Temu – was it worth it?

I kept seeing ads for Temu and Shein and decided to check out Temu. I wanted some cushion covers and I guess my ad preferences on Facebook knew about that and threw up Temu.

Temu is an online marketplace that gained popularity for offering heavily discounted goods through aggressive social media advertising. Launched in April 2023, it has become the most downloaded shopping app in the UK. The platform provides a wide range of products at remarkably low prices, using a business model that involves vendors shipping directly from China to customers worldwide, cutting out middlemen.

I managed to get some free cushion inserts, that I cut in half and made into rectangular cushions, now I needed some covers and that’s where Temu came in. Looking at places on the high street…£8 was the minimum from the likes of Dunelm John Lewis and others. 

As I needed 14 cushion covers, this was going to be painful, but Temu saved the day, I got covers at around £2 each and then as I had never used the site before I got an intro discount.

The quality was actually rather good – see the image – so I decided to pick up some paintings and fake flowers from there too. Paintings were nice from afar and so were the fake flowers but they did the job.

The arrival time was fine too. From ordering my goods were with me in less than 10 days.

I have since removed the Temu app and unsubscribed to emails as was getting spammed like crazy, but have had no issues with the products even a few months later.