The rise of Pinduoduo and Temu: profits and secrets | FT Film
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- Опубліковано 15 тра 2024
- Chinese e-commerce app Pinduoduo is one of the biggest and most profitable retailers in the world. It is spending a huge amount of money on international expansion through a new app called Temu, which analysts say could disrupt everyone from Amazon to high street retailers. However, the company behind Temu and Pinduoduo is extremely secretive and there are questions about its business model, how it operates and how it communicates with investors. Read more at on.ft.com/49XpGEQ
#pinduoduo #temu #china #ecommerce #ecommercebusiness #amazon #alibaba
00:00 - Pinduoduo is not a normal company
00:58 - What is Pinduoduo?
02:11 - What is Temu?
03:26 - Why are PDD Holdings' finances so opaque?
06:23 - Why is PDD's head office in Dublin, Ireland?
08:54 - PDD's unusual origins and odd corporate structure
12:19 - How does Pinduoduo actually operate?
14:09 - How is PDD funding Temu?
15:33 - Temu, the most important development in ecommerce for some time
17:24 - How does Temu's cross border model actually work?
21:23 - What risk factors does Temu face?
23:55 - Transparency matters to investors, but Chinese manufacturing remains dominant
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I saw the entire story, it started with we know nothing about PDD and ends with we know nothing about PDD. Holy cow, the story was 30 minutes long !
That’s why I only watch these stories on double the speed. Just 15 minutes went down the drain.
You said what I exactly wanna say, hahaha😄
Same reason I only read the first and last chapter of a book. I already know the protagonists are going to get through and win. Why waste time on reading like 300 pages of faffing about just to get to the inevitable end.
😂
Everything mentioned here is pretty common for a start up with like 3 people (you use registered address of your company secretary, because the "CEO" is sleeping on his mate's couch and working from home. Cycling through VP of Finance may indicate they don't have strong internal control on their finance (expected, given their CEO is ex Google dev, not an accountant). But to say they have 13,000 employees and still run like a 3 person start up is impossible. This smells like FTX where a small group of people make a software that automatically trade billions of dollars without much internal control, running on quickbook as their accounting system. Which is although possible, not very probable, assuming you outsource EVERYTHING other than the website / platform generation. No internal customer service, no internal logistic, no internal HR team, all you do is self serve connection of C2M (Customer to Manufacturer) platform - basically an Amazon site exclusive to chinese factory owners to remove all the middle person re-sellers and their need to advertise. And saying they are founded in Boston... well that is probably knee jerk reaction to Tik Tok ban - this sounds like a company that does not have an internal legal team or any corporate advisors.
Me as a former PDD employee gotta say, PDD is really secretive even for its own employee
If I run business in China, I'd be secretive too, because many Chinese staff are entreprenurial. They work for you for a while, and then will try to start their own venture copying many of your way of business.
The turnover for China business is high, so unless you're member of the core team, I'd not want to teach you to compete with me.
I got a TEMU ad before this video. The irony.
That's not what "irony" means.
@@AdoraTsang you would be correct if talking about verbal irony, however this would be a case of situational irony for example a fire station burning down. In this case it is the advertisement of a service and then what could only be described as a fairly negative source of information about said service.
@@zakmorgan9320damn homie you sound like my 7th grade english teacher
get an ad-blocker
bro i got one too
I think the realproblem is the price in US is too high. Indonesia also have temu, but the price is not much different with another local online shopping applications. That's why temu isn't growing rapidly here. But US is crazy, once i tried to buy an LED for 4x4 RV in amazon, it cost almost 30 x from my local online aplications
Fun fact, around one-third of Amazon GMV are made by China-based sellers😃
A lesson of how the USA over inflates her GDP
Imagine collecting taxes from a $1 item and from a $30 item. Government should be happy to tax a $30 item.
