Temu Tries To Rekindle US Growth With Deep Discounts And Holiday Push As Trump Tariffs Roil Sales: Report

Chinese e-tailer Temu has cut product prices and ramped up advertising in the United States to offset business disruptions in recent months from tariffs and the rollback of a duty exemption for low-value imports, according to a Bloomberg report published on Monday.

For years, Temu grew its business by selling ultra-cheap goods from China, but that model faltered after the U.S. implemented steep tariffs and discontinued the de minimis rule, which allowed duty-free entry of items valued at $800 or below. Temu briefly shifted its focus to Europe and other markets to offset the slowdown in the U.S., its largest market.

According to a Bloomberg analysis, Temu has now cut prices by an average of 18% on its best-selling products, compared to the prices in April, with some items discounted as high as 60%.

Unnamed sources told the news agency that Temu is pushing merchants to restock for the U.S. holiday season and has also started working with third-party courier and warehouse service providers.

The company, operated by e-commerce company PDD Holdings, has stepped up its advertising efforts, with daily ad numbers jumping to a few thousand from just a few dozen in the second quarter, according to Appgrowing Global data cited by Bloomberg.

It has also stopped charging buyers import fees that caused prices to increase steeply, at times forcing customers to pay taxes that exceeded the cost of the items themselves.

While still significantly smaller than Amazon, Temu and Shein have grown in recent years to become key shopping sites for Americans. Temu's U.S. sales plunged more than 30% during some weeks in June and continued to fall by more than 10% in July and August, according to Bloomberg. Shein's business was comparatively less affected, although growth slowed last month.

On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment for PDD remained 'bearish,' unchanged from last week. The company's U.S.-listed shares are up 30.8% this year, trailing the 35.3% rise in KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF (KWEB), which tracks Chinese tech stocks.

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