Israelis storm Temu online store; it is sued in the US

From a Chinese online store Ago, which is gaining more and more popularity in the world, there has been a significant increase in Israeli buyers. As it became known on Sunday, February 18, from statistical data, the number of monthly visits to the site has already exceeded that of another popular trading platform in Israel – SHEIN.

According to the company’s report SimilarWeb, obtained by Calcalist, 275,000 Israelis visited the Temu online store in September 2023. In October of that year, the number of visits doubled. In November, when Operation Iron Swords was at its most intense, the number of visits dropped to 420,000, but in December the numbers skyrocketed with 3.47 million user visits in Israel.

The trend continued into early 2024, with visits up 37% in January to 4.76 million. By visits we mean the number of visits to the site, so if a user visits the site several times, each entry is counted separately.

The increase, according to analysts, is mainly due to Google searches and paid website promotion. In December, the top Google searches that brought Israeli users to a Chinese store were winter products such as warmers, scarves, etc.

SimilarWeb data shows that from July 2023 to January 2024, Temu overtook the Chinese site SHEIN in the number of visits from Israeli customers. While Temu has an average of 1.22 million visits from Israel, SHEIN has 1.13 million. Ali Express continues to be the leader in online sales among Israeli users – 8.5 million visits during the period under review (from July 2023 to January 2024).

The Temu trading platform was founded in the US in July 2022 and is operated by the Chinese company PDD Holdings. The app offers a wide range of products in dozens of categories at low prices, competing, among other things, with stores familiar to Israeli shoppers Ali Express и Amazon.

According to foreign publications, the Temu store reported 70 million users in January 2024, for comparison – in January 2023 there were 13 million.

At the same time, amid the growing popularity of Temu, analysts in the United States warn about possible risks. It is noted that the mobile application contains modules for collecting data about users, and then this information is sold to a third party. This, analysts say, may be one of the reasons why Temu is able to sell products for virtually no profit.

A class action lawsuit was recently filed in the US against Temu, alleging that the online platform collects user information such as credit card information, bank details, ID numbers and email addresses.

The company’s customers have complained about the theft of credit card information and that Temu sells many counterfeit goods, especially electronics. It is also alleged that the quality of many goods is low, and many customers who made one purchase did not place further orders.