The dark reality behind how Temu stays so cheap (2025)

ULTRA-LOW prices, new items landing online every day and practically anything you could ever need just a click away - it's no wonder Temu has become one of the fastest-growing online retailers.

In 2023, consumers placed an astronomical 412.3 million orders on Temu - or close to 1.13million every day.

Since its UK launch in April 2023, Temu has offered a broad range of products for anyone and everyone.

And the site - which means Team Up, Price Down - offers huge discounts, too.

Cash-strapped shoppers can get up to 90% off as a new customer - which they can use to ''shop like a billionaire'', Temu's catchy slogan.

There are also text alerts that will send you 20% offers, deals, seasonal sales, clearance sales, coupons you can find online or win by playing games on the app.

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However, beneath the cut-price goodies, the bright clothing, cheap furniture and affordable beauty essentials lays a darker reality that customers don't often see.

'Burning' beauty buys and kids clothing containing mental

A schoolgirl suffered third-degree burns after using nail glue bought on the platform.

Chloe Norris, 11, needed skin grafts after her entire hands started burning and blistering afterattempting to glue on fake nails.

Chloe was sat with her now-traumatised mother when she decided to stick on thefalsies with an adhesivecalled BVB Bond, which she had ordered from the discount site.

Moments later, she was "screaming out in pain" as the glue "burnt through every layer of skin" in front of her eyes.

Temu has since said it's "deeply saddened" by what happened to Chloe and has offered £1,500 in credit as a goodwill gesture.

But that's not all.

A May 2024 Channel 4 documentary uncovered dangerous levels of toxic materials in a number of products, including kids clothing.

Toxicology tests commissioned by the Dispatches team found a £2.17 silver necklace contained ten times the quantity of lead permitted by UK regulations.

Other products, such as a £2.97 gold chain, were also found to contain excessive quantities of heavy metals.

Prolonged exposure to heavy metals can cause serious mental and physiological problems, such as stillbirths, reduced sperm count and damage to the kidneys and lungs.

Professor Laurence Harwood, an organic chemist at the University of Reading, said: “I’m very concerned. Children younger than six are particularly vulnerable to lead poisoning and it can have all sorts of effects on mental development and physical development.

“And it can cause neurological issues in young and old alike.”

Prof Harwood was also extremely concerned about the “absolutely unacceptably high levels” of heavy metal antimony found in a child’s leather jacket, which cost £11.09.

Antimony has similar properties to arsenic and has been linked to skin and breathing problems, as well as issues with the lungs, heart and stomach.

Responding to the findings, Temu previously said: “Our tests did confirm some items exceeded acceptable limits for heavy metals. These items have been permanently removed and we are working with the merchants involved.

“We aim not just to meet the minimum legal requirements but to exceed them . . . and will continue to devote significant resources to improving consumer protection.”

According to a Temu spokesperson, who insisted that the safety of their customers is their ''top priority'', the marketplace ''has a thorough process for vetting sellers, monitoring product listings and feedback, and enforcing compliance with platform rules and regulatory requirements''.

They told us: ''We work with globally recognized testing and certification organizations, including TÜV SÜD, TÜV Rheinland, SGS, and Bureau Veritas, to help ensure that third-party seller products meet required safety standards.''

5.8mil tonnes of CO2 emissions per year

Like with many fast fashion brands, such as rival Shein, there are also great concerns about the environmental impact Temu is having on the planet.

The rapid turnover and low prices encourage overconsumption, which leads to significant waste and increased carbon emissions from transportation.

With almost 1.2million packages shipped daily, the China-based online retailer is projected to generate a whopping 1billion tons of packaging waste globally by 2050, warned Greenmatch.

Annually, the fast fashion sector, which also includes Temu, is responsible for producing an astronomical92million tons of wasteandconsuming nearly 79trillion litres of water to produce the cheap bargains.

This massive consumption exacerbates the strain on the planet's resources leading to severeenvironmental degradation, such global deforestation.

The total annual impact

If Temu maintains its current shocking volume of over 1.2million parcels a day, estimates indicate the companywillfacilitate over 438million shipments annually.

As each air shipment from China produces roughly 10kg of CO2, Temu's operations couldgenerate over 4.3million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year, not including other sources like packaging waste and energy usage.

Temu says it has partnered with Trees for The Future to plant trees across sub-Saharan Africa since July 2023.

The brand insists that ''these trees funded by Temu and its users are positively contributing to the restoration of acres of land and supporting local communities''.

As of February 2025, it claims to have funded close to 17,600,000 trees.

Those shopping at Temu can donate to save the planet by clicking on the 'Donate with Temu' at checkout.

Following the backlash, the mega retailer also claims that their new packaging for express shipping ''contains renewable resources (roughly 3% PLA and 5% starch), biopolymers (roughly 66% PBAT), and synthetic materials (roughly 12% calcium carbonate, 10% masterbatch, and 3% various additives)''.

''This packaging meets the ASTM 6400 and EN13432 standards and is certified industrially compostable by DIN CERTCO and OK Compost,'' Temu states online.

According to the China-based online marketplace, the updated ''packaging is compostable in industrial composting facilities and should not be disposed of in home composting bins''.

A Temu spokesperson told us that the marketplace's ''direct-from-factory model helps make shopping more efficient by cutting out unnecessary middlemen and reducing extra steps between manufacturers and customers''.

They added: ''By giving manufacturers a better idea of what people actually want to buy, we help them produce the right products in the right amounts, reducing waste and excess inventory.

''This makes our approach less wasteful and more efficient compared to traditional retail and older e-commerce models that involve more middlemen.

