Say what you may of Temu, and I do think more vetting of certain goods is a good idea, but they fill a very real need. In the part of Europe where I live, the choice is only between intermediaries for the same products coming from China. The local intermediaries sell a very limited picking at staggering margins. And when it comes to certain things, like electronic components, the choice is between importing (old) American stock with a German company as the intermediary, and that's $$$$ and many weeks of shipping, or using Temu or Aliexpress.
There's something unpleasantly snobbish with the way business is done here, a spirit of "if you have to ask the price, our business is not for you". For example, in Instagram, "Local offerings" pop up all the time in the feed. The ones which are truly local end up in a "call us to know more" button, no pricing info disclosed. The ones that show actual prices tend to be shell companies with no employees, no doubt a thin wrapper around an importer from Asia.
ktallett 42 minutes ago [-]
There is some validity to a marketplace selling items from a larger range of retailers, however the quality is so poor for many items that it simply is no good for society in any way.
whimsicalism 45 minutes ago [-]
yes, i'm very in favor of the shift towards direct-to-consumer among chinese retailers, but that might be because i'm not actually all that sympathetic to small business
mytailorisrich 26 minutes ago [-]
There is a part of conservatism and resistance to change. Online commerce has been seen as "suspicious" by some from the beginning to the point that in, for instance, France free delivery on books is banned... of course this just means that amazon.fr charges 1 cent, instead but it is symptomatic of a state of mind.
0cf8612b2e1e 14 minutes ago [-]
… which found that a high percentage of chargers purchased through Temu failed basic electrical safety tests. It also found that a high proportion of baby toys posed safety risks, containing chemicals above legal limits or featuring small detachable parts that presented suffocation hazards…
Boring. I can probably find the exact same on Amazon. From the headline, I was hoping the list of illegal products was going to be something like enriched plutonium, RPGs, Lawn Darts, etc
maxglute 8 minutes ago [-]
How many dead babies or battery fires post Temu, seems like good opportunity to conduct a before/after study on cost:ratio of EU regulations.
Jerry2 14 minutes ago [-]
The EU is only good at imposing massive fines and they like to regulate technologies they have not created, don't host and have not created them.
TEMO will more than likely just pass the cost of this onto EU consumers.
happyPersonR 24 minutes ago [-]
Does Amazon or eBay get the same fine? Haha it’s the same people on all of these sites …. Just some dropshipping ?
From Claude: The €200 million penalty equals around 0.4% of the global turnover reported last year by Temu's parent company PDD Holdings.
According to Eurostat, the average gross annual salary in the EU is around €39,800 per year for full-time employment. The average net salary comes to roughly €2,461 per month, or about €29,500 net per year.
0.4% of an average worker's gross annual salary = roughly €159.
gostsamo 40 minutes ago [-]
The fine is for activity in the EU, so compare it to their business there. Comparing apples to advertisement fliers is useful only if you are using the fliers as toilet paper substitutes.
kvgr 2 hours ago [-]
I am very pro free market, but Temu with data harvesting and selling illegal projects should be banned together with tiktok...
thesmtsolver2 56 minutes ago [-]
Doesn’t TEMU have CCP ties? Free market is for businesses and individuals and foreign govt entities should not unfairly benefit from a free market.
nickff 43 minutes ago [-]
Every major PRoC company is required to have CCP ties; in addition to 'paying for facilitation' by local officials, a certain percentage of their employees must be CCP members.
kvgr 24 minutes ago [-]
Everybody in china that gets big has CCP ties. No way around it. Their car manufacturers are all propped up by government.
cm2012 42 minutes ago [-]
All big companies in China are partially run by the CCP. Just how it works there.
thenthenthen 53 minutes ago [-]
Ties as in pay tax to ccp. In China Temu is called pinduoduo (拼多多）and you can buy some wild stuff there, the regulation on mainland seems also pretty lax i mean.
ale 1 hours ago [-]
I’d start with the immense packaging waste and shameless overconsumption tricks that are banned in basically any other industry.
holistio 2 hours ago [-]
If you're "pro free market, but", you're not pro free market. That's fine, but you might want to reevaluate whether you're actually for it.
lokar 1 hours ago [-]
Free markets can have strong rules. No other than Adam Smith said they are needed.
s_dev 1 hours ago [-]
The US and China have standards as well and bodies to regulate them. Regulation vs Free Market debate isn't a binary issue and is a spectrum.
It seems like quite a light punishment for selling such dangerous products that could literally kill people. The dodgy e-bike batteries have already been linked to several fires.
bigclivedotcom takes apart some of the Temu stuff on YouTube and some of the electronics is atrocious.
1-more 56 minutes ago [-]
They sell adapters to turn oil cans into silencers. Each one should be a violation of the National Firearms Act and subject to up to a half million dollar fine https://www.atf.gov/media/25071/download Nota bened; these are not per-se illegal, but you need to sell them through a firearms dealer and pay for an ATF tax stamp and only in states that have not banned them/all NFA items.
thenthenthen 51 minutes ago [-]
This. Same for the Chinese mainland app, some wild stuff like that being sold (firearms are highly regulated, but 1:1 copies seem to be ok, maybe because of the high level of regulation?)
manoDev 2 hours ago [-]
Isn't there some kind of law to disallow imports without a CE / RoHS / etc label? Why allow it to enter the EU, and then fine the seller afterwards?
