David has spent the previous two and a half years constructing a top-selling retailer on Amazon. From his workplace in Shanghai, China, he sells craft merchandise to clients, most of whom are within the US. He has needed to work exhausting to get to the highest of gross sales rankings. In addition to spending massive on promoting, he paid to get his merchandise examined by a Swiss firm, SGS, which inspects and certifies merchandise, in order that he can reassure American clients who’re delay by “made in China” merchandise. “It is rather pricey to generate momentum on Amazon,” he says.
In Might, David was shopping by Temu, an ecommerce platform owned by the Chinese language tech big PDD that has grown dramatically since launching within the US final September. He was stunned to search out two listings that regarded similar to his personal best-selling merchandise. The images had been the identical, and the product descriptions used the identical key phrases.
“I took and edited these photographs myself, after spending a number of time studying pictures and photoshop,” says David, who requested that his identify be modified as a result of he was frightened about retaliation from Temu. “I’ve used many various photographs and did a number of rounds of testing, the product photographs I’m utilizing now have the very best conversion charge.”
The duplicate listings, which WIRED has examined, even record the check certificates from Switzerland—together with his firm tackle on them. The variations of the product on Temu are 30 p.c cheaper. Over the previous month, David’s gross sales of these two merchandise have fallen by greater than 20 p.c. He can’t say for positive that the drop is linked to the Temu listings, however he suspects there’s a correlation.
David’s expertise will not be distinctive. WIRED has examined dozens of circumstances wherein Amazon sellers from China declare to have discovered their listings, together with product pictures, descriptions, and “browse bushes”—a approach to optimize product listings. A lot of these claims appear to bear out, with storefronts on Temu utilizing pictures and textual content that first appeared on Amazon listings. These affected say they’ve complained to Temu and requested that the photographs be taken down, with out success.
Temu didn’t reply to a request for remark. Amazon didn’t present an attributable remark.
Temu’s enterprise mannequin relies on promoting low-cost unbranded items to price-sensitive shoppers. Most of these merchandise are sourced from producers in China, a few of whom beforehand labored with PDD’s Chinese language ecommerce platform, Pinduoduo. Temu’s sellers are impartial companies who promote by the platform. An investigation by WIRED in Might confirmed that Temu, which has been attempting to interrupt into the US market and compete with Amazon utilizing aggressive discounting, had pressured sellers in its personal provide chain to drop their costs to assist it undercut rivals.
Promoting on ecommerce platforms will not be so simple as posting a few photos and a price ticket. Sellers usually make investments fairly closely in high-quality photographs, and so they experiment with product descriptions, the design of their storefronts, and different data to extend their possibilities of stepping into search rankings and in entrance of shoppers.
