It’s cheap. In fact, incredibly cheap.
On Temu – the explosively growing Chinese online store – you actually get a long way for 100 kroner.
On the front page, for example, a drain cleaning brush is advertised for DKK 4.90, an avocado slicer for DKK 4.08 and a rather funny Santa sticker for the toilet is available for just DKK 11. Prices for women’s shoes start from 1.79, men’s underwear from 2.33 and grumpy editorial writers can buy a cap with the inscription Grumpy Old Man Club for 42 kroner.
None of the front page’s diverse offers resemble durable quality, and a new study from the consumer council Tænk also dumps 30 out of 38 tested products.
– Many of the products you can buy at Temu do not meet European requirements and in several cases can pose a health or safety risk, especially for children, reads the conclusion.
Sustainability also seems to be a swear word at Temu.
Very few of the products seem to actually be something anyone needs. How many people actually need what Temu sells as a pair of cozy beer mug winter socks for men?
The socks are more reminiscent of a consumer society on wild roads.
But on the other hand, it’s so cheap that it’s almost free, and it’s almost stupid not to. If the junk doesn’t work, it can just be thrown into the insatiable waste-after-sorting container.
In just a few years, Temu has become the world’s largest spot goods shelf, and the goal is of course more growth.
They first opened in Denmark last year, but are now the second most used online store among Danish customers. In large parts of the rest of the world, the picture is the same, and every day millions of people buy into the platform owned by the Chinese PDD Holding.
But one has become rich.
The founder – Colin Huang – has hardly furnished the private house based on goods from Temu. He currently has a personal fortune of DKK 350 billion. As the richest man in the Middle Kingdom, both he and the company have quite close links to the ruling elite in the Communist Party, but how much influence the CCP has is unknown.
There is nothing wrong with making money.
But the way can be wrong, and it seems to be with Temu.
In the age of the environmental crisis, it is difficult to see the sense in tons of more or less redundant goods being shipped around the world. More plastic is pretty much the last thing we need.
The working conditions at the thousands of companies that supply Temu are not optimal either. 19 Republican politicians believe that Temu, together with the Chinese government, has labor camps where imprisoned Uyghurs toil around the clock. According to a study carried out by the US Congress, users’ data security is not optimal either.
Temu has been reported by the European Consumer Council for breaking the Marketing Act, but so far the EU has not reacted.
Hopefully it will happen.
Because what’s happening now is too crazy.
Temu has become so big that we have to regulate it.
2024-08-20 17:26:27
#long #Temu #large #wasteaftersorting #container #idle