As a customer, I think the most important thing is price, if I can buy something more cheaper, I can live a more easy life, it is wonderful
American too greedy
The real mystery has always been why we pay 10-20 times the manufacturing costs of most everything
Labor cost is inflated
Intermediaries, tariffs
Exploitative arbitrators, buying a bicycle saddle for $10 from manufacturer, importing, selling for 7x markup
True story, naive Amazon customers baited and looted
Also Amazon UX sucks, with intent
rental costs,labor costs,insurance,electricity,water,taxes ect i´m not a defender of corporation but lets not act ignorant, also temu isn´t profitable and pdd has probably fake profits, amazon is only alive because of the cloud (aws)
Branding
Exactly. I said it before. The real mystery of Temu etc is the mystery of why you were paying so much before...and it's getting clearer that these aren't similar products to what we are used to. They are the same products.
temu is selling dirt cheap stuff. of course it wont affect most companies, except for amazon. cos a item on temu could be listed on amazon with 10 times its price. resellers cant compete with direct from factory sales
It's just not really. They usually show a few items that are cheaper at the top of u were to search identical items prices are very similar. The extra price usually gets u better shipping.
@@hathwayh3209 yeah but are you really going to be pay 10 times more for better shipping times? for most items I personally can wait
Why need to see Temu in the report . they're just Contractors at best.
Temu just got bought out. The prices are going to rise. Really, the prices already are almost no different than Amazon.
@@growtocycle6992 very. That's why it's Retail sacked 10,000 employees last Dec. They knew not going to make more esp w green warehouses 😂 Abs Joke Government
Great film as always FT, very grateful for the quality material put out for free.
it’s just propaganda designed to make you hate China
Protectionist American Propaganda 😂
As a customer, I don’t care how the company structured. If they don’t have a CFO, perfectly, now I know they are helping me to save money as my money doesn’t use to pay a corporate executive. 😅 I like Temu’s business model and it really helps customers not paying unnecessary money out of our pocket..
The point here is more about investors than customers though. The question is where the market value is coming from.
This is a finance channel
you think ?@@weird-guy
We are witnessing a scenario described in the book by Arthur Grandi. When the financial world is based on a weak currency like the dollar, chaos will continue and bubbles will enter the market duplicating the bubble of the financial system. The new formula described in the book "Grand Time" was created to strengthen the financial system and take it to a new level.
“Weak currency like dollar” lol ok, go ahead and peddle your yuan please😂
What does Temu have to do with how strong the dollar is? Geez...
"Weak currency like dollar" ---- You need to do your homework, boy.
Скоро увидешь, чуточку терпения прояви и всё будет на лице@@jfrd-pw4hk
Many ask why the US price is so much higher? The real reason is the currency exchange rate, USD to CNY is ~1:7, the average monthly salary of after tax in the US is about 4000 USD , while in China, it is about 4000 RMB. Basic living things are about the same number, like If you try to buy a can of soda from vending machine, it is 1.5 USD in the US vs 2 RMB in China, a meal outside is about 20 USD vs 20 RMB. Given this background, then a 14 RMB phone case that totally makes sense in China suddenly becomes incredibly cheap for 2 USD. It is that simple. Previously, vendors in Amazon would buy the $2 phone case and mark it up to ~$10 which is still very cheap in the US but now PDD/Temu tries to let those factories sell that $2 phone case to you, just the shipping takes 2 weeks.
Finally, the question is why the USD to CNY is ~1:7 in the first place?
The exchange rate is decided by the Chinese government.
@@MNTrader2012 but the same concept applies across the globe. You SIMPLY CANNOT tell Chinese government or any other government to set minimum salary at 1500USD. Its just doesnt work that way. Aaaaand the exchange rate is very much affected by Fed. China gov can only "react" to the exchange rates by printing more/less notes in their account.
You guys are screwing up the world.... Even if the government set that rate for you. We have currency stock exchanges that exchange the volume and rates. So it is dynamic. It is not always 1 to 7..... Stupid... And it must not remain at 1 to 7..... You are making bank rubs. I.e. you are collapsing your own banks.....
