When I placed a Temu order last month, I thought it would be my last hurrah — a final order before new fees and tariffs took hold. But it turns out, Temu has local warehouses in the US — and I was able to order again on Tuesday with no extra fees.
I made my last order on the day President Donald Trump announced his plans to close the “de minimis” loophole that allowed Temu and Shein to ship to the US without paying duty fees. I also got in under the wire before significant tariffs for Chinese-made goods hit.
I waited with baited breath to see if my order — some cheap battery-powered bubble wands — would arrive safely and without any extra duty fees (it did).
Since then, starting earlier this week, Temu has started adding a line item at checkout for an “import charge” in addition to shipping or the cost of merchandise on some orders.
When I checked on Tuesday — looking at some items I had left in my cart last month but didn’t buy — the import fee was higher than the total cost of the merchandise. Basically, it made my Temu haul a terrible deal — higher overall costs than buying similar items at a regular store.
BI
I thought this would mean curtains for Temu, the death knell. No one would be willing to pay these exorbitant extra fees — only someone who accidentally didn’t notice it at checkout might (and then get really mad later).
But it turns out that’s not exactly what’s happening. Temu has 4D chess’d Trump’s tariffs in a way.
For a while now, Temu and Shein have been setting up local warehouses in the US. Previously, these were an option that would be flagged to shoppers as offering faster shipping.
Stuff that is shipping within the US doesn’t need to take on that extra “import fee” — that’s only for packages shipping from China.
Presumably, the stuff in the local warehouses has already been in the country for a while, so for now, it isn’t affected by the other tariffs for goods made in China that will eventually be shipped here.
Temu
Temu is very aggressively prioritizing the “local warehouse” items on its app and website. (Temu didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on its strategy.)
When you search for an item — I was looking for decorations and party favors for my daughter’s birthday — the top results (in fact, the entire page of results) are all from local warehouses. On product category pages for home goods, toys, and women’s clothing, all the results for at least two pages were local warehouse items.
In fact, it was actually hard to browse for something that wasn’t shipped locally.
Basically, Temu has very quickly shifted its entire storefront for US customers to show them almost exclusively local results — the kinds of items that don’t require import fees.
It’s hard to tell whether the actual prices on those might be slightly higher than before things changed with Trump’s new policies. Temu is a marketplace with lots of sellers, so often, you might find items that look nearly identical selling at slightly different prices. The bubble toy I ordered in March cost $4.22 but is no longer available from that seller; a similar version shipping locally is listed at $7.61. (For comparison, Amazon sells a two-pack of the toy for around $16.)
What does this mean for shopping from Temu?
For the short term, Temu customers will mostly avoid getting slammed with massive fees, it appears. But long-term, I’d guess prices will probably go up — those local warehouses will need to restock with merchandise from China, which will be subject to tariffs.
Still, Temu’s competitors for cheap household goods, toys, and apparel will also be feeling that same squeeze from tariffs. And by then? Who knows what will happen? Maybe my love affair with Temu isn’t over after all.
