To ask you to swerve Shein & Temu

They aren't though. Essential things are water, food, heating, a roof over heads. Gifts are an extra.

I will definitely be trying to buy less all round tbh and be more conscious about where my money goes

I didn't say no presents; I said....in response to pp saying she could afford only necessities, and that she buys next month's landfill because she 'wants to'..........that gifts were not.

I[d agree that gifts are essential but that doesn[t mean they need to be new purchases. They can come in other forms - home made, recycled, experiences, time.

Omg really??? Neither is this phone I am using but come on now, are we really going as far to say no more Christmas presents for our loved ones ? You are delusional if you think that anyone is going to take this message seriously with that .
Fwiw I hate fast fashion and temu hauls etc.

@venus7
I’m guessing you haven’t read the full thread, but that particular poster has put up with enough posters haranguing her due to her shopping choices, made because she is skint and wants to clothe herself plus do something nice for her family. It’s not fair that everyone is keeping on at her. The problem really is with those who could afford to shop elsewhere but like having multiple new outfits. Life is hard enough for many people at the moment as it is, without having to constantly defend their choices .

But gifts are not essential; lovely, but not essential.

I would hazard a guess it's because that it's more likely that the products are made in sweatshops and with slave labour.

I consider presents for Xmas for my family to be essentials.

Money isn't 'really, really tight' if you can buy non essentials because you 'want to'.

My daughters love the clothes from Shein,
I’ve not ordered from Temu recently as they been using Royal Mail and parcels have been arriving 2/3 days later than stated, Temu will give you £4 for a late delivery and also if the prices of things you’ve bought goes down in price they will also refund you the difference!
Ive got £34.87 in credit now due to this!

my Christmas shopping is now finished so I won’t be ordering anything else for the time being!

The people who I know are buying from these outlets are doing so because they get more for their money and they don't throw anything away after one wear.... Otherwise it doesn't work out for them 🤷🏼‍♀️

Maybe some are like that. But I have spent about £60 on clothes all year so please don’t make assumptions we are all like that. We don’t have much “stuff”. We certainly don’t buy because we are bored of what we have and fancy something new.

It's wanting to live like a millionaire on a pauper's wages

There is a good reason why the slogan of Temu is "spend like a billionaire".

I don't have an MN salary. I am on minimum wage zero hours contract. I have every sympathy with people on the bones of their arse, and if it's people buying coats and shoes for their kids they otherwise wouldn't have, yes, I get that.

But realistically, it mostly isn't. It's people buying tat they don't need, clothes they'll only wear once, etc. Everybody I know who buys from Temu spends more on clothes on n a month than I have in a year. And these aren't even people with dependent children.

I'm not buying the fancy, organic, hand woven version, I'm just not buying stuff. I find it quite sad that the 'joy' in people's lives is so invested in 'stuff'.

For many, these sites are an addiction, not a necessity. It's not the kids warm coats and shoes that bother me. It's the adult need for a new outfit every week/month. It's the 14 different duvet sets for one bed. It's the new stuff because you are bored with the old stuff.

It's wanting to live like a millionaire on a pauper's wages and these weird modern ideas we have got that that is somehow a right. Heaven forfend anyone should have to cut their cloth, the cloth should just be so much cheaper, because the right to have stuff, to be denied nothing, supercedes everything else.

My (limited) experience is the same. A friend bought a dress for a wedding from there and it was so shiny and flammable that was worried she'd go up in flames if she was too near a candle.

I bought a Shein tee from a jumble sale; it was new with tags on. I usually swerve poor quality, but I liked the print and it was 50p. The print peeled off after two washes.

Also very concerned about the chemicals. I'd never buy my kid clothes from there.

I once bought a swimsuit from Shein, and was tempted by the gorgeous-looking clothes on the website to buy a few other items. The cost with shipping was more than I expected, but the products were all cheap.

The swimsuit was thin and the other clothes, that looked so good on the screen, had blurry patterns and weird slippery-feeling synthetic fabric. I didn't even try them on, as the fabric felt horrible. Straight to the charity shop, as it turned out the cost of returning them would use up practically all the refund. That was before I knew anything about their ethics, so I wouldn't even bother to look at their ads now.

My sister is constantly buying clothes from Shein. They are utter tat....cheap fabric which appears to have a rancid odour, badly made and the sizing isn't consistent. I prefer to get vintage well made pieces from charity shops or Vinted.

My friend says largely their stuff (from both) are 'Shite' and 'Terruble' quality.

She does very well at the charity shops (lives in Marlow)

Please report any harassment. Otherwise sturdy debate is just fine on AIBU.

And I really judge posters such as @Bagsintheboot , @TheGoddessAthena and @dingdongdoo for continually harassing other posters. That’s really nasty. Say your piece once and move on.

I don’t use the sites myself as I can afford not to. I do have a friend who does and also could afford not to, and whilst I’m not particularly impressed that she does this, she doesn’t order tons and the things that I’ve seen from there are pretty nice pieces of clothing and no different in quality to a lot of the stuff that I buy in Next, and I don’t imagine that Next (or similar stores) are overly ethical either.

The people I do judge massively though, are middle class people on a ‘MN salary’ who think they have a right to tell those on minimum wage, with rising costs, bills to pay and children to feed and clothe, how they should spend their earnings. For those in that position who manage to live ethically - hats off to you, but if someone wants new clothing and things for their DC on a low wage, I won’t judge you.

I voted you unreasonable - but only because you singled out Temu and SHEIN, to which some people seem to have taken on a stance of fashionable, rabid and vitriolic aversion, without rationalising why.

There are plenty of other purveyors of sub-standard goods: even some stuff from so-called “upmarket” suppliers is cheap tat, just with a higher price, and FWIW, some of the SHEIN items are really good, and at a fraction of the cost of them from other places (E.g. silicone mats, sealing strip for bathrooms) are worth buying if you need to save money.

I agree with the underlying sentiment of buying only what you need, though, just object to the blanket assumption that Temu and SHEIN only sell rubbish…

I bought a top from M&Co (via Next) which was made in UK. Around £25-£30. I am not convinced that the people working there have brilliant conditions but probably better than China. Doubt all their stuff is made in UK but it’s worth a look. There is also a site called Jumping Ships which does very basic T shirts and Leggings made in UK. Not very exciting and Website not particularly user friendly, but again, items around £30. Which is more than Sainsbury’s but not £££.