7 ms·

I work for a Swiss POS firm. We buy all our peripherals like tablet stands etc, and merchandising from Temu since it's 5-10x time cheaper and is same or better

I work for a Swiss POS firm. We buy all our peripherals like tablet stands etc, and merchandising from Temu since it's 5-10x time cheaper and is same or better quality. We are competing with well funded companies like lighspeed/toast so it's been great help for us. Funny incident our CEO just mentioned to me yesterday: She ordered stickers from a local shop without asking the price, and on delivery had to pay 200 CHF for 20 stickers so 10 CHF/sticker. Next time she ordered from temu and got them at 20 CHF for 200 stickers so 0.1 CHF/sticker. At least to me it's clear this is plain and simple regulatory capture by inefficient european retailers. In supermarkets I have to pay 12 EUR for a bottle opener that I can get for 2 EUR on temu. Amazon.de for example launched free delivery to estonia and other small european countries only recently post rise of temu. These actions by EU commision are vehemently anti-consumer and anti-business under the transparent guise of being pro-consumer and pro-business. Would recommend Bill Gurly's talk about regulatory capture if anyone is interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=F9cO3-MLHOM https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=F9cO3-MLHOM

seivan 1y ago
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fxtentacle 1y ago
It’s all great to buy cheap stuff until you notice that those stickers are poisonous, your hand soap causes cancer and the Wi-Fi broke down because cheap uncertified electronics are causing interference all over your building. As someone living in the EU, I am happy that we have product safety regulations which are halfway reasonable. But as someone building hardware in the EU, I sure sometimes hope that I would be allowed to just skip all the environmental, safety, tax, and EMI rules. But that’s the price we have to pay so that we don’t accidentally get poisoned due to other people’s greed. And that’s why, even though it negatively affects my business, I fully support those EU regulations.
- mytailorisrich 1y ago
  True but bear in mind that most of those things are made in China whether you buy them here or on Temu, or Amazon and may even be the same product from the same factory. Platforms like Temu allow you to buy essentially direct from China and to cut many middlemen. In hardware you have state-of-the-art PCB and assembly providers in China, who don't "skip" anything compared to European ones. Of course you have bad apples, too. So there is a balance between paying more for quality and subsidising inefficiency and middlemen.
  - fxtentacle 1y ago
    I don’t think that’s a good example, because for common order configurations Aisler located inside the EU is actually cheaper than JLCPCB or PCBWay. Or was it your intention to point out that when Chinese companies follow all the rules, their price advantage mostly vanishes?
    - mytailorisrich 1y ago
      > Or was it your intention to point out that when Chinese companies follow all the rules, their price advantage mostly vanishes? The opposite. When they follow all the rules their products are still 10x cheaper and end up sold here either directly through Amazon or perhaps just branded as a well-known European brand (especially for small appliances, many, many products are sourced from white label chinese suppliers). So effectively you end up paying 10x more just for the branding and middlemen.
- shivasaxena 1y ago
  Yes, disguising this regulatory capture as a concern for consumers on health and safety grounds is a great digression. I have also seen people raise concern about Slave labour for example. This of course ignores the fact that European retailers often sell the same exact goods from the same Chinese factory, but at a 5-10x markup. And as said these goods are often same of better quality that what I would get from domestic retailers. In case of stickers the one from Temu were were of higher quality. If EU was forcing Temu to abide by EU regulations on health and safety I would be all for it. But they are shutting down competition(change in customs rule on small packages etc) so our domestic retailers can stay inefficient and continue to bleed consumers.
  - fxtentacle 1y ago
    Try buying a fan on Temu which was actually FCC, CE, and UL tested and certified. Sadly, all of these certifications cost money. That means companies who actually did the certification are forced to charge more for the same quality level. Also, Temu is heavily reliant on infrastructure which was paid for by the taxes paid by local companies. The trick how Temu can avoid paying is by lying on the customs forms and declaring business transactions as valueless gifts. I’m not sure I would call fraud prevention as “regulatory capture”.
    - crinkly 1y ago
