01/16/2024

Designers Accuse Temu of Selling Copies of Their Work

The platform has emerged as a retail juggernaut over the last two years

For several years, small businesses have fought against the rise of counterfeit versions of their products popping up on Facebook, Amazon, Shein and other shopping platforms. Last year, three independent designers sued Shein for selling “exact copies” of their work. 

This problem now appears to extend to Temu, the Chinese retail platform that has emerged as a retail juggernaut over the last two years. Temu hosts sellers who export clothing, electronics and other products straight from warehouses on the cheap. The platform is consistently at the top of the Apple App Store charts, and its parent company Pinduoduo raked in $9.6 billion in the third quarter of 2023, beating estimates by 25 percent.

However. some small- and medium-sized creative business owners believe that Temu’s rise is coming directly at their expense—and is plagued by the same infringement issues as their competitors. Not only do they say that Temu can offer prices that they are unable to, but many have found near-identical versions of their product designs being sold on Temu at those much lower prices.

Please select this link to read the complete article from TIME.