@@user-yj8zw7hk6f chinese sellers sell to US customers and get US dollars. they then buy chinese yuan and sell those US dollars to repatriate these earnings. China has a trade surplus for many years (decades) with US. meaning they sell more goods to US than buy from them. economic theory suggests over time, the yuan should appreciate as there is naturally more demand to sell USD to buy yuan. The reason this hasn't happened is because the chinese yuan is not a freely traded currency. instead those surplus USD earnings are kept in USD and reinvested in US dollar assets.
I'm in the UK and for poor people TEMU is a godsend, western high prices are just another TAX on poor people. JEALOUSY is what I'm hearing, nothing more.
Much of the stuff sold in Western consumer markets is stuff you do not actually need. Most of the stuff sold over Temu is also unnecessary nonsense. That's where our incredible progress is reinvested: not in working less hours, not in conserving the environment but in the ability to buy ever more and more stuff. We are crazy!
Finally someone speak the truth! as i see it, every year people from the west should send a Thanks letter to China!
who cares how PDD runs their company? without cheap Chinese products, Western world will see the ture inflation!
Exactly! Who needs all this novelty plastic crap? @@TheHesseJames
your speech idioms don't sound like someone from the UK
@@SimonAlan-sm6vvI feel like a conspiracy theorists, but I swear few top-voted comments in this section sound like a Chinese person trying to pass for "western"
Seeing this video made me install Temu
Read the reviews half are fake, reason to get 100 $ reward, other half are bad reviews.
How is that different than Amazon?
A lot of Amazon sellers bought reviews making fake positive claims...some sellers don't even deliver the item after payment, or ship fake or unrelated items.
😂😂😂
I agree that PDD/Temu is sus, but clarification on the employees not knowing coworkers' real names: In China it's VERY common for Millennials and GenZ's to go by a name that's not their birth name for business or personal reasons. Like if you do trade with foreigners often, you will use "Yasmina Chen" instead of "Chen MengYao." Or if you come from the countryside where it's the cultural norm to name your child terrible names (some believe bad names ward off bad luck, some have rules like "name the child the first thing the mom sees when she births the baby," etc.), you don't want your coworkers to call you PenJi (literally "Bucket Chicken", which is what happened to the popular Yunnan influencer DianXi XiaoGe) so you avoid giving your real name out.
It's common in Internet companys or entertainment business, I can hardly see anyone working in other filds using nickname as it may deemed inappropriate and disrespectful.
yeah cause on wechat everyone changes their names... totally normal but used as scare tactics in this hit piece
nuts,i do that online sure,everything is behind a moniker or pseudonym.....but imagine telling people in real life oh hi my name is "apimpnamedjagex"
in case anyone from china doesnt know what that means, jagex is the name of a video game company, a pimp is a person man or woman, that owns or handles prostitudes.
Europeans are the only ones making up s*** about Temu
This is originated from an alibaba company culture which in Chinese name of “花名“（sounds like "alias" in Mandarin too). E.g. Jack Ma called himself as 风清扬.
These guys just figuring out the basics of e-commerce, wow
We know e-commerce. But we are saying, you are not doing European e-commerce. Because we have actual laws to stop the format that you do inside China... Nobody sells it this way in Europe.... Cos it violates supplier chain laws too....
Stop manufacturing mysteries. Ppl can sense that you are getting the same items at literally 1/3 the price, and that is quite motivating. Temu etc causes you to question the whole world, and why you have been paying so much in the past. That is the real mystery. And no. These manufacturers did not just 'appear.' Which is more likely: that they rapidly appeared and acquired decades of modern manufacturing expertise, or we were already consuming their products through re-branders. Temu etc is not the rise of a new business. It is the cutting out of the middlemen we recognize.
Good Citizen 好公民 +1000 Social Credit (社会信用体系) to you ! ! !