      A fun one is some of the phone chargers on there. Someone at work bought one and found out quickly that there was 240V on the USB-C shell. They were lucky it didn't kill them. That was marked as CE / UL etc because the stickers are cheap. Actually tested stuff costs money. Not a lot more but enough to push them down the ranks.
      - pjc50 1y ago
        I've also had this experience; ordered a box of 10 chargers for $20 for the office, and of course they're built down to that price way below any standard of electrical safety. The "shell" was joined in a way that pulling on it to pull out the plug could detach the back leaving exposed live wiring.
- tialaramex 1y ago
  As someone building hardware, unless it's like medical implants or aeroplanes or something you'll be aware that the E marking is self-certified for most things. You could (it may not be cheaper, depending on industry and volume) do the work to check you're obeying these rules and affix your own certifications. That's not true for a pacemaker or a jetliner, which will both need somebody else to certify them before they can be sold for purpose, but it is true if you make most ordinary "hardware". The rationale is that most people don't want to make shoddy garbage and so they actually want to know what's expected of them and comply, and those who are maybe less than honest can be caught by the usual processes - after the fact admittedly but now they're guilty not of some hard to prove negligence or whatever but of specifically selling goods which wrongly claimed to meet the requirements. My mother used to (decades ago) make stuffed animals for kids. Those needed E marks. One day a mother complained that her child had been injured by a toy, investigators show up, take similar animals for testing and... they're fine because of course they're fine mum had been following the EU self-certification process, testing materials, using proper tools etc. and so she knew it was done properly albeit in this particular case that wasn't enough - without any certification framework my guess is that's a nasty lawsuit and almost nothing she can do to defend herself.
  - fxtentacle 1y ago
    I think you nicely illustrate why self-certification doesn’t work with Chinese companies. If your mother makes a mistake, she will get sued. But almost nobody in the EU who got hurt from a low quality product will be able to successfully sue one of those eight letter fake name companies with PO Box in China. That means local companies are forced to spend money to avoid product issues. But Chinese companies can get away with selling known faulty goods.
    - seec 1y ago
      Yep, this is distorted "competition". The actors are not playing by the same rules because one party isn't forced to follow them to the same extent and doesn't have a whole lot to lose if it doesn't follow them at all. The reality is that it isn't just a Temu problem, "free trade" with countries that do not have the same rules is necessarily imbalanced. It seems crazy to me that we impose very stringent rules inside the EU for many things and then allow anyone to import stuff from a faraway country that doesn't have to follow those rules. China has been cheating by definition for many years now and it's just now that people are reacting because it's now clear we have exported all the value creation process thanks to a lack of protection for inside actors...
- kmac_ 1y ago
  Thank you for your comment. People would be shocked at how many hazards they avoid because of those regulations. I'll defend China here a bit, as they are improving (at the cost of competing with other, less regulated countries, the irony). And the cherry on top: those "cheap" items are heavily subsidized from multiple places, including postal fees. When the local production gets extinguished (and it won't come back easily, as "know-how" people will be retired) those prices will change.
input_sh 1y ago
I invite you to look at the linked PDF (https://www.beuc.eu/sites/default/files/publications/BEUC-X-2025-007_Tests_of_Temu_Products_by_Consumer_Groups.pdf https://www.beuc.eu/sites/default/files/publications/BEUC-X-...) and name me the thing you disagree with. Would you like your child to play with "cheap plastic toys that contain hormone disrupting phthalates up to 240 times above the legal limit"? Or silicone-free cosmetics which contain silicone in the list of ingredients? Or a helmet which is "clearly insufficient to protect users"? It's easy to undersell the domestic market if you completely ignore all of the regulation that's applicable to literally any store located within the market.
- shivasaxena 1y ago
  No, but then they should issue fines to Temu and force it to comply. I would whole heartedly support EU commission then. However their actions till now have been about shutting down competition(changing custom rules on international packages). > It's easy to undersell the domestic market if you completely ignore all of the regulation that's applicable to literally any store located within the market. No credit to Chinese for running a efficient supply chain operation?
