Slow delivery, high prices: Vietnamese shoppers disappointed with Temu

Minh Giang of HCMC downloaded the Temu app after seeing its advertisements for cheap products, but could not find anything that was actually cheaper than elsewhere.

"I saw many items sold at big discounts but their original prices were 50-70% higher than the market rates."

Trong Tien found an interesting humidifier on Temu, but later noticed that Shopee sold the same item for 20% less.

"There are few cheap items on the platform."

Temu’s slow delivery is another issue that bugs shoppers, who are used to receiving their items within two days from Shopee, Lazada and TikTok Shop.

Shoppers in major cities can even get certain items delivered within hours.

But Temu, which partners with two local delivery companies, Ninja Van and Best, typically takes six or seven days to deliver, shoppers have found.

Le Duy in HCMC ordered some tools on Oct. 18 but six days later the package was still in northern Vietnam, Temu’s tracking feature showed.

"Too slow compared to other platforms," he said, adding he would delete the app if delivery times remained the same.

Temu has become a popular topic of discussion in Vietnam in the last four weeks with 410,000 interactions on social media, according to data tracker SocialHeat.

The number of discussions jumped by 400% within three days after Temu announced on Oct. 22 an affiliate program to reward people promoting its products.

But apart from discussions about the program, people were also talking about how Temu has not registered with Vietnamese authorities and that its prices are not cheap.

Some complained that it only accepts payment through credit cards and Apple Pay and does not offer cash-on-delivery payment, a dealbreaker for many shoppers.

YouNet Media, the company that operates SocialHeat, said Temu is facing a challenge in gaining the trust of shoppers, many of whom are concerned about the quality of its products and transparency.

Temu is limited in its product categories, its fashion items cannot compete with TikTok Shop and Shopee, and it lacks fresh produce which Shopee and Sendo offer, shoppers and vendors say.

Meanwhile, Shopee, Lazada, Tiki, Sendo and TikTok Shop posted VND8.9 trillion (US$351 million) in revenues from women's fashion and VND3.59 trillion from groceries in the third quarter alone, according to data tracker Metric. These were the third and fourth best-selling categories.

Another issue with Temu is its lack of an online "mall" with legitimate and authorized vendors, unlike Shopee, Lazada and TikTok Shop.

The mall feature accounted for a third of the platform’s sales in the third quarter, according to Metric.

The lack of a mall raises questions among shoppers, especially as Temu has already faced complaints about unsafe products in other countries.

In South Korea, some footwear products sold on Temu in April were found to have 11 times higher lead content than allowed.

This month Australia found 15 random toys on the platform with battery issues that posed risks.

Nguyen Phuong Lam, director of market analysis at YouNet ECI, a platform that analyzes e-commerce data, said Temu should bring local vendors’ products on its platform.

Nguyen Minh, a vendor who sells Chinese snacks, said he is not threatened by Temu yet since they sell different items, but if it partners with bigger manufacturers to bring prices down, smaller businesses would face great pressure and might even have to shut down.