Temu Tat…

[PinkPonyClubb]

Does anyone else get annoyed by Temu gifts that break?

My young child is continually gifted Temu gifts from family members for birthdays and Christmas.

They are cheaply made and don’t last - two examples an aeroplane that wing broke when my child caught it’s side on a wooden floor while playing with it. A car that’s wheel snapped of when it travelled down a ramp.

And the latest - a light gun that batteries containers has smashed after being knocked of the table.

I know there has been a few knocks but these are children toys. So fed up of my 3 year old becoming upset because there toys are broken.

Please stop buying my child cheap tat.

Anyone else?

Temu and Shein should be banned. Appalling that people put price above human and environmental cost.

You do know that most TEMU stuff is just cutting out the "middle man" who then adds their profit on top - sorry but I'm all for saving in the current economic climate.

It's really not, it's cheap copies.

No, it really is.

Im 46. I have friends that consistently gift from temu. Its absolute tat. I understand budget constraints but id rather a 2.99 bunch of flowers than even more tat, id rather no gift and them to say they cant afford presents this year than to use temu

as long as your £2.99 flowers are not from Kenya or Ethiopia, depriving locals of land and water.
i agree though. we need to reset with consumerist culture. Even Amazon is full of temu stuff but 6 times the price. Ditto etsy

Slavery isn’t work, it’s slavery. Much of the production takes place in prisons where people are imprisoned for being Muslim or Buddhist or for supporting democracy.

My Mum bought us all hampers of Temu stuff for Christmas. Lip balms, hand creams, sweets etc. All went straight in the bin when she left.
I don’t know what the ingredients are etc.

Yeah, what absolute cunts, having the temerity to be poor AND want themselves and their kids to have toys, clothes, cosmetics etc.

Why don't they weave together a cloak of leaves, and let their children play with foraged sticks, like any ethical poor person would?

Jesus.

Surely toys from unregulated places are dangerous ?
We don't know what toxins are in them and they won't have the same safety stuff we do here ?

People are putting their desire to give their own children clothes, toys, craft items, etc etc, above the environmental cost. That is all they are doing
And most of us would do it, whatever our lofty ideals, if it was a choice between our kids having Xmas presents or not.

I live and work with families in an area of extremely high deprivation, and if I suggested they stop using sites like Temu I would, quite rightly, be laughed out of the park.

(And the people in my community are also brilliant at sharing what they have, passing on unwanted items etc. Nothing gets thrown away or wasted if another family could plausibly use it. But you can't get everything on Facebook marketplace and the free sites. And also, sometimes people want a bit of sparkle, even if it's cheap tacky sparkle?)

Correct the heinous imbalance in our society. THEN I will absolutely take your point about this......

It's false economy though, and sometimes even dangerous / bad for your health.

Yes, a lot of products come from china, but they still have different standards from factory to factory. The products from Temu and Shein have been tested independently and been found to contain harmful levels of minerals and some nasty chemicals.

The false economy is that they will last far less time than well-made products.

I prefer to buy well-made second-hand.

Not to mention the modern slavery aspects.

I can't find any reason why I'd choose to buy dangerous, harmful, fragile crap from Temu, made by people who are in forced labour.

No, it's really not.

You're being fucking ridiculous. There are plenty of affordable ways to buy clothes and toys without buying shit from Temu.

Just when I thought I’d seen everything. What an utterly ridiculous and dramatic post. I’m actually embarrassed on your behalf. Cringing.

I buy second hand 95% of the time and sometimes that includes buying things from temu etc that have ended up on Vinted. It’s not false economy if you like the stuff and use it, it’s false economy if you don’t.

Said it before but I think for a lot of people it's all about the warm fuzzy feelings at the sight of a big pile of wrapped gifts. If you're cash strapped you could choose to just buy one, maybe smaller, good quality present but you don't get the same satisfaction.

I meant false economy in the way that it won't last, and you could buy a better quality "x" second hand which would last way longer.
If you want to replace the item, you could end up spending more than if you'd bought a decent one in the first place

How can you tell if the toy or electronic item is exactly the same just cutting out the middle man?
Or a copy made with inferior materials, cheap toxic paint and not safety tested?

You're not bothered about poor children having dangerous toys, clothes and craft then?
They don't deserve the same protection as other children 🤔

Say you don’t like your in-laws without saying you don’t like your in-laws….

But you have no idea which are being used and by whom. The “approved” suppliers know how to tick all the boxes on paper, but frequently outsource to sub-suppliers to meet the demand and this is hidden from clients. They cannot make a good enough margin if they meet all the standards because their clients are all about driving down costs. These sub-suppliers use cheap labour / slavery / children.

An example of the disparity in the narrative between the expensive brands and those called “cheap tat” is the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh. This was widely reported as the “Primark factory” and its cheap fashion was seen to be to blame for poor working conditions. This is despite the fact that brands such as Zara, Benetton, Gap, and even Versace and Prada used this factory. The top that costs £5 to supply is sold for £8 at Primark, £50 at the Gap and £200 by Prada. Who is the bigger crook there? Incidentally, the brands who have signed up to pay reparations to families and improve working conditions and monitoring of these suppliers are largely the cheap brands. Primark has a large number of staff working in these countries. They are investing in improving standards which is benefitting the designer brands making much larger profits.

To suggest Fisher Price (and their parent brand Mattel) are doing anything differently and that their toys are safe and made using ethical labour is laughable and ignored evidence to the contrary. They have recalled toys due to lead paint being found, their “rock and play” was on the market for a decade until 2019, despite them being warned about babies dying (50 in ten years). The factories they use have repeatedly been investigated and found workers being paid less than £1 an hour. Instead of holding their hands up and saying they will do better, their statements deny there is a problem, saying they monitor suppliers and are committed to ensuring good working conditions. The detail they give on how they do this is sorely lacking.

Cheap tat isn’t great. We need less of it. But expensive tat has just the same ethical concerns and avoiding Temu in favour of Smyths isn’t any better for reducing exploitation of workers overseas.

I absolutely detest Temu. It’s just cheap rubbish that ends up going to landfill. It’s made in factories that don’t give a toss about workers rights or the environment, then shipped half way round the world. Should be banned!

But cheap, and you can access vast quantities of the crap at low prices. Shop like a billionaire!

Except billionaires are not filling their homes with plastic tat made by slaves. Sooner they stick massive import tariffs on these awful companies the better. That's what the French have done, and also give tax breaks for repairing items and buying second hand.

Didn’t people used to buy from Argos as it was budget friendly before Temu?

I wouldn’t buy anything from them and I’d rather buy my Dgc one decent toys from JL. At least they are checked for safety standards