  - fxtentacle 1y ago
    The custom rules are not so much changing as that you’ll be paying higher fines for lying on the documents. When I started asking sellers to correctly fill out the customs form with my business as the intended recipient and my company’s tax ID, I got banned from Temu and BangGood.
    - shivasaxena 1y ago
      Customs rules have already changed and the 150 EUR exemption has been revoked for a couple of years now. I'm all for forcing Temu and other Chinese retailers following our regulations if they want to sell in Europe.
raverbashing 1y ago
I guess it's fine to buy the stickers from Temu but know that China massively subsidizes the shipping costs For other stuff, well, it's probably hit or miss
- maxglute 1y ago
  >massively subsidizes the shipping costs This another one of those allegations where muh PRC subsidies makes no sense, especially since we're 5 years past UPU reforms... as in PRC companies haven't had preferential postage rates for years. They're just good at logistics now... bulk ship via air / preloading local ware houses then have local shippers hand last mile to keep per item shipping low. TEMU/Ali still has pretty healthy markup, like 100-200+% vs domestic. That's basically enough for margins and offset air shipping when dealing with trinkets. Order any big item and shipping price explodes, proportional to weight. Buying straight from PRC is cheap because you're not paying multiple middle men for same item. Sometimes middlemen is worth it, i.e. Amazon where you pay 10 dollars from transhippers vs 7 dollars directly from PRC vs 20 dollars from retailer because Amazon refund policy worth it small premium.
lm28469 1y ago
50 years later (aka now for most of the west): "Why did we lose all our industries ? Why is it so hard to find a job ? Why is all the know how in China now ? Why is China buying our ports/airports ?? Why is our social model collapsing ? Why is our health care system collapsing ? Why is our pension system collapsing ?" Everything has a cost, that cost usually goes far beyond the displayed $$$. > Amazon.de for example launched free delivery to estonia and other small european countries only recently post rise of temu. Is that supposed to be a good thing ? Both are killing local businesses by selling at loss because they're playing the long game. Life has more to offer than amazon prime and temu's gadgets
- shivasaxena 1y ago
  > 50 years later (aka now for most of the west): "Why did we lose all our industries ? Why is it so hard to find a job ? Why is all the know how in China now ? Why is China buying our ports/airports ?? Why is our social model collapsing ? Why is our health care system collapsing ? Why is our pension system collapsing ?" Answer would be because we shielded our firms from foreign competition by putting in place such anti-competitive policies. Our firms had no incentive to be efficient since they had a captive market for half a billion consumers they could bleed dry. Concrete example for this would automobiles and VW v/s BYD/Xiomi in particular.
  - seec 1y ago
    Since you are insisting, I think you should be forced to compete for your job. It will be against another dude in a third world country, having 1/100 of your life expenses and being able to dedicate over 70H of his time for the job, since he has no other obligations/social relations. Isn't it nice, you'll be able to afford a meal per day and enough to maybe buy a sleeping bag so you can enjoy the under bridges better.
    - shivasaxena 1y ago
      In case your haven't noticed, with remote work and globalization we do compete with people from developing countries, and even westerners nomading in asia. In most of my jobs I have had team members based out of eastern Europe, Ex-USSR, India, Israel, nomads from SEA etc. And still pre-AI most people in our industry did amazingly well despite these cost of living and wage differences since often than not they are also motivated enough to dedicate over 70h+ to our jobs when required(for me this week will end up being a 70h week). So unfortunately I can't support our inefficient domestic middleman retailers push to block foreign competition so they can bleed us dry by selling 2eur wine opener at outrageous 5x markup.
pjc50 1y ago
In fairness, if there's one place in Europe where locally produced products are going to be wildly expensive, it's definitely Switzerland. (Switzerland isn't even in the EU, it's just landlocked by it)
- shivasaxena 1y ago
  Sure, but I also gave the example of 12 EUR wine opener at Esselunga in Italy which I can get for 2 EUR on Temu.
microtonal 1y ago