Yh but existing stores like AliExpress have cheaper prices and better delivery timeframes (5-day delivery to Europe)
Simply because, there was a large markup you paid than the manufacturer got paid. Heard about 'smiling curve'?
Facts. P Diddy, I mean PDD was probably a huge company that was always handling logistics for Amazon and other online companies and decided to just move a player off the board.
Agree, no mystery - if anything I would posit it's a branding equation which has allowed them to attain sudden surge in market share through a marketing experiment gone extremely right, no corner of the internet is safe from Temu's ads - they've redefined themselves as the go-to for online shopping of cheap goods
Amazon has been bothering me since 2 years for a package that I have returned but they lost it in the warehouse, they even sued me where they lost the case but obviously it was not enough them to stop asking me the fee for the lost product plus 2 times more fee for the time past. Temu on the other hand did not ask me to return some items I bought, besides not all their products are bad. Electronics are maybe skeptical, but jewellery, textiles like jackets, pants, blankets, house equipment are 8/10. It is certainly disrupting Amazon's monopoly in a good way.
Actually all products in America is made in Asia. They just shove brands name. Even Apple 😅 costs dependent on type of materials but Temu really good. Surprisingly
That true
because asian factories are burning their own profit and labor to keep their market shares, to serve us or eu consumers
Temu makes my “too good to be true” sensors go off
Yet, delivers on its promise every time.
It set up its store like a game or slot machine haha
@@igorberezin856not really. Can find basically the same prices on Walmart. Don’t let those $1 backpack welcome offers fool you
flood the market by undercutting the competion, gain market, increase price,profits is nothing new unless you are a very young person.
@@CommonSense-uj9ipAnd they're selling at the highest levels.
I was a customer of Amazon UK and I frequently wrote constructive reviews. This attracted many manufacturers to approach me for suggestions. I think Pinduoduo must have utilised this kind of customer-manufacturer feed back and recommendations to other people.
I would like to thank the Uyghur People for working so hard to provide the western world with such great values.
While the actual details of Temu sound fishy, the principle sounds very much like we might finally be getting to something reasonably approaching a proper free market. Producers are in direct contact with consumers, and signals between mean near real-time, near optimal outcomes. While we obviously need accountability, the notion that we have proper accountability with Seychelles-based companies is also pretty silly...
Advertising and brands are a bug in the capitalist system, not a feature. If only we could regulate and give transparency/accountability without immediately corrupting the entire system, we might be able to dramatically decrease prices for the masses.
Oh, no, they are now coming after the Pinduoduo after they take down Tiktok……
Chinese are mastering now the same mechanisms the western corporations have been using in the last decades. Most of the SP500 are using complex corporate structures using offshoring facilities and tax havens crossing multiple regulators like those Chinese companies are using.
It's ok for western companies. But not for any other country. It must be corruption or govt backed.
But the Chinese are not allowed to do things this way...dump reporters
As long as Temu prices are still significantly lower than Amazon prices (of products that are likely produced in the very same factory), so much lower that I am willing to wait a few more days, and to take the risk that it might arrive slightly damanged, they will thrive. And apparently they know this well.
The real identity of P.Diddy is Puff Daddy
I am a buyer from Temu and I have a million questions about the business. I think the people who should be doggedly seeking answers are the SEC in the United States and businesses like Amazon, which may become irrelevant if the current trend continues.
The direction of this video is trying to make people sus on temu and pdd for their company & owner structures which, no supprisingly, any listed international company is playing. Well, we are really stupid enough to believe that only chinese companies have bad intension to do this while others like goog, aapl, fb are doing this for good.😏
*People want something faster and even cheaper than TEMU, it seems the cycle never ends until everything is free and instant :3*
Damn. Just found your channel and after watching the video, I knew I had to subscribe. Learned so many things from you than most if not all binary traders' content. Keep it up!
I love the secrecy. Let them keep it up!!!!!!😀
They are very confident that they will be successful in western countries as was in China. The similar story is of the success of TikTok(Chinese version: Douyin) in the west.
