To ask you to swerve Shein & Temu

Do something more practical than repetitive mumsnets threads then. I wouldn't be surprised if more people shopped at Temu than were planning to now, it will be on their minds and no one really enjoys patronising, sanctimonious posts.

But surely we all do what we can within our means? I also recycle. We keep heating costs to a minimum. We grow food. No money for holiday so we don’t fly (haven’t had a holiday for 8 years). One car only, small as cannot afford a bigger one. No food waste.
I needed new period pants. They were 3 pairs for £20 on m and s. 4 pairs for a fiver on Temu. Saves me so much money on sanitary towels that are plastic based.
Financially it made sense. After bills etc each month we have £60 “play money”. That has to cover clothes, health and beauty ( so no haircuts), dentist ( not got an nhs one so only go if desperate and put rest on credit card), eye tests, any household stuff needed eg a tin opener last month…
I put away £50 a month for Xmas and birthdays (4 kids, 2 stepkids - all adults - 6 step grandchildren).

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/use-the-developing-countries-trading-scheme-to-import-goods

Here's a lovely linky to one of the government endorsed schemes to get cheap tat in without paying duty.
UK companies are required to do due diligence on the standards in these places. The evidence? Normally send a pdf certificate with a "trust me bro" style email.

Again, you have no idea where your stuff comes from unless it's handmade.

I have a Shein cardi that has outlasted all of my M&S ones that were thrown together in Bangladesh. It was about a fiver and is much better quality than M&S.
it's not as simple as boycotting 2 sites because it makes you feel morally superior

I am interested at how many people call it “tat”. We don’t buy regularly but use it when we need things or for stocking fillers.
But we have had tools, clothes, wellington boots, period pants, an umbrella, a torch, gardening gloves to name a few. They’ve not been “tat”.

You don’t need to ask. I wouldn’t dream of buying cheap tat that has probably been produced in a sweatshop and then shipped half way around the world and will no doubt end up in landfill. You can get reasonably priced ethically sourced gifts from places like Oxfam, or buy vintage stuff in charity shops or car boot sales. Quality doesn’t have to be expensive unless you have no imagination.

You have Internet and a search engine.
Knock yourself out

It's likely that they moved from unemployment or from one shite job to another.

Sorry no. I needed a new mucking out wheelbarrow , tack shop charging £90. Temu same one for £47, it arrived yesterday.
same with shavings forks, UK now only sell whole fork for £14 whereas Temu is 3 replacement heads for £11………so I’m going with Temu

Amazon don't pay for them at all. They are a marketplace like Temu.

Oh and to add, personally I buy hand made off etsy from local makers but most won't as they're a lot more money.

I was going to say but a previous poster already did...the game dice I was going to bug in amazon are £18.99. They are the exact same dice as Temu has for £8.99. Even the same stock photos.

I don't believe for a second that amazon are paying more for them from a reputable ethical maker so unless all these places are aborted I don't really see how it will help

The Great British Public has not supported manufacturing in this country for 30-40 years. Over that time it has voted in successive governments who did not support a manufacturing industry, preferring to move to a service industry. We have lost all this and it wont come back.

We absolutely could bring it back with modern practices, etc, but there's no way we could do that and be as cheap as Shein and Temu and other places. They are that cheap because they don't have to adhere to modern working practices and legislation that we expect here.

And that's the problem. We can't compete unless we massively drop standards and lose working rights generations fought for. Generations who actually had to work in those conditions and still couldn't afford the stuff they were making, like those working in those factories in far flung places now.

I don't know what the answer is. I think we've gone too far down the rabbit hole of expecting to have it all for nothing.

Some of the responses on this thread think it's either Shein or a £50 organic T shirt. There's a middle ground, but I don't think anyone wants it.
Because it won't be Temu cheap.

Understood and accepted. Perfectly fine, in fact. All of what you've described is happening in China, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Indonesia etc instead. It's been outsourced. The point I was trying to make is that there must be a way that we can bring back industry with modern factories and modernised working practises. We cannot rely on cheap stuff from China forever, especially if we go to war with them at some point in the future.

I cannot believe anyone would buy from either

One person’s random shite is another person’s want/need. And perhaps they don’t want someone else’s used and now unwanted crap? I certainly wouldn’t buy anything second hand (not because I have some kind of moral objection to it, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, it’s just not for me). And it’s not just clothes that are sold on the sites, is it?

And if we’re using the logic of why would you use those sites when options a, b and c are available, why would you fly abroad when we have holiday destinations in the UK? Why would you have two cars because of living rurally when you could just move to a town and use public transport? Why would you eat imported watermelons when you could eat apples? Why would you eat meat when you could be vegan? The point I’m making is not just one of economics. It’s one of outrage that some people are sat in their ivory towers looking down on Shein/Temu users when they think their own lives are beyond reproach. They don’t have any moral high ground over the people who buy from those places.

You're assuming that Temu created 100,000 extra jobs. In reality a good chunk of these jobs will just have replaced highstreet manufacturing jobs as Temu has undercut the competition and swallowed up the market. Which isn't a good thing.

Temu pays higher than nothing and I have no doubt there are worse 'job' situations in Asia. Much worse and probably many similar factory jobs, they just don't cater for western society so we have no idea. Also if thinking that mumsnet boycotting temu will have any impact is ridiculous, even if it did work another business would just pop up, then another, then another. Does the OP really think these companies are going to wave the white flag and say thank you for showing us the error of our ways! Nobody on here seems to have any real idea about how these, businesses, infrastructure and cultures really work.

Case in point.

Yes, just reiterating because people don't seem to get it.

There are items on Amazon that are the exact same on SHEIN. But twice the price. It’s hard when money is tight. Why would I choose to pay twice as much for the same item?

I’m sure I said this? “Including Amazon”
just making the point as lots of people are happy to use Amazon and not use temu/shein

She was known for buying her bodices from Shein