Sorry, but there are so many things wrong with this comment that it's hard to know where to start. It was found that 85%-95% of the products from Temu, AliExpress, and Shein do not fulfill the requirements of European product safety laws. [1] Many of them are grave violations like use of lead, electronics that are fire/electrocution hazards, kid's toys with small parts or other safety issues (like again, lead). IANAL, but EU laws puts the responsibility of damage on who manufactures, manufactures parts, and who imports the product [2]. This means if you are an EU company, even if you produce in China, you are responsible when kids get lead poisoning or a house burns down when your electronics didn't obey safety margins. Making safe products is more expensive, it requires proper design, not skimping on components, and testing the products in a lab. Temu/Ali/etc. sellers do not have to bear any responsibility, because they typically do not have any offices in the EU, so how are you even going to sue them? So, they don't have the same cost because they can skimp on all the safety requirements. Second, designing products requires human labor. For instance, I am quite familiar (through contacts) with the ergonomic keyboard market. Designing an ergonomic keyboard can require years of iteration. Multiply by the salary of the keyboard designer and you can understand why you can not sell such a product just above cost price. However, on Ali, etc. you can buy ergonomic keyboards that are either license violations of open designs (that typically have a CC license that does not allow commercial use) or outright copies of non-open designs. It's easy to provide something at cut-throat prices when you are stealing the bulk of the work. And then we are not even talking about the absolute environmental waste of sending individual packages to customers in place of bulk shipping. EU is absolutely right to regulate this. Temu etc. are making money by externalizing most of the cost (monetary, environmental, safety, etc.). Make Temu etc. open an EU office and require them to ship from that office. In that way they have to comply to European safety regulations and can be held accountable if some kid dies, or a house burns down from unsafe electronics. Before anyone comes with the tired sinophobia argument: I am not criticizing China. There are many Chinese companies that do business in the EU and do not try to dodge local regulations. [1] https://www.nvwa.nl/nieuws-en-media/nieuws/2025/01/16/nederlandse-toezichthouders-gezamenlijke-aanpak-e-commerce-producten-nodig-om-consumenten-te-beschermen https://www.nvwa.nl/nieuws-en-media/nieuws/2025/01/16/nederl... [2] https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with-customers/consumer-contracts-guarantees/product-liability/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with-customers...
oliwarner 1y ago
Regulatory capture can be such a loaded term but this finding was about safety compliance. Your tiny-batch stickers reflect of local wage levels more than EU regulation. VAT will be part of it too. But on safety compliance, the electrical crap that Temu (et al) rain on our countries is a fire hazard. It shouldn't be controversial that goods that don't meet EU standards be barred. When sales are direct B2C, the EU can't retroactively (or prospectively) stop them, nor recall sent units, not in the way they can when a container rocks up with tens of thousands of units that turn out to be dodgy. I don't know what the answer is. Making Temu (et al) liable for goods' compliance —in the way importers are— seems like a sensible start.
- shivasaxena 1y ago
  Fine, but I also gave the example of 12 EUR for a wine opener that I can get for 2 EUR on temu. Lots of people in this thread pointed out how Temu doesn't pay VAT and/or other taxes etc which were plain trumpian style misinformation. In my mind this 10 eur markup on this simple cheap good is directly related to lack of competition in retail in europe. > I don't know what the answer is. Making Temu (et al) liable for goods' compliance —in the way importers are— seems like a sensible start. Sure! However the way things are moving, it'll end with Temu/Shein being banned in europe in a few months.
  - oliwarner 1y ago
    Retail has obvious expenses. The trade-off is instant purchase and customer service. And yes, another layer of profit extraction. > Temu doesn't pay VAT and/or other taxes etc Many of their orders are below the threshold for import duties. Some come with "gift" declarations which shift the VAT and duty thresholds. Direct sales skirt the tax laws. Again, I'd be shocked if all the tax they collect was declared and paid. The EU would have no way to verify.
hulitu 1y ago
> These actions by EU commision are vehemently anti-consumer and anti-business under the transparent guise of being pro-consumer and pro-business. Yes, and they are sponsored^Wlobbied by Amazon because it eats Amazon's core business.