Could it be possible that Temu or PDD is actually A.I ?
The financial secrecy behind TEMU is likely to prevent the company from being fined for "dumping". Most countries have "anti-dumping" laws which prevent companies from selling merchandise far below market value just to gain market share. Chinese companies are notorious for doing this in the West to drive competitors out of markets and even out of business in some cases. An additional twist here is that the products are only "below market value" when you factor in the shipping costs to the West which are often more than the product itself. Once they can establish local warehousing in the West those shipping costs will drop dramatically.
This is a lie. Chinese production lines are cheap and efficient, It has nothing to do with "dumping".
@@deezeed2817 It has everything to do with "dumping" Yes, Chinese products are cheap and for the Chinese market where shipping is less than $1 they are able to make a profit. But shipping costs to the US are typically more than the product cost so for those products they are taking a loss. This is revealed in the profit-loss graphs presented in the video. That may be dumping since they are taking a loss when shipping costs are taken into account.
But don't you still have to pay shipping cost to ship those products to the warehouse in the first place ?
TEMU will never warehouse in the West because then they loose their de minimis exception on imports.
@@chunyuenlau56 Local shipping costs WITHIN the US will be a FRACTION of what it costs to ship from China to the US so costs will be much lower.
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I love the take on the end... the face of those who "positively influence" the society with excellent behaviors that have a very positive impact on society (22:31)! Hahaha... and they get paid to do so by the same social engines that then donate much smaller amounts trying to fight the "problem"...
You must be blind not to see the mess. And if you're not, you kinda "Wish".
The goal is to get market share, kickout competitors and then, increase the price to sell for profits. It is subventioned by the Chinese government for the longterm interest of local manufacturers.
what competitors?
This has been my go-to explanation too. Like it's economical warfare against the west. Our companies will fall (massive economic down turn) or be forced to press down the wages and working conditions so steep that it will disrupt the entire fabric of societies and cause massive social upheaval (without any solutions to the original problem). I put my tin foil hat on and say the chinese state (more like a maffia than anything) are both using slave like conditions and also subsidizing the factories and producers of the items being sold. They gladly do it because they know it's chipping away fast at the markets in the west and with it the entire system of resources
@@poopyjoe4016 uh...amazon?
Like Amazon, but better 😊
Something shady brewing below the surface. Great reporting from Dan McCrum as always, thanks FT for making this publicly accessible.
When you add in the shipping cost, they (PDD, Temu) are not competitive in the North America market for the average consumer. For a business, maybe. But the quality of Chinese made products is dubious.
They are fabulous for the home - Chinese market.
headquarter of PDD is in Shanghai. Everyone knows in China
It is no longer low price and low quality. With the 7 day no-condition return policy, the quality has become much better. If you do not like what you receive, do not pay and just return with no charge. It is becoming the ideal place for shopping.
Amazing film , deserves wayyyy more views please keep making these
Why does this video deserve more views?? Because Europeans are questioning Chinese businesses??🤡🥸
Fake chinese propaganda. I figured that out after 50 seconds and stopped watching. Also i NEVER endorse anything chinese or made by elon musk
@@Youevilpeoplewillpayooo, chinese bot is working for food
@@bambinaforever1402 with same logic should we do anything against amazon bannign their own employee from using the bathroom i guess that's much worse thou
A new Wirecard case?
Вот это был нереальный камбэк! Офигенно получилось! Лайк жмякнул))
With inflation soar to the sky. I welcome good quality products at affordable price.
I have no problem with discount in subsidies.
Cheap is the new standard and help everyone put foods on the table.
Economic Tariff and sanction, trade war and alike just cost consumers more money, please let us how that extra money help anyone. Make high cost go away.
Temu's advertising campaign is ruthless. They do have a strategic PR on advertising absolutely nailed. However I'm too skeptic to order anything. You guys interviewed me in your magazine and I was and still am very proud of that feature. Keep up with the exceptional work.
if you dont have money you will be happy to knw they exist. poor people need low prices
in contrast to who?
in contrast to Amazon, FB, Ebay?
it's a bit like saying China is evil, in contrast to who?
in contrast to U$ and UK in their support for Gax Geno side?