MobiusHorizons 2 hours ago [-]
Are you suggesting opening every package to check for a CE? I think fining after the fact is how those laws are enforced.
manoDev 41 minutes ago [-]
I see, the issue is those parcels are mailed directly, not from a logistics operation already inside EU borders.
In my country the government is pushing those companies to have local warehouses. So if items are bulk imported by the marketplace, in theory it should be easier to inspect.
GJim 1 hours ago [-]
> Are you suggesting opening every package to check for a CE?
In the old days, when an importer purchased Chinese goods in bulk and resold them, import checks were commonplace.... AND the importer was legally responsible for paying import duties and selling goods to the public that were legal and met safety standards.
Now that any individual can order direct from China (with cheap subsidised postage!), the floodgates of untaxed and dangerous shite are open.
One solution is to address the subsidised postage that makes this state of affairs possible.
lokar 1 hours ago [-]
Require the recipient affirm the package meets all legal requirements, and personally assume liability for any violation.
mc32 1 hours ago [-]
That’s unworkable: asking a recipient unfamiliar with producers to know whether producer is reputable or not in advance and if the producer is unscrupulous you expect every affected buyer to follow up or be in violation of importation laws?
lokar 44 minutes ago [-]
If you are not sure, buy from within the EU from an importer who deals with this.
The old system of spot inspections worked because most import volume was from known, repeat importers.
mc32 41 minutes ago [-]
I think thats asking much from people some of whom easily get scammed by phone banks in Eastern Europe, India etc. many people will not put in that effort.
s_dev 2 hours ago [-]
The fine is the application of the law. Would be like getting arrested and demanding to know why the authorities aren't getting involved.
MichaelZuo 1 hours ago [-]
I think the parent is questioning how the fine relates to removing the goods from circulation?
Or is the intention of the law to allow for an unlimited number of supposedly illegal goods to circulate freely within the EU, just fined appropriately?
TazeTSchnitzel 1 hours ago [-]
With a few exceptions, those labels do not mean that the product has actually been tested or actually complies with the standard. They are a self-certification: CE means “I promise this complies with European norms”, but the entity deciding to print that on a product may not be honest. Small fly-by-night operations on the other side of the planet have little incentive to be honest.
Generally speaking, international direct-to-consumer e-commerce is a problem for trying to enforce these kinds of rules. The whole model of checks at the border works well for massive bulk shipments, which not only are few enough in number that customs have a chance of doing a proper job on them, but there's also a commercial importer taking a large financial risk on the shipment and therefore 1) having an incentive to ensure they import something safe to begin with, 2) they can be practically fined/sued by authorities if they screw up. But when you have myriad tiny operations selling direct to consumers, the consumer is the importer, and there's no local representative for the manufacturer that you can actually sue. It's effectively a quite lawless area. Being able to do direct imports is an important freedom, and this kind of laxity is inevitable, but it's understandable the EU wants to do something about the flood of poor-quality goods that are terrible for fair competition, the environment, and health and safety.
44 minutes ago [-]
saaaaaam 13 minutes ago [-]
Who says the products don’t have fake CE labels stuck on? A CE label does not - as far as I can tell - have any security features.
dwroberts 2 hours ago [-]
They add fake labels, this has been happening for a long time
amelius 1 hours ago [-]
Yeah they have the CE mark, but it means "Chinese Export". You can recognize it by the C and E being closer together.
There is such a thing. The Chinese Export one was specifically created to intentionally be confusable with the real CE marking (Conformité Européenne). And it works exactly as intended. People see “CE” and think it’s the real CE one but it’s the intentionally confusable one.
For electronics without wireless functionality, it is allowed to self-certify. Anyone could also print whatever label they want on their products illegally (i.e. without doing the required paperwork to self-certify).
The policemen controlling imports don't have the competency to check for faults, so we get this situation where specialists regularly sample the products, and heavy fines are issued to the importer.
galangalalgol 51 minutes ago [-]
And for electronics with wireless, they still just ignore everything. No FCC ID, don't even have any silkscreening on the pcb or markings on the ICs. Nothing gets enforced.
jordiburgos 2 hours ago [-]
Why there is a difference between selling and allowing to sell? If the product is sold in your site, you must be responsible of it.
madeofpalk 2 hours ago [-]
Isn't this being held responsible for it?
SoftTalker 35 minutes ago [-]
Yes, this "section 230" treatment of online platforms is at the core of why social media and the internet in general is full of garbage.
If you sell something on your site, or allow users to post something on your site, you should have some liability for the consequences.
another-dave 2 hours ago [-]
they are responsible for it, but it's useful in reporting to differentiate between "fulfilled by" and "bought through"
hydrogen7800 2 hours ago [-]
> If the product is sold in your site, you must be responsible of it.