seivan 1y ago

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fxtentacle 1y ago

It’s all great to buy cheap stuff until you notice that those stickers are poisonous, your hand soap causes cancer and the Wi-Fi broke down because cheap uncertified electronics are causing interference all over your building. As someone living in the EU, I am happy that we have product safety regulations which are halfway reasonable. But as someone building hardware in the EU, I sure sometimes hope that I would be allowed to just skip all the environmental, safety, tax, and EMI rules. But that’s the price we have to pay so that we don’t accidentally get poisoned due to other people’s greed. And that’s why, even though it negatively affects my business, I fully support those EU regulations.

mytailorisrich 1y ago
True but bear in mind that most of those things are made in China whether you buy them here or on Temu, or Amazon and may even be the same product from the same factory. Platforms like Temu allow you to buy essentially direct from China and to cut many middlemen. In hardware you have state-of-the-art PCB and assembly providers in China, who don't "skip" anything compared to European ones. Of course you have bad apples, too. So there is a balance between paying more for quality and subsidising inefficiency and middlemen.
- fxtentacle 1y ago
  I don’t think that’s a good example, because for common order configurations Aisler located inside the EU is actually cheaper than JLCPCB or PCBWay. Or was it your intention to point out that when Chinese companies follow all the rules, their price advantage mostly vanishes?
  - mytailorisrich 1y ago
    > Or was it your intention to point out that when Chinese companies follow all the rules, their price advantage mostly vanishes? The opposite. When they follow all the rules their products are still 10x cheaper and end up sold here either directly through Amazon or perhaps just branded as a well-known European brand (especially for small appliances, many, many products are sourced from white label chinese suppliers). So effectively you end up paying 10x more just for the branding and middlemen.
shivasaxena 1y ago
Yes, disguising this regulatory capture as a concern for consumers on health and safety grounds is a great digression. I have also seen people raise concern about Slave labour for example. This of course ignores the fact that European retailers often sell the same exact goods from the same Chinese factory, but at a 5-10x markup. And as said these goods are often same of better quality that what I would get from domestic retailers. In case of stickers the one from Temu were were of higher quality. If EU was forcing Temu to abide by EU regulations on health and safety I would be all for it. But they are shutting down competition(change in customs rule on small packages etc) so our domestic retailers can stay inefficient and continue to bleed consumers.
- fxtentacle 1y ago
  Try buying a fan on Temu which was actually FCC, CE, and UL tested and certified. Sadly, all of these certifications cost money. That means companies who actually did the certification are forced to charge more for the same quality level. Also, Temu is heavily reliant on infrastructure which was paid for by the taxes paid by local companies. The trick how Temu can avoid paying is by lying on the customs forms and declaring business transactions as valueless gifts. I’m not sure I would call fraud prevention as “regulatory capture”.
  - crinkly 1y ago
    A fun one is some of the phone chargers on there. Someone at work bought one and found out quickly that there was 240V on the USB-C shell. They were lucky it didn't kill them. That was marked as CE / UL etc because the stickers are cheap. Actually tested stuff costs money. Not a lot more but enough to push them down the ranks.
    - pjc50 1y ago
      I've also had this experience; ordered a box of 10 chargers for $20 for the office, and of course they're built down to that price way below any standard of electrical safety. The "shell" was joined in a way that pulling on it to pull out the plug could detach the back leaving exposed live wiring.
tialaramex 1y ago
As someone building hardware, unless it's like medical implants or aeroplanes or something you'll be aware that the E marking is self-certified for most things. You could (it may not be cheaper, depending on industry and volume) do the work to check you're obeying these rules and affix your own certifications. That's not true for a pacemaker or a jetliner, which will both need somebody else to certify them before they can be sold for purpose, but it is true if you make most ordinary "hardware". The rationale is that most people don't want to make shoddy garbage and so they actually want to know what's expected of them and comply, and those who are maybe less than honest can be caught by the usual processes - after the fact admittedly but now they're guilty not of some hard to prove negligence or whatever but of specifically selling goods which wrongly claimed to meet the requirements. My mother used to (decades ago) make stuffed animals for kids. Those needed E marks. One day a mother complained that her child had been injured by a toy, investigators show up, take similar animals for testing and... they're fine because of course they're fine mum had been following the EU self-certification process, testing materials, using proper tools etc. and so she knew it was done properly albeit in this particular case that wasn't enough - without any certification framework my guess is that's a nasty lawsuit and almost nothing she can do to defend herself.
- fxtentacle 1y ago
  I think you nicely illustrate why self-certification doesn’t work with Chinese companies. If your mother makes a mistake, she will get sued. But almost nobody in the EU who got hurt from a low quality product will be able to successfully sue one of those eight letter fake name companies with PO Box in China. That means local companies are forced to spend money to avoid product issues. But Chinese companies can get away with selling known faulty goods.
  - seec 1y ago
    Yep, this is distorted "competition". The actors are not playing by the same rules because one party isn't forced to follow them to the same extent and doesn't have a whole lot to lose if it doesn't follow them at all. The reality is that it isn't just a Temu problem, "free trade" with countries that do not have the same rules is necessarily imbalanced. It seems crazy to me that we impose very stringent rules inside the EU for many things and then allow anyone to import stuff from a faraway country that doesn't have to follow those rules. China has been cheating by definition for many years now and it's just now that people are reacting because it's now clear we have exported all the value creation process thanks to a lack of protection for inside actors...
kmac_ 1y ago
Thank you for your comment. People would be shocked at how many hazards they avoid because of those regulations. I'll defend China here a bit, as they are improving (at the cost of competing with other, less regulated countries, the irony). And the cherry on top: those "cheap" items are heavily subsidized from multiple places, including postal fees. When the local production gets extinguished (and it won't come back easily, as "know-how" people will be retired) those prices will change.