How pathetic!
@@monipenny408 What an odd and incredibly judgemental and wrong statement which does not understand at all my context. Please read again. They have an excellent PR strategy. No way was I being negative to China or making comparisons to us brands. Please learn to read before making stupid assumptions. When something is too cheap I am generally skeptical. I know how hard international distribution is.
Incredible PR strategy?...again in contrast to who?
In contrast to U$ PR strategy, Temu is no match, in fact nobody can match U$ PR strategy the best in the world. Take it as a compliment!!! The world knows it only too well.@@tdtm82
it's a dollar store, everything is crap. I rather go to a local dollar store to see just how bad it is before I take a chance on one item.
How exactly is Temu different from Wish or Aliexpress - solely from a shopper perspective?
nothing i guess being that a direct competitor to amazon the US is afraid so it will send it's propaganda machines
And it ships faster than AliExpress, or how long it used to take AliExpress. Temu use air mail, I think AliExpress now uses more air mail
17:54 this” had maybe one or two more middle layer”s shows an object with a single middle flap, therefore she recieved half the product, 4 sides, if she received those 2 more layers she would have 8sides of ‘activities’ for her Montessori kid. That sort of falling short of description seems substantial to me.
This is very similar to the way TEMU clothing is made, from what I’ve seen on comparison videos showing what was ordered vs what arrived in the mail. Typically they will copy the image of a dress or other clothing item, often from an independent designer/maker, and display that photo in the ads, while shipping an extremely shoddy copy of the item. The business model seems to rely on everything being so cheap that people won’t bother to return anything, even if it’s completely substandard.
Except that's not what she said. She compared it to a local product of unnamed price (which is strange why the price was left out, mind you) to what she got for 11 EUR on TEMU.
This sort of mishearing seems suspicious to me.
Wild conspiracy theory, partly a joke and half serious: If you ever read the book "Life 3.0" the introduction begins with a story about a group of data engineers building an AI who starts building a lot businesss with shell companies and shell employees. And ends up running the whole. Maybe it finally happend in real life. Maybe Temu is the AI's first project? 😅
It could be.
No AI is far more kind and generous than pinduoduo. Pinduoduo is very harsh to its employee and sellers.
@imnothat2185 one could say " cold and efficient " like a machine
I guess we will need more regulations on restricting "unnecessary," "non-durable," and "low cost" goods. I wonder how you define each of the terms.
Good to see Dan McCrum, the guy who uncovered German payment processing Wirecard skandal being the skillful investigative financial journalist, fearlessly going at it. Certainly going to keep tracking this companies, temu and pdd.
Dankie Louis.
I dont understand, did north American peope never heard of alibaba/aliexpress before? Because in Europe its normal way of buying extra cheap for YEARS so nobody cares about Temu, because its nothing new for us.
Kaifu Lee explained years ago, the Chinese strategy is build the biggest, bloodiest, no-holds-barred arena for competition, and throw a thousand companies in there and let the best ones emerge
Those are the national champions.
When they go abroad, like Ctrip, Pingduoduo, BYD, etc, they'll find the completion...lacking.
US and EU companies are simply not used to the intense levels of competition in China.
How a company with no financial or legal transparency can even be listed eludes my understanding.
Hats off to Temu lol for keep everything a mystery
As an investor, I only care whether I can make a profit out of my investment. I don’t care about Pinduoduo being secretive. Did anyone care about Apple being secretive? I don’t think so.
FT should instead do a documentary to investigate why things in the west cost so much while these companies van make them at a fraction of the cost. Yes the quality of the finished product are poor after sale service, but why do these stuff cost so much in the west?
