To ask you to swerve Shein & Temu

[DoNoTakeNo]

This Christmas?
I know it’s mainly a cost thing but if it’s achievable, can people possibly manage with less stuff?

Being a slave isn't having a job.

Just because those things no longer exist, doesn't mean they can't make a return. Part of why we lost those things is because of trade unions refusing to modernise and compete, much of which hasn't changed. The country is not currently attractive to businesses because of the doings of the incumbent Chancellor of The Exchequer. It's just too expensive to operate here.

This is also a really good point - Temu trawling sites like Etsy and copying designs that are doing well is really damaging artists and craftspeople. There are just no actual positives to these companies, and so many far-reaching negatives.

I've only used them twice but both times was impressed. The quality was better than I had imagined for many items. I wouldn't buy anything expensive or electrical so more stocking fillers. Xxx

Yes, me.You could get the cheap stuff off the market stalls, but it was really bad. We had those cheap padded dressing gowns when I was small in the seventies. Can't remember what it was made of, but you didn't want to stand too close to the fire. And we were expected to make it last. You wore it until you grew out of it.

I don't remember fake nails. You grew your own. I was lucky, there, mine grew really well. My friend used to bite hers, and always envied mine.

Really sheer tights used to ladder so easily. We used to put nail polish on when it started and hope it wouldn't go further up.

But we still weren't buying outfits every week or even every month. It was cheap, but not THAT cheap. I remember in primary school I had a new dress for Christmas day, and I was expected to wear that dress as my 'best' until the following Christmas when I got a new one.

I work in primary schools in a deprived area, and there's kids that talk about their Shein deliveries nigh on every week. When I was that age, nobody bought costumes for a Halloween party. You made a witches hat out of newspaper rolled in a cone and a black 'dress' made out of a bin bag with holes cut out for the arms, or you wore the old sheet with eyeholes cut out.

It's true that we didn't have all the world book day dress up crap parents have to do now, thank goodness, but on the odd occasion when we did have anything 'dress up', nobody bought it. And only the lucky kids with mum's who didn't work and were good with a needle had something that wasn't just old clothes out of the wardrobe. I always went as a St Trinian because all I had to do was go in messy hair and socks with holes in. As a teen, you'd be racier about it and wear your games skirt and holey tights, and knit your school shirt under what bust you had.

Sorry, got mugged down memory lane, there...

China has been stealing IP and copying designs for so long now that almost nobody bats an eyelid anymore. Pretty much all markets are flooded with Chinese-made versions of everything. It's a genuine problem, but it drives the cost down (great for the consumer) and big names then can't compete with such low costs (bad for the manufacturer).

It's cheap, it's good enough, but it will cost more in the long run as it will need replacing more often. As opposed to paying for quality and reliability, ie buy once, cry once. It's a bigger up-front cost, but it will last much longer than the cheaper alternative, possibly even several purchases of the cheaper alternative.

@DoNoTakeNo that's a no from me. Not everyone can afford not too.

Cheap rubbish and unethical working practices.

Scarlett O’Hara-ass comment

I get your point OP and agree but I do find it a slightly lazy argument for a few reasons (kindly, not rudely.)

1. temu and shein 100% have the worst rep but if you look into other big retailers (including Amazon) they have the same warehouses, same terrible wages, same problematic labour and bad quality materials. Do you honestly know where every single item you’ve bought yourself, has been sourced? (No judgment as I definitely don’t)
2. cost - as people have said, it’s easy to say “let’s just buy organic toys” when you have the money for it. Or easy for some to spend £50 on an organic t shirt when others are worrying about whether to heat or eat. its very easy to think that someone should avoid temu but there’ll be families that can only afford gifts on temu so will choose to use it. in regard to your actual post, if you’re concerned someone will use temu or shein to give presents to you, I’d go on a case by case basis. Perhaps suggest you don’t exchange gifts this year? Do an activity together and pay for yourselves? ive never ordered from temu and don’t order from shein (but have in the past) but definitely dont research where everything I buy, comes from. I have heard about chemicals in temu toys for example but if someone gives this to you, I would discreetly recycle it/send it back without making them feel rubbish

Part of the reason we don't have those things here is because we actually want to be paid a bit more than a few pence an hour and we don't want to do 14 hour days.

I mean, yeah, we could get the 70s sweat shops back, do away with minimum wage, etc, but I'll bet you any money it won't be anyone on this thread working there. It will be the immigrants everybody hates.

I worked in a factory for 10 years in the 90s, pre minimum wage and also pre some of the health and safety regs we have now. Most of our young Temu and Shein buyers today don't expect to be working eight hours a day, six days a week on the factory floor (which is what I did), let alone the sort of hours your average Chinese production worker puts in.

We wouldn't do it and we wouldn't want our kids doing it. So don't let's pretend we could just bring it all back and we'd have people willing to actually do it, unions or not.

Amazon is just a marketplace. Just like Temu. So is ebay. And aliexpress.
People really need to absorb this information. Marketplaces are not the same as brands or retailers.
So of course amazon will have similar problems. It is the same business model.

She was known for buying her bodices from Shein

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

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?

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

Case in point.

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.

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.

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.

I cannot believe anyone would buy from either

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.

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.

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.

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