Hacker News Reader

Comment by CosmicShadow | Hacker News Reader

This is the company whose instagram ads show ridiculous stuff for like $17 and you think this has to be a scam, right? And their biggest market is boomers and gen x, those still most likely to fall for the scam or just say fuck it and order because they have income? And some how Temu is 10% of Meta's revenue, which tells you something.

I'm sure many of us have ordered from the el'cheapo Chinese 1 penny drop shipping sites and found out how you are getting like sub-dollar store quality, mostly broken or malware infected junk that might show up 6 months later to know better to bother trying again, but with that much advertising they are casting a wide net of folks who will keep falling for their ads. Also telling how much of their market is folks who make under 50k/year.

View on HN

What's ridiculous is not the item that costs $10 at the factory gate and is sold at $17 on Temu, but that Amazon dropshippers want $170 for it.

I've personally purchased an item that's $2 (two) when purchased in bulk on Alibaba, is sold for $400 at brick and mortar shops, and was delivered to my doorstep in a week for $20 by Temu.

This would be more fun if you could share what that item is.

A plastic car cover. Cheap to make, bulky to transport.

I have ordered lots of stuff off AliExpress and it's been a roughly 50% success rate. Some things were clearly low quality, one item was completely wrong, but the rest were surprisingly good. For me, half the fun is the anticipation of it showing up and maybe getting a good item. I do struggle with the throw-away mentality though - some reasonably sophisticated technology goes straight in the bin when it fails.

This comment is weirdly antagonistic for no reasons.

> And their biggest market is boomers and gen x, those still most likely to fall for the scam or just say fuck it and order because they have income?

> Also telling how much of their market is folks who make under 50k/year.

So which is it, Mr. Bourgeois? People who use Temu are awashed with disposable income to waste on trash, or they are too poor (thus stupid, apparently) to recognize the trap of cheap shit? What, exactly, is telling here?

Or maybe the fierce "competition" between Amazon and Walmart has left a hole in the market for people who want products closer to their true price?

Yo boomer,

Temu is solid for price on average. They do their own sourcing and place order direct to factory at 0.6% margin. I'd guess 80% of things you get from Amazon comes from similar tier or same factories that provide for TEMU.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com