Because it is not about what something costs but how much we want to sell it for. In the model of C2M, the only brand is Temu, which is much cheaper. So the competition is on utility, not the perceived value through branding. I remember the same phenomenon in Poland when I was young, and Russians were coming to Poland selling cheap Russian products. If you needed a Philips screwdriver, a French key, or cloth for your kitchen, you could get it from there. They were well-made products for a fraction of the cost. The main reason was that there was overproduction in Russia. I believe the same situation exists in China now. Just delivery method changed as the market now is in your phone.
@@jacobs8102And these products are the opposite of well-made.
Yet ANOTHER reason why the West is increasingly more fearful of China - it subverts a lot of what the West has established or believes in.
Now the only thing the West has to do is demonise China and hope for the best.
Never liked FT, but this is Great production keep up
Chinese people can develop millions of TEMUs.
This is good news, reducing monopolies.
TEMU, based on geopolitical tensions, should try to avoid mentioning its Chinese background as much as possible, and many enterprises are also doing the same.
Justified, otherwise they get ridiculed by some brain-dead and senile senate committee on what is the internet and Singapore is in China…
Justified, otherwise they get harassed be some senile senate committee seeking tech support
This is a wild true detective story
As long as prices are 20x or 30x higher on Amazon, any claim can be placed on Temu, even accusing it of connection to the Chinese government but the regular customer does not care about such propaganda when the products safely arrives and saves them thousands of dollars per year.
Temu products do not save you a cent. You buy it because it is cheap and not because you need the stuff.
Excelente escurtinio que ja me tinha vindo à ideia!! Os mistérios que apelam ao consumo?! Mas a fase de obsessão por consumir e desperdício já não parou?! A música da Temu é irritante ..."compra como um milionário" é algo suspicioso!!As lojas dos Chineses em estado fisico que já tiveram o seu apogeu e encontram-se em declínio...foram estabelecer-se para o online, a qualidade é o defeito!! O virtualismo financeiro a vulso...
Porque é que há sempre uma maneira de contornar?! Estando nós mais que esclarecidos ...sobre a necessidade de abrandar o consumo!!? Porquê as economias têm de crescer mais...se cada vez mais os recursos diminuem?! Nada é infinito ...
Comparing it to Amazon that has its own warehouses, transportation fleet, expensive workforce etc etc is apples to oranges. Shein and Temu laid those costs on the manufacturers that probably also supply to the likes of Amazon. Could even be 'overflow' goods.
Temu delivering low quality products with appropriate low price, ahh yes, let's have a global meltdown because retailers in the West aren't able to charge customers 200 times the production cost 😂😂
PDD is definitely beating BABA in Chinese market.
not really they are not directly competing... PDD is more downmarket, like the lady said in the video, for some items she would never use PDD for
I'd say for common products they're very alike in price now unless some big saling activities running
China... jlJust building and moving on.
FT, great job to bring down PDD stock price just before the huge Q4 earning beat.
PDD is cost cutting the extreme, not even spare cost to hire receptionist.
Well done FT
What about the quality and safety of the products?
ofcoz! Everyone knows by instinct how big the italian economy is
This is all just capitalism at the end of the day. Films like this do a good job of showing how uncomfortable Western players are when players from other parts of the world play the capitalist game better than them. All the inferences of underhanded behaviour by the company in this film could easily be made/transferred onto a number of US and European operators
well said 👍👍
I have noticed that temu items quality is higher that of usa retail brand name items and is ten times less through temu
Finally, a wumao commenter!
"lack of information... and can't understand it" are problems for FT investigative reporters for sure, but not really a problem for consumers. Our problem is high prices.
I was introduced to Temu just 4 days ago. Yesterday, I bought $87 worth of goods that will come next week. I hope they are good. as they are so low priced.
It won't be, it's just cheap nasty junk. I can't believe anyone buys from temu it's just junk
They won’t be.
It’s all landfill -
Chinese big firms need to expand their business into developed market where middle classes have purchasing power. US domestic Amazon will do everything to stop them anyway. Is it a good or bad thing for US consumers, ur bet?
