NT$190,000 was deducted in one month. Temu’s five-fold fine is too harsh.

Recently, sellers are busy calculating the revenue and profits of the past year, as well as making operational plans, selecting products and preparing stocks for the new year. However, at this time, a group of Temu sellers have received notices of 5 times the fine. Some sellers were fined more than 100,000 yuan in just one month...

The fine was 5 times higher half a year after the sale, and Temu sellers were fined 190,000 in a single month

"One of our stores only withdrew more than 20,000 yuan in January, and the available balance has always been displayed as 0, but the fine was more than 180,000 yuan, and the fine orders are still increasing."

The fine was really unfair, so the seller Daniel complained to Een.com about Temu’s recent heavy fine.

In December 2022, three months after Temu went online, Daniel also joined the platform. "In the early stage, I felt that the profit was acceptable. Although the profit was not as high as other platforms, the sales volume increased rapidly."

By 2023, Daniel's Temu store has grown even faster. According to him, last year several of his products were ranked in the top 5 in their categories , and one product even ranked first in the category for five consecutive months . In terms of profit, the profit of the products sold by Daniel ranges from 10% to 15% of sales.

With fast orders and large-scale marketing by its parent company, Temu has attracted more and more attention, and the platform has accumulated a larger and larger traffic pool and consumer user base.

Based on this, Daniel invested more and more in Temu. But this joy did not last long. Temu's five-fold fine also made Daniel feel entangled in "whether to continue".

"In the first four months after opening the store, we were fined very little, and almost every month after that, but in the last few months, we were fined a lot, already hundreds of thousands."

According to the picture provided by Daniel, Ennet noticed that as of January 26, his store had been deducted more than 190,000 yuan by Temu in the past month .

"In recent months, probably since September, our sales on Temu have dropped significantly. This 190,000 is equivalent to the profit of the last four or five months. "

What bothers Daniel the most is that Temu is not transparent about fines and does not have a clear protection mechanism for the validity period of return fines.

"Temu didn't provide a detailed breakdown of the fines. We could only see which batch of goods was fined, but we couldn't trace it back to the specific item. And they said the fine was five times higher because of poor quality, but there wasn't even a photo of the quality. Whether there was a quality problem or whether there was a duplicate fine was all up to Temu to decide. As a seller, I have no way to verify it."

At the same time, "Temu fines have no rules for the time period. The fines that pop up in the same month are sold over a period of several months, and many of them are even orders sold half a year ago."

The seller is worried about the fines imposed for orders placed half a year ago, as the time span is so long and whether there is a case of repeated fines .

However, Yien.com sought confirmation from Pinduoduo staff regarding this matter but received no positive response .

The fine suddenly increased by 5 times, and the sellers are quite resentful

Fiona, like Daniel, was recently fined heavily by Temu.

"As of the 23rd, my shop has been fined nearly 130,000 yuan by Temu in January, all five times the amount, 5,600 yuan a day . How can I earn 5,000 yuan a day?"

"What's annoying is that you don't know what caused the fine, and there is no specific order information. It seems that the platform only fines you."

During the interview, Fiona did not hide her grievance and anger. Since joining the platform in April 2023, her store has grown step by step with the platform, and the volume has increased rapidly, with the number of orders increasing from dozens to thousands per day , an increase of more than a hundred times.

"I was very confident in Temu at first. Although everyone complained about it and the price was too harsh, the orders were placed very quickly and I was able to achieve a large volume in a short period of time. Although there were some fines in the past few months, they were not as severe as this month."

In addition, Fiona also said that products that were taken off the shelves a long time ago are still being fined .

Like Daniel, Fiona is currently in a dilemma. " I want to close the store, but if the fine continues, I will have to pay back all my previous earnings. The more I sell, the more I lose. But I have too much inventory and I can't give it up . "

In fact, it’s not just the sellers mentioned above.

Yien.com has noticed that a number of posts complaining about being fined five times by Temu have recently appeared on multiple social media platforms:

“- Doing Temu is incomplete without going through a 5-fold fine ;

——Working for Temu , paying for his work ;

——What we sell can’t keep up with what we deduct every day ;

——Several products have been off the shelves for half a year but still received a 5-fold fine ;

—— A deduction message appears every 5 minutes, and no one says anything after seeing it ;

——5-7 thousand is deducted every day , and even the New Year is starving ;

——Thousands a day, just want to clear out the stock and exit the store directly ;

——The first thing I do when I go online every day is to check if there is any new fine information ;

——I am happy to get Temu again   5 times the fine ;

——Five times the fine, being Temu is really exciting;

——For an order from April last year , the deduction of 5 times will start from January this year;

..."

Similar posts are emerging on various social media platforms, and the posting dates are all after January. Although Temu's five-fold fine happens from time to time, and sellers continue to complain, it is clear that more sellers have suffered from it recently, and the fines received by individual sellers have become more frequent.

“Platforms and sellers should share a common destiny”

Temu fined the seller five times, giving only the reason that the quality did not meet the standards.

But obviously, this reason cannot convince the sellers. As Daniel said above, the platform has never provided pictures of quality problems, and Temu’s quality requirements are too strict.

Not long ago , in the adjustment of the 5-fold penalty rule for after-sales service in Temu's "After-sales Service Rules" circulated on the Internet , a clearer definition was made for the settlement and compensation of goods for products with different quality points.

Daniel said that he did not see the content in the seller's backend compliance center, and the relevant information he saw in other channels did not indicate the specific implementation date. However, if this is used as an adjustment, it will not be fair to some categories. For clothing with a high return rate, the fines for related stores will still be heavy.

" According to Temu's rating rules, products that we rate as 4.6 or 4.7 are only considered inferior products . "

“On the surface, Temu has optimized the level of fines, but in reality, most products still cannot avoid high probability and high fines.”

In 2023, Temu had 467 million visitors . Sameweb data also pointed out that in 2023 , Temu 's traffic increased by more than 700% year-on-year, with an average monthly visit volume of 92.2 million , making it the second fastest growing website in the United States, second only to OpenAI.

In addition, Temu 's annual GMV reached about 14 billion US dollars last year , which means that sellers on the platform can make money. Daniel also said, "When the performance was the best, we could sell more than 1,000 orders a day. Although it is only 200 to 300 orders now, it is still considerable. However, who can withstand the unreasonable fines after the fall?"

Many sellers , including Daniel, still have high expectations for Temu , but some of the rules set by the platform on the seller side do make them feel desperate at some moments. In the future, whether Temu can better balance the interests and needs of the platform, sellers, and buyers remains to be seen.

Temu

fine