''We encourage customers to be mindful about their spending. Most of what people buy on Temu are daily essentials, and our customers tend to be careful with their spending.''

'Ripping off' smaller brands

Numerous independent brands across the world have seen duplicates of their products offered on the cheap on the Chinese retailer's website Shein - and Temu has come under fire too.

Last year, Anwen Roberts, who owns design company Draenog, claimed identical versions of her Welsh language products appeared on the Chinese-based site after being copied without permission, BBC reported.

The talented artist said it was an added pressure for small businesses like hers in Caernarfon, Gwynedd, when she was trying to make a living.

Temu, which has since taken down the cards from its site, said it acted "quickly" when "potential infringements" were reported, and its goal was to protect brands and artist rights.

Anwen said it was a "massive shock" to see her work and designs being flogged online without her knowledge.

Among the cards sold on Temu was nadolig llawen mam a dad - merry Christmas mum and dad in Welsh - featuring two hedgehogs nose to nose while snow falls.

Both the colouring, greeting and designs were the exact same.

The Temu version read nadolig llawen mam a dad while Draenog's is mam a dad nadolig llawen.

It just breaks your heart a bit to know someone has used your work

Anwen RobertsGwynedd

Another Temu replica showed a large balloon with penblwydd hapus - happy birthday - written on it and tied to a dachshund, which was identical to a Draenog card.

"They can just take hundreds of thousands of images, take them off the internet, create some text, do it really quickly and they miss out the bit of weeks and months and hours of working with small businesses like I do and putting a lot of time and energy in," said the artist.

"They were identical and they used the designs we have online,"she told Newyddion S4C.

"It just breaks your heart a bit to know someone has used your work, put it out there and is potentially making money from something that I as a small business have created."

'Intellectual property complaints are rare'

After being approached by The Sun, Temu claimed that ''intellectual property complaints'' on the mega marketplace ''are rare'' and allegedly make up ''just0.0019% of total product listings''.

''We resolve 99% of cases within five working days, with an average resolution time of one day—among the fastest in the industry,'' the spokesperson told us.

''When we receive reports of potential infringement, we investigate promptly and take necessary action, including removing listings and images.

''Temu is a marketplace where third-party sellers offer products directly to consumers. Each seller manages their own listings and must agree to follow rules and regulations that protect consumers and ensure legal compliance as part of our onboarding process.

''We have strengthened our brand protection measures to better detect similar designs and images.

''As our platform has grown, we have expanded our IP protection team, enhancing our ability to process complaints efficiently.''

Slave labour claims

It's feared the production of some mega cheap products coming out of China may involve Uyghur Muslim people, who have been detained by the Chinese authorities since 2017 in what they say are“re-education” campsin Xinjiang.

Temu has strongly denied the use of forced, penal and child labour in its supply chain.

It recently told a House of Commons Committee it has policies and processes which require suppliers to adhere to ethical labour practices and specifically prohibit forced labour.

The Committee said it was reassured about some of Temu’s suppliers agreements.

Temu told the House of Commons Committee in January: "We are committed to continuously improving our compliance programme and ... we are, at the moment, undertaking an industry-leading initiative whereby we will require and make mandatory for all traders on our platform, to disclose the origin of manufacturing of their products."

'More than 1 million slaves'

In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party hasdetained between one and three millionUyghurs in so-called “re-education centres”, where they are forced to undergo psychological indoctrination programs, such asstudying communist propaganda and giving thanksto Chinese President Xi Jinping.

State officials have also reportedly usedwaterboardingand other forms of torture, including sexual abuse, as part of the process.

Using satellite imagery and other evidence, researchers have documented close to 400 re-education camp detention centres and prisons in Xinjiang.

Those inside the concentration camps - the largest mass internment of an ethnic-religious minority group since World War II - are exploited for cheap labour, forced to pick cotton, manufacture garments and other items for sale both in China and around the world.

What’s really going on inside the camps is difficult to know because of China’s disinformation campaign and clampdown on information.

The camps are also tightly controlled.

According to a 2019 article by the BBC, detainees are ''never'' allowed to escape and any ''behavioural violations'' face discipline and punishment.

A US government investigation in June 2023 found an "extremely high risk" that products sold on Temu may be made with forced labour.

In the report, the CongressionalSelect Committee said Temu’s business model enabled the company to avoid complying with US law blocking imports from the region unless firms can provide proof their items were made without forced labour.

According to the New York Times, Temu told the committee it asked its sellers to sign a code of conduct specifying a “zero-tolerance policy” for the use of forced, indentured or penal labour.

Temu’s code of conduct also stated that the company reserves the right to inspect factories and warehouses.

And the mega-cheap retailer was not the only low-budget site to face growing criticism.

Fellow fast fashion giant Shein, which adds a whopping 2,000 new items to the website every day, has also come under scrutiny.

A shocking 2024 documentary by Channel 4, Untold: Inside The Shein Machine, found that some factory workers were slogging away for 17 hours a day - and were fined three-quarters of their measly wages for any mistakes.

It is not, however, known whether these workers were Uyghur Muslims.

The Chinese government, however,claims the campsare merely vocational and training centres, and that they’re teaching people job skills, Vox reported.

It has justified the oppression in Xinjiang as an attempt to clamp down on terrorism and extremism emanating from the Uyghur separatist movement.

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There have beenincidents of violent unrest over the years, including a few deadly terrorist attacks,and at least one Uyghur extremist group in the region, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, hasties to Al-Qaeda and the global jihadist movement.

However, most experts say China’s repression of millions of Uyghurs is vastly disproportionate to the comparatively minor terror threat in the region.