Temu sues a group of copycat websites in the US

Temu's continued popularity and rapid development are astonishing. After all, when it was first launched a year ago, most people were not optimistic about it. But looking back at Temu over the past year, its fast pace seems to be a script of a cool story where the protagonist keeps cheating.

With the overseas sales peak season coming to a "smooth" pace, some industry insiders said that Temu may be the biggest winner of this holiday season . With such optimism, Temu seems to have taken up legal weapons and made some preparations recently.

Temu sues more than 20 fake websites

The South China Morning Post reported that at the end of last month ( October 30 ) , Temu filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, accusing more than 20 websites of allegedly registering its domain name and providing coupon codes without authorization .

According to the complaint filed by Temu , it is targeting websites that imitate Temu 's domain names, such as " Temu app.biz" and " Temu couponcodes.com . " Temu said these websites have engaged in "trademark infringement, unfair competition and false indications of origin."

Temu is also seeking damages of $ 100,000 for each use of a counterfeit Temu trademark and a temporary injunction against all copycat websites during the litigation .

“ Fraudsters are deceiving consumers through fake applications and websites impersonating Temu , which not only damages Temu ’s reputation but also harms the interests of consumers ,” a Temu spokesperson said.

Some people pointed out that Temu's vigorous crackdown on such counterfeit websites is in preparation for the upcoming Black Friday online sales peak season, to prevent the platform from being diverted, to eliminate unfair competition , and to avoid misunderstandings and troubles between the platform and consumers that may arise in the future .

As Temu's largest market, the US market contributes the most to Temu's performance. Data shows that sales revenue from the US site alone accounts for 60% of Temu's total sales revenue .

Continued inflation has brought more room for Temu's development. According to the Adobe Digital Price Index (DPI), online prices in the United States fell 4.6% year-on-year in September this year , hitting the lowest level in 41 months. Overall, online prices in the United States continue to run at a low level.

Online prices of non-essential items such as home appliances (down 7.6% year-on-year), electronic products (down 11.9% year-on-year) , and gifts ( down 30.6% year- on-year) continued to fall sharply .

It is not difficult to see that as the cost of living rises, people are more inclined to shop around and buy cheaper products online, especially non-essential items.

It is in this context that Temu has received continuous good feedback from the market, with its daily GMV soaring more than 50 times compared to a year ago.

Single-day GMV surges to $80 million, Temu may explode in peak season

After its launch in September last year , it took Temu just over a month to surpass Amazon, Walmart and others to become the number one shopping app in multiple US app markets , and it has remained at the top ever since .

At the same time as this first impressive result appeared, a number of Temu's market data were disclosed.

According to reports from multiple media channels at the time, just over a month after its launch, Temu 's average daily GMV exceeded US $1.5 million, with 30,000 merchants, about 60,000 daily active users , and 300,000 to 400,000 SKUs .

According to 36Kr , Temu 's sales in the third quarter of this year exceeded US $ 5 billion . Even in September , the first anniversary of its launch , its daily GMV reached US$ 80 million , 53 times that of a year ago ( US$1.5 million ) . This is a huge growth rate.

In addition, there is news that Temu 's GMV in the first half of this year has approached 3 billion US dollars . If calculated based on the single-day GMV in September, Temu is likely to achieve a GMV of 2.4 billion US dollars in September. In other words, in September alone, Temu has almost achieved the GMV level of half a year. At this rate , Temu may deliver an incredible GMV performance this year.

Most importantly, September has not officially entered the peak sales season in markets such as Europe and the United States.

With the arrival of peak consumer periods such as Black Friday, Cyber ​​Monday, Halloween, and Christmas, it should be easy for Temu to achieve its previously set annual GMV target of $15 billion. According to the forecast of investment bank CICC, Temu's GMV may reach $ 18 billion by the end of the year .

Temu's killer move of grabbing the market with low prices has worked.

In order to keep this killer weapon sharp, Temu sellers have also been under a lot of pressure. On various social media platforms, many sellers have complained bitterly about their quotations being slashed by the platform. On the contrary, consumers have no resistance to low prices, saying that the price of the same product on Temu is half of Amazon , and it is impossible not to buy on Temu.

Although there are reports that massive discounts have caused Temu to lose about $30 per order , it seems that it has not taken this voice to heart and is still "turning a deaf ear to the outside world" and focusing on rushing into the global market .

In addition, high marketing costs are also one of the driving forces behind Temu's rapid market penetration. It is reported that in the first month of its launch, Temu's marketing expenses in the United States reached 1 billion RMB , and this year Temu will invest 2 billion US dollars in advertising and marketing .

This generous spending helped Temu build momentum. Earlier this year, it made its debut at the US Super Bowl , which caused another wave of popularity. The number of downloads and daily active users soared overnight. On the day of its launch , Temu 's downloads in the US surged by 45 %, and its daily active users soared by 20% compared to the day before , even surpassing US retail giants such as Target.

One year after its launch, it has expanded to 48 markets and has become the top download market in many markets

As of today, Temu has only been on the market for 14 months, but in these short 14 months, Temu has launched 48 sites around the world. That is to say, Temu launches 3-4 sites per month on average, covering Europe, America, Latin America, the Atlantic, Japan and South Korea, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and other places.

Data shows that as of the second quarter of this year, Temu 's global downloads reached 120 million times , of which the US market downloads exceeded 70 million times.

Whenever Temu enters a market, it comes with great momentum and becomes the local e-commerce "star".

A report by market data company Data.ai shows that in the United States, Temu was the most downloaded app in the first three quarters of 2023, surpassing giants such as Amazon.

In the UK, Temu has surpassed Amazon to top the list of shopping app downloads for five consecutive months . As of September, Temu has been downloaded more than 7.64 million times in the UK . Temu was only launched in the UK in April this year , which means that Temu has been at the top of the list since its launch .

In terms of the number of active users, Temu's monthly active users rank third among UK shopping apps. In just half a year, Temu has attracted a large number of buyers in the UK.

In France, Temu has become the most downloaded mobile app in the French market for the past three quarters . From January to September, Temu 's ranking rose by 684 places. In contrast, competitors such as Amazon have seen their download rankings decline in France .

The same is true in Japan, South Korea, Spain and many other places. Temu won the download championship in the local market as soon as it was launched. A large number of consumers also flocked to the platform , and its size and market share grew very rapidly.

Temu has been on a tear, surpassing Amazon and local e-commerce giants in multiple markets and topping the download charts . Temu has used the strategy of " super low price + crazy marketing " to great effect. What kind of impressive results will it deliver in the coming peak season?

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