Temu shopping app lures new customers, coupon codes for existing prospects

3 moments a day, 39-year-outdated Ashlee Nordquist, an optician in Fargo, North Dakota, logged in to the shopping application Temu to feed her fish. 

If she fed sufficient fish, by tapping on a floating bag of fish food stuff on her cellular phone display screen, Temu experienced promised to ship her a free item of her deciding upon. But Nordquist stored working out of fish meals. To get additional, she wanted to refer a new consumer to the application. So, she launched Temu to her close buddies and coworkers. “It’s not charity. They are not just supplying absent absolutely free items to be pleasant,” Nordquist informed Rest of Earth. “Referrals are the mystery component to winning the video games.”

After generating much more than a dozen referrals, and playing plenty of rounds of Fishland as very well as other game titles on Temu, Nordquist gained a bounty of freebies: a loved ones hotpot-and-grill combo, a small hotpot-and-grill combo (she found the very first one particular too massive), a digital camera drone, a storage organizer, and a meat slicer. Most recently, in February, her fish-feeding plan landed her a cost-free guitar — a gift for her friend’s daughter. 

“Referrals are the magic formula component to successful the online games.”

Temu, the U.S.-dependent subsidiary of PDD Holdings, which operates a sister website in China as Pinduoduo, has topped app store charts due to the fact its start last September. In less than six months, the application has obtained 24 million downloads, thanks to intense promoting, low-cost pricing, and addictive referral strategies in the variety of cellular games. In February, Temu educated suppliers about its Canada start. “The target of Temu is to provide Chinese provide chains to the world, starting with the U.S. web-site,” the firm explained in a message to suppliers, in accordance to a screenshot found by Relaxation of Globe. 

Pinduoduo, established in 2015, had utilised a comparable strategy in its house marketplace of China — rock-base pricing and the gamification of the procuring practical experience — to come to be one particular of the country’s most well-liked e-commerce platforms. In a single video game, customers expand digital fruit trees with their mates to generate real bins of fruits. In a different, they spin a wheel to get funds handouts, after bringing in new consumers to the app. The web page also released the “give me a cut” marketing campaign, wherever consumers gain free solutions by creating some others simply click on their Pinduoduo one-way links.

Even though these strategies enabled Pinduoduo’s fast development in the course of the pandemic and subsequent world economic headwinds — its lively consumer foundation briefly eclipsed Alibaba’s in 2020 — they also gave the company a controversial reputation, increasing problems of achievable regulatory hazards. Chinese net users have complained about getting pestered by friends and household to click on their referral back links. Many others have accused Pinduoduo of tricking them by making the game titles seem a great deal simpler than they in fact are. In 2021, a lawyer sued Pinduoduo immediately after he remained trapped .9% absent from successful a prize on the app — Pinduoduo later clarified the share essential to be .9996427% if displayed in full. The court docket ordered the business to shell out 400 Chinese yuan ($59) as compensation for infringing on the consumer’s appropriate to know. 

Regardless of controversies, several other Chinese e-commerce providers have gamified their procuring practical experience. Following Pinduoduo’s guide, e-commerce big JD.com, Alibaba’s shopping system Taobao, and delivery app Meituan have all introduced their own digital fruit farms. Overseas, fast-fashion platform Shein also will allow users to gain factors by means of online games and referrals. 

Along with these methods, Temu has introduced a manufacturing unit-to-shopper model that keeps selling prices small. It sources solutions from Chinese suppliers, then sells them instantly to U.S. individuals. Temu handles all worldwide transport, then pays suppliers just after consumers have been given their goods.

Temu supplier Awan Yang, who manages a bag factory in the southern manufacturing hub of Guangzhou, explained to Relaxation of Planet he began working with Temu soon just after its launch simply because he thought PDD Holdings would invest heavily in overseas progress. Between Oct 2022 and February 2023, the manufacturing unit sold about 3,300 women’s luggage by means of Temu, on a income margin of 15% to 25%, Yang reported, noting that Temu would provide the baggage at 2.5 to 3 occasions the initial rate.

Just as Pinduoduo succeeded in a Chinese sector when dominated by Alibaba and JD.com, Temu could build alone in the U.S. as a “low-priced supermarket,” claimed Ashley Dudarenok, founder of China-focused electronic internet marketing companies Alarice and ChoZan, to Relaxation of Environment. Temu is not out there making an attempt to replace marketplace bigwigs like Amazon and Shein, but just offers an supplemental channel for American shoppers to shop online, she stated.

Compared to their Western counterparts, Chinese tech providers are more ready to grow their items by means of large internet marketing strategies, wrote Connie Chan, a common lover at enterprise money firm Andreessen Horowitz, in an analysis of Temu. Previously this month, the company manufactured its Tremendous Bowl debut, with an advertisement that confirmed viewers how they could “shop like a billionaire” on the platform. Obtaining a huge selection of early consumers has assisted coach Temu’s recommendation algorithms and make individualized item lists as addictive as TikTok’s “For You” website page. “It’s literally shopatainment … consumers are much more probable to spend time — and for that reason income — with applications that they get pleasure from paying out time with,” Chan wrote.

Even though introducing games to the app can assist strengthen engagement and increase downloads, Western customers might be a lot less prepared to pay back for game titles than their Chinese counterparts, Allison Malmsten, a China marketplace analyst with Daxue Consulting, told Rest of Environment. Just after all, Nordquist named the online games “a hustle” — even though they have been entertaining, the ultimate aim was to earn rewards, which demanded spending a terrific deal of time and work. 

In North Dakota, numerous of Nordquist’s buddies have turn into avid Temu end users. They even established a group chat to exchange gaming strategies. While feeding her fish for freebies, Nordquist also purchased lots of products herself: fishing equipment, an organizer, a moveable washing machine, some hooks, a pack of sponges, an electronic iron, a vacuum sealer, and other homeware — which value her a full of $450. 

Nordquist made use of to get these goods from Amazon or Walmart, but now prefers Temu for its very low prices. They can go as lower as one particular-eighth of what her community supermarket prices, she claimed. “I felt like I was acquiring robbed, procuring at other sites.”