Temu is sued! Many Amazon sellers begin to defend their rights

Temu is sued again!

There are endless discussions about Amazon and Temu! Temu not only snatched a large number of Amazon sellers' traffic with its low price advantage, but also Amazon sellers have found that the Temu platform is full of various infringing products. Long ago, industry insiders said that Temu would explode sooner or later.

Sure enough, Temu was sued by several Chinese Amazon sellers.

Products were sold at low prices on the Temu platform, and Amazon sellers began to protect their rights!

According to foreign media reports, Pinduoduo's overseas e-commerce platform Temu is facing multiple lawsuits for selling infringing products at low prices.

One of the Chinese sellers of fitness equipment said that his hot-selling products priced at more than US$20 on the Amazon platform were moved to the Temu platform for sale, but the price was only about US$5, and these low-priced products on the Temu platform did not obtain its own permission.

So in May this year, the seller sued Temu and its suppliers in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois , accusing them of infringing his copyright and damaging product sales . He believed that Temu and its suppliers copied and sold these products, stealing the fruits of his labor .

Another Shenzhen Amazon seller, Xiao Zhang (pseudonym) , sued Temu in April this year, also believing that the platform was suspected of infringement. It is understood that Xiao Zhang did not sell products on the Temu platform, but found his company's pirated products on it. These products were originally sold for nearly US$30 on the Amazon platform , but now they are only sold for about US$5.

The U.S. lawsuits are among the first legal disputes between Amazon sellers and Temu, according to court documents .

Now many products on the Temu platform are facing the risk of infringement, and the infringers are internationally renowned brands... If nothing unexpected happens, more brands will choose to defend their rights. It is only a matter of time before Temu and the sellers on the platform "fall".

It is understood that a large number of Amazon sellers have found that their product images have been blatantly copied on the Temu platform. For the same type of products, Temu has almost no changes except for lower prices. An industry insider complained that "Temu has almost become a porter for Amazon. It will port whatever products are popular on Amazon. If your product is not ported, it means it is not popular enough and is not on the Amazon BSR list."

How should Amazon sellers protect their rights in the face of issues such as Temu's image relocation? In the face of brand protection issues, is the infringement risk borne by the Temu platform or the platform sellers?

Experienced sellers say that if a seller’s images are moved by Temu , the seller can open Chat with Temu and leave a message to warn them . They can also write an email to [email protected] to file a complaint. Currently, many Amazon sellers have said that they have successfully removed the moved images from Temu.

Regarding product infringement, at present, the Temu platform will not take the initiative to assume responsibility, but will first freeze the funds of the sellers involved. Taking the Frisbee infringement incident as an example, all the stores containing Frisbee on the Temu platform have been sued, and the funds of the relevant sellers’ stores have been frozen and cannot be withdrawn normally.

The cross-border e-commerce market pays special attention to copyright, and it is obvious that the Temu platform is still lacking in this regard . With the Frisbee incident, everyone can't help but speculate that when Temu encounters infringement issues next time, it will still transfer the infringement risk to the seller first .

This is undoubtedly a major hidden danger for sellers who rely on the Temu platform.

Temu platform is becoming more and more popular, and sellers are facing multiple risks

In fact, in addition to infringement issues, sellers on the Temu platform also face other "troubles".

1. Product prices are getting more and more expensive, and profits are falling sharply. With more and more sellers on the Temu platform , the platform has more confidence in price comparison. Many sellers have found that the cost price has been repeatedly suppressed. For example, a product that could have been quoted at 20 yuan can now only be quoted at 15 yuan or even lower.

With lower supply prices, sellers’ product profits will also drop significantly. In many cases, the profit of a single product is cut in half, and even the cost cannot cover the profit. “There are about 300 orders a day, but it’s not enough to pay for labor, water and electricity,” said one of the sellers who wanted to quit. Various fines will also eat into the already small profits. The monthly fines range from a few thousand to tens of thousands. The input-output ratio of the Temu platform is too low, and the profit point will only get lower and lower.

2. The inventory risk is high, and sellers need to invest a lot of money. When preparing goods, the Temu platform requires sellers to prepare 7-15 days of supply in advance. If there is a problem with the link or the goods are unsalable, the goods need to be returned and reprocessed. Not to mention the freight cost, the funds used for preparation are also not small. For some very popular products, sellers need to replenish a large amount of goods to the warehouse, but after the goods are sent, many people face the problem of being further pressured by the platform. If the seller does not agree to reduce the price, it is likely that the product will not be promoted by the platform and a large amount of inventory will be returned.

3. The external environment and platform policies are unstable. Since its launch, Temu has not even celebrated its first birthday. The benefits of a new platform have gradually faded, and the platform rules have been changing. For example, the shipping fee has changed from being fully covered by the platform at the beginning to being shared equally with sellers. Many sellers believe that the platform policies may become less and less friendly to sellers in the future.

From the perspective of the external environment, Temu faces policy risks. Recently, the United States has again proposed to cancel the "tariff exemption policy for goods below 800 yuan", canceling the tariff exemption widely used by Chinese e-commerce sellers when sending orders from China to American consumers. Now it is only in the proposal stage, but many industry insiders still smell danger. The US market can be said to be Temu's main market. In the first quarter of this year, Temu ranked first in the US popular app download list , with outstanding performance . According to Second Measure analysis, in May, Americans' consumer spending on Temu was nearly 20% higher than Shein.

"As Temu continues to grow in the United States and has a large-scale impact on the interests of local American businesses, the US government will not sit idly by. " Industry insiders predict that if the policy of canceling tariffs is implemented, it will not be the platform that will ultimately pay the bill, but consumers or sellers.

Objectively speaking, the Temu platform does have certain advantages, such as large platform traffic and fast order processing, which can be used as a channel for clearing inventory; the operation is also relatively simple, although the warehouse is still engaged in hunger marketing, and many sellers are forced to grab storage space in the early morning. However, a group of Temu sellers still do not feel safe. They believe that "the platform leaves the two most fatal risks of inventory and funds to the sellers, and the most important data in the operation process is not disclosed. The lifeblood of the product is in the hands of the platform, which is not friendly to sellers at all. "

At present, the Temu platform is still flooded with new sellers, many of whom only want to make quick money or follow the trend. In general, there are many people entering the market, and there are also many sellers leaving the market!

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