input_sh 1y ago

I invite you to look at the linked PDF (https://www.beuc.eu/sites/default/files/publications/BEUC-X-2025-007_Tests_of_Temu_Products_by_Consumer_Groups.pdf https://www.beuc.eu/sites/default/files/publications/BEUC-X-...) and name me the thing you disagree with. Would you like your child to play with "cheap plastic toys that contain hormone disrupting phthalates up to 240 times above the legal limit"? Or silicone-free cosmetics which contain silicone in the list of ingredients? Or a helmet which is "clearly insufficient to protect users"? It's easy to undersell the domestic market if you completely ignore all of the regulation that's applicable to literally any store located within the market.

shivasaxena 1y ago
No, but then they should issue fines to Temu and force it to comply. I would whole heartedly support EU commission then. However their actions till now have been about shutting down competition(changing custom rules on international packages). > It's easy to undersell the domestic market if you completely ignore all of the regulation that's applicable to literally any store located within the market. No credit to Chinese for running a efficient supply chain operation?
- fxtentacle 1y ago
  The custom rules are not so much changing as that you’ll be paying higher fines for lying on the documents. When I started asking sellers to correctly fill out the customs form with my business as the intended recipient and my company’s tax ID, I got banned from Temu and BangGood.
  - shivasaxena 1y ago
    Customs rules have already changed and the 150 EUR exemption has been revoked for a couple of years now. I'm all for forcing Temu and other Chinese retailers following our regulations if they want to sell in Europe.

raverbashing 1y ago

I guess it's fine to buy the stickers from Temu but know that China massively subsidizes the shipping costs For other stuff, well, it's probably hit or miss

maxglute 1y ago
>massively subsidizes the shipping costs This another one of those allegations where muh PRC subsidies makes no sense, especially since we're 5 years past UPU reforms... as in PRC companies haven't had preferential postage rates for years. They're just good at logistics now... bulk ship via air / preloading local ware houses then have local shippers hand last mile to keep per item shipping low. TEMU/Ali still has pretty healthy markup, like 100-200+% vs domestic. That's basically enough for margins and offset air shipping when dealing with trinkets. Order any big item and shipping price explodes, proportional to weight. Buying straight from PRC is cheap because you're not paying multiple middle men for same item. Sometimes middlemen is worth it, i.e. Amazon where you pay 10 dollars from transhippers vs 7 dollars directly from PRC vs 20 dollars from retailer because Amazon refund policy worth it small premium.

lm28469 1y ago

50 years later (aka now for most of the west): "Why did we lose all our industries ? Why is it so hard to find a job ? Why is all the know how in China now ? Why is China buying our ports/airports ?? Why is our social model collapsing ? Why is our health care system collapsing ? Why is our pension system collapsing ?" Everything has a cost, that cost usually goes far beyond the displayed $$$. > Amazon.de for example launched free delivery to estonia and other small european countries only recently post rise of temu. Is that supposed to be a good thing ? Both are killing local businesses by selling at loss because they're playing the long game. Life has more to offer than amazon prime and temu's gadgets

