafe products from being sold on their platforms and to enable tough enforcement action, including heavy fines, if they flout the rules.'
Chinese counterpart is named on American piracy list
Temu's owner, PDD Holdings, also has an app that caters to the Chinese market, Pinduoduo. This app came under fire in the US in 2018 for selling counterfeit products, and in 2019 was named in the Office of the United States Trade Representative's list of 'Notorious Markets for Counterfeit Products and Piracy'. It remains on this list.
When we browsed, we found several examples of products on Temu that bore a striking resemblance to well-known branded products. Perfumes such as ‘COOC’ (imitating Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle), ‘Miss Dear’ (Miss Dior) and ‘Black Coffee’ (Yves Saint Laurent's Black Opium) were all available for less than £5, while their branded equivalents cost £80 or more.
When it came to electronics, several products looked similar to popular gadgets but cost a fraction of the price.
This watch, designed to look like the Apple Watch Series 9, was £30.99 instead of £399 for the genuine article. When something is this cheap compared to the original, quality is bound to be compromised.
- Find out more: how to avoid fake and dangerous products
Warning about Temu forced labour goods
US lawmakers warned that 'there is an extremely high risk that Temu’s supply chains are contaminated with forced labor' in a Congressional report published in June 2023.
The report said Temu admitted it ‘does not expressly prohibit’ the sale of goods from China's Xinjiang region. Since 2017, Chinese authorities in Xinjiang have detained an estimated one million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in ‘re-education camps’, and it’s believed that hundreds of thousands of ex-detainees are living in forced labour camps.
Temu told the US Congress that it 'conducts no audits and reports no compliance system to affirmatively examine' whether its suppliers are observing US forced labour law - which blocks imports from Xinjiang.
It says it has a zero-tolerance policy for the use of forced, indentured or penal labor, and that contractors, merchants, suppliers, and other third parties and their suppliers must not use child labour in its third-party code of conduct. It's unclear how or whether Temu ensures suppliers adhere to this policy, though.
- Find out more: which brands are best for sustainable clothing?
Temu data privacy concerns
We haven’t run Temu through our own security testing, but we are aware of reports that the app is harvesting users' data.
In March 2024, the Information Commissioner's Office – the UK's data watchdog – looked into a Temu promotion that offered participants up to £50 cash in exchange for considerable amounts of personal data. Temu subsequently changed the terms after users expressed concerns.
In the UK, companies must be transparent about the data they collect and how it’s processed under the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). The data gathered must be relevant and limited to what is necessary for the processing to take place.
However, the reasons for taking information are often broad, such as in companies’ ‘legitimate interests’. While it all should be listed in a privacy policy, the reality is that when you click ‘accept’, you have little-to-no idea what will actually happen next with your data unless you closely analyse the fine print.
We believe greater consideration around these 'legitimate interests' is necessary, and that a better standard to improve transparency for consumers is long overdue. We're working with the Information Commissioner’s Office on a code of practice for apps.
It’s rarely possible to take full control of your data when using an app, but consider following a few simple steps to get a better handle on it whether you’re using Temu or any other app.
- Be aware of the permissions it’s requesting. Apps need access to certain aspects to work, but sometimes they go too far. Check what permissions an app wants before you download it and deny access in your phone settings if you like.
- Some data collection is optional during setup, and that means you can opt out. Only share what you’re comfortable with.
- Read (or at least skim) the privacy policy - particularly the data collection sections. You have the right to object to a company processing your data.
Should I shop with Temu?
We browsed review sites to see what users are saying about Temu, and gathered experiences of ordering via Temu on the Which? scam alert Facebook page.
We heard from people who were happy with the service they'd received from Temu, as well as those who felt the quality of the products wasn't great.
One person told us that 'the items are surprisingly good, considering how cheap they are', while another said that they ordered eight items and only kept two as they 'found the items cheap and nasty and very poor quality'.
On Trustpilot, user reviews are polarised. Of the 28,000+ reviews, 35% are five star but 45% are just one star.
If you prioritise price over anything else, then Temu has a wide range of low-cost purchases. Just don't shop there based on over-enthusiastic reviews or social media influencers – they are earning money to send you to the app.
Plus based on our research on Temu and similar online marketplaces, we'd recommend being wary of products where safety is a consideration – car seats, toys and electrical items, for example. Watch out for cut-price products pretending to be genuine, too - the price is a sure giveaway that they aren't.
