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It has been reported that this year's Super Bowl was watched by 123 million Americans, setting a record. Aside from the nation's biggest sporting event, the blockbuster halftime performance, several camera cutaways, and several shots of Taylor Swift in the audience, they also got six 30-second advertisements for Temu - a Chinese-owned e-commerce company that is also owned by them.
Politicians in both the UK and the United States have been criticising the giant for being inherently high risk of products being made using forced labour.
In its statement to the press, Temu says that all of its merchants are strictly prohibited from employing forced, penal, or child labour.
As of 2022, the company, which sells everything from clothes to electronics to furniture, first landed in the United States. The company has since then moved to the UK and other countries across the globe. According to data gathered by analyst SimilarWeb, just under 152 million Americans are using the app every month, which has consistently topped worldwide app download charts.
Described as "Amazon on steroids," by retail analyst Neil Saunders, the company has gained massive popularity over the past few years, shipping to more than 50 countries in the world, with the tagline "Shop like a billionaire." The average cost of a 30-second Super Bowl commercial is about $7 million (£5.5 million), and Temu had six of them this year at the event.
As a result of the Super Bowl, it appears that the total number of individual visitors to the platform was nearly a quarter higher than the previous Sunday, with 8.2 million users accessing the website and app on the day of the event. According to Ines Durand, an e-commerce expert at SimilarWeb, the number of visitors to Amazon and eBay dropped by 5% and 2% respectively during the same period. These influencers typically have fewer than 10,000 followers, as per her research.
A Chinese giant known as PDD Holdings is the owner of Temu, according to Shaun Rein, founder of the China Market Research Group, one of the biggest e-commerce companies in the world. Even though the company has traded places with rival Alibaba for the top spot as the most valuable Chinese company listed on a US stock exchange, its current value is just under $150 billion (£117 billion).
PDD Holdings has expanded overseas to Temu after having successfully conquered the Chinese consumer market several years ago with its current model.
Mr Rein, a Shanghai-based entrepreneur, feels that the firm has become a source of great pride and patriotism for its employees. There is a wide range of products available on Temu's website, app, or app-based platform, from steel-toed trainers to a device that helps elderly and pregnant women put on socks to name a few.
Mr Rein explains that this is a collection of manufactured products that are almost entirely manufactured in factories in China.
Ms Durand believes that while Amazon sells this information to manufacturers at a high price, Temu provides it for free to producers who are looking to test the market with a relatively small number of products.
According to a US Congress report published in July last year, a third of parcels imported into the US were shipped through the de minimis threshold, which is a shipping loophole known as the de minimis threshold.
The United Kingdom and the United States, for instance, have a de minimis threshold in place to allow citizens to import goods without incurring additional fees for imports.
Since Temu's products are shipped directly from the factory floor without any middlemen involved, they become essentially duty-free. According to Mickey Diaz, chief operating officer at global freight company Unique Logistics, more regulation may be on the horizon to close shipping loopholes.
According to her, the UK has already begun to take a closer look at Temu, especially regarding the sale of weapons that are normally prohibited from entering the UK, but which were being imported owing to these loopholes, she says.
The e-commerce giant Temu has also been criticized for the supply chains it manages, as both British and US politicians accuse the company of selling products made with forced labour. Alicia Kearns MP, who leads the foreign affairs select committee, announced last year that she wanted stronger laws to protect consumers from unintentionally contributing to the genocide of the Uyghur minority by using the online marketplace.
The company says it is "strictly prohibited" by its merchants that they are going to use forced work, penal labour, or child labour in their shops. Any person doing business with the company must comply with all regulatory standards and compliance requirements before doing business with it, the company told the BBC.