And I think was she said about companies setting up businesses in Amazon is wrong. Try buying a knife from there and most are essentially fronts shipping Chinese made knifes. This happens with sooooo many product categories. Temp is just cutting out the fake branding and the costs giving the consumer a better experience
I hate how platforms like these have made it so hard to find a trustworthy seller who; pays workers a living wage, who is producing quality goods and follows environmental regulations
I hate when america cries foul when beats them at what their good at. Amazon can be pricey and Temu is cheap. In tough economic times like these, Temu is the way to go to satisfy our need for retail therapy. Other platforms must just suck it up and become more competitive otherwise they will continue to cry. Business is war. Adapt or lose.
How does this Temu differs from Shopee?
LOL everyone I know who shops at Temu knows its Chinese, consumers are not dumb and the Financial Times is dumb for for thinking we check a company HQ's by looking at the website's About page.
i honestly believe by the tonal vehemence of judgement by the team working on this story, that they had bought loads of puts on PDD or have naked shorts on the stock..and it's paying off. it's intended to spook investors really not customers.
@@swillmerchant9886 Exactly. Least obvious hit piece.
Hearing them talk about PDD and just cant help but imagine P Diddy as the man behind it all 😂
It's only the start, by geopolitical errors of Washington which made cheapest electricity to all Ai industry in China (forcing Russia sell all energy supply below market only there).
What?! How can something so big yet remain so mysterious and legally official? The lack of oversight and scrutiny in business is appalling. They could be a huge laundering scheme encompassing a range of illicit businesses in third world countries and they are getting away with it in broad daylight. Is there no investigation from any authorities?
PDD
seems from a logistical point highly robotized, highly AI driven
So no high worker costs on all levels
Aliexpress is registered in lux and collects vat based on delivery country within EU per the 2021 law. Other ali entities like 1688/taobao no longer deliver to Europe because of that. Taobao is significantly cheaper than Aliexpress. Is this a means to avoid complying with EU tax laws maybe?
The Securities and Exchange Commission could fix fare labor practices across the global markets with a ratings system of quarterly transparency on auited labor paid conditions and sestanibility practices.
There failure to do nothing, they are responsible for continued child slave labor and poverty across the globe with horabaly unsustainable practices. If there rating suck they should pay higher terriffs so there not hurting local employers.
22:20 quite important point
A Trojan Horse then, impossible to sanction as basic shooping necessity.
Aliexpress is alot cheaper in UK, how does that factor in?
the profit they burn to serve uk. that's no trojan but self-deprecation as I see it
its cheap, you should be happy for people struggling
I am, use it myself! Doesn't mean I can't point out the obvious tho@@havencat9337
I am, I use it all the time @@havencat9337
People in US are asking why prices in US are higher. But they don't ask "why I have two cars on my driveway"? "Why I went in Carraibeans two times this year on vacation? "How come I afford this four bedroom house for a three person family?" Now answer these questions for the regular Chinese worker. Instead of supporting the fellow American worker, the US consumer prefer to send money to the Chinese, all in the name of " is a free world " crap.
Crazy times we live in
Robin Zhu looks & sounds like he's a crack international spy who is hiding out as a senior analyst 😁
Never heard of them but now I'm gonna buy from them as they look great, thanks for the advertisement :)
my last package said it was sent from a local warehouse. in Australia.
🚩🚩 everywhere ....
I thought the secret of new business model is asking buyers to take part of fulfilling huge orders? E.g manufacturers only give huge discount like 80% off at this price if they receive 10,000 orders ?
excellent piece, thank you
"Toy Chinese online bargain store Temu a 'safety risk' for children"
Toy Industries of Europe (TIE) concludes this after a sample test. Of the 19 toy products ordered from Temu, NOT A SINGLE ONE met European standards. According to TIE, 18 of them posed a safety risk to children.
PDD is clearly not the destination for children's goods. Serious parents in China are avoiding PDD.