But this is an internet store.
theragra 54 minutes ago [-]
Temu also should be fined for predatory marketing. Not sure if laws exist, but dark patterns are everywhere.
I try to a avoid Temu, but they have some good traits, too, like quick and convinient shipping.
2 hours ago [-]
alephnerd 1 hours ago [-]
This has been going on for a year now.
The EU began enforcing a small parcel tax directly against Temu last May [0] and France has been strongly lobbying against Shein and Temu [1]. The EU has also made Chinese overproduction a critical topic of discussion for EU-China relations [2][3], and barring Temu and Shein is backed by both unions and industrial groups within Europe [4].
All of this is linking to the EU's strategy of playing hardball against Chinese support of Russia's invasion of Ukraine [5][6], as well as pushing back against the Chinese perception that the EU is a has-been [7] as well as conducting an active info-war against a European state [8].
There's something unpleasantly snobbish with the way business is done here, a spirit of "if you have to ask the price, our business is not for you". For example, in Instagram, "Local offerings" pop up all the time in the feed. The ones which are truly local end up in a "call us to know more" button, no pricing info disclosed. The ones that show actual prices tend to be shell companies with no employees, no doubt a thin wrapper around an importer from Asia.
TEMO will more than likely just pass the cost of this onto EU consumers.
This is also part of the EU's larger tariffs against China [3].
[0] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202605/1361926.shtml
[1] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202605/1362200.shtml
[2] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202605/1362161.shtml
[3] - https://www.ft.com/content/e28fe696-ac30-4543-a105-febc82789...
According to Eurostat, the average gross annual salary in the EU is around €39,800 per year for full-time employment. The average net salary comes to roughly €2,461 per month, or about €29,500 net per year.
0.4% of an average worker's gross annual salary = roughly €159.
bigclivedotcom takes apart some of the Temu stuff on YouTube and some of the electronics is atrocious.
In my country the government is pushing those companies to have local warehouses. So if items are bulk imported by the marketplace, in theory it should be easier to inspect.
In the old days, when an importer purchased Chinese goods in bulk and resold them, import checks were commonplace.... AND the importer was legally responsible for paying import duties and selling goods to the public that were legal and met safety standards.
Now that any individual can order direct from China (with cheap subsidised postage!), the floodgates of untaxed and dangerous shite are open.
One solution is to address the subsidised postage that makes this state of affairs possible.
The old system of spot inspections worked because most import volume was from known, repeat importers.
Or is the intention of the law to allow for an unlimited number of supposedly illegal goods to circulate freely within the EU, just fined appropriately?
Generally speaking, international direct-to-consumer e-commerce is a problem for trying to enforce these kinds of rules. The whole model of checks at the border works well for massive bulk shipments, which not only are few enough in number that customs have a chance of doing a proper job on them, but there's also a commercial importer taking a large financial risk on the shipment and therefore 1) having an incentive to ensure they import something safe to begin with, 2) they can be practically fined/sued by authorities if they screw up. But when you have myriad tiny operations selling direct to consumers, the consumer is the importer, and there's no local representative for the manufacturer that you can actually sue. It's effectively a quite lawless area. Being able to do direct imports is an important freedom, and this kind of laxity is inevitable, but it's understandable the EU wants to do something about the flood of poor-quality goods that are terrible for fair competition, the environment, and health and safety.
https://cemarkingassociation.co.uk/latest-news/ce-marking-an...
https://www.kimuagroup.com/news/differences-between-ce-and-c...
https://starfishmedical.com/resource/conformite-europeenne-m...
The policemen controlling imports don't have the competency to check for faults, so we get this situation where specialists regularly sample the products, and heavy fines are issued to the importer.
If you sell something on your site, or allow users to post something on your site, you should have some liability for the consequences.
But this is an internet store.
I try to a avoid Temu, but they have some good traits, too, like quick and convinient shipping.
The EU began enforcing a small parcel tax directly against Temu last May [0] and France has been strongly lobbying against Shein and Temu [1]. The EU has also made Chinese overproduction a critical topic of discussion for EU-China relations [2][3], and barring Temu and Shein is backed by both unions and industrial groups within Europe [4].
All of this is linking to the EU's strategy of playing hardball against Chinese support of Russia's invasion of Ukraine [5][6], as well as pushing back against the Chinese perception that the EU is a has-been [7] as well as conducting an active info-war against a European state [8].
[0] - https://www.ft.com/content/102e18d7-d06b-4405-a347-97bb3c373...
[1] - https://www.ft.com/content/b1fdbad1-2793-4975-a10b-74bb928d3...
[2] - https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/eu-law...
[3] - https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20260326IP...
[4] - https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2025/09/15/les-indus...
[5] - https://www.bruegel.org/podcast/how-war-ukraine-reshaping-eu...
[6] - https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-commentary/2025-01-...
[7] - https://fddi.fudan.edu.cn/_t2515/57/f8/c21257a743416/page.ht...
[8] - https://www.defense.gouv.fr/desinformation/nos-analyses-froi...
Seems fine