shivasaxena 1y ago
> 50 years later (aka now for most of the west): "Why did we lose all our industries ? Why is it so hard to find a job ? Why is all the know how in China now ? Why is China buying our ports/airports ?? Why is our social model collapsing ? Why is our health care system collapsing ? Why is our pension system collapsing ?" Answer would be because we shielded our firms from foreign competition by putting in place such anti-competitive policies. Our firms had no incentive to be efficient since they had a captive market for half a billion consumers they could bleed dry. Concrete example for this would automobiles and VW v/s BYD/Xiomi in particular.
- seec 1y ago
  Since you are insisting, I think you should be forced to compete for your job. It will be against another dude in a third world country, having 1/100 of your life expenses and being able to dedicate over 70H of his time for the job, since he has no other obligations/social relations. Isn't it nice, you'll be able to afford a meal per day and enough to maybe buy a sleeping bag so you can enjoy the under bridges better.
  - shivasaxena 1y ago
    In case your haven't noticed, with remote work and globalization we do compete with people from developing countries, and even westerners nomading in asia. In most of my jobs I have had team members based out of eastern Europe, Ex-USSR, India, Israel, nomads from SEA etc. And still pre-AI most people in our industry did amazingly well despite these cost of living and wage differences since often than not they are also motivated enough to dedicate over 70h+ to our jobs when required(for me this week will end up being a 70h week). So unfortunately I can't support our inefficient domestic middleman retailers push to block foreign competition so they can bleed us dry by selling 2eur wine opener at outrageous 5x markup.

pjc50 1y ago

In fairness, if there's one place in Europe where locally produced products are going to be wildly expensive, it's definitely Switzerland. (Switzerland isn't even in the EU, it's just landlocked by it)

shivasaxena 1y ago
Sure, but I also gave the example of 12 EUR wine opener at Esselunga in Italy which I can get for 2 EUR on Temu.

microtonal 1y ago

Sorry, but there are so many things wrong with this comment that it's hard to know where to start. It was found that 85%-95% of the products from Temu, AliExpress, and Shein do not fulfill the requirements of European product safety laws. [1] Many of them are grave violations like use of lead, electronics that are fire/electrocution hazards, kid's toys with small parts or other safety issues (like again, lead). IANAL, but EU laws puts the responsibility of damage on who manufactures, manufactures parts, and who imports the product [2]. This means if you are an EU company, even if you produce in China, you are responsible when kids get lead poisoning or a house burns down when your electronics didn't obey safety margins. Making safe products is more expensive, it requires proper design, not skimping on components, and testing the products in a lab. Temu/Ali/etc. sellers do not have to bear any responsibility, because they typically do not have any offices in the EU, so how are you even going to sue them? So, they don't have the same cost because they can skimp on all the safety requirements. Second, designing products requires human labor. For instance, I am quite familiar (through contacts) with the ergonomic keyboard market. Designing an ergonomic keyboard can require years of iteration. Multiply by the salary of the keyboard designer and you can understand why you can not sell such a product just above cost price. However, on Ali, etc. you can buy ergonomic keyboards that are either license violations of open designs (that typically have a CC license that does not allow commercial use) or outright copies of non-open designs. It's easy to provide something at cut-throat prices when you are stealing the bulk of the work. And then we are not even talking about the absolute environmental waste of sending individual packages to customers in place of bulk shipping. EU is absolutely right to regulate this. Temu etc. are making money by externalizing most of the cost (monetary, environmental, safety, etc.). Make Temu etc. open an EU office and require them to ship from that office. In that way they have to comply to European safety regulations and can be held accountable if some kid dies, or a house burns down from unsafe electronics. Before anyone comes with the tired sinophobia argument: I am not criticizing China. There are many Chinese companies that do business in the EU and do not try to dodge local regulations. [1] https://www.nvwa.nl/nieuws-en-media/nieuws/2025/01/16/nederlandse-toezichthouders-gezamenlijke-aanpak-e-commerce-producten-nodig-om-consumenten-te-beschermen https://www.nvwa.nl/nieuws-en-media/nieuws/2025/01/16/nederl... [2] https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with-customers/consumer-contracts-guarantees/product-liability/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with-customers...

oliwarner 1y ago

Regulatory capture can be such a loaded term but this finding was about safety compliance. Your tiny-batch stickers reflect of local wage levels more than EU regulation. VAT will be part of it too. But on safety compliance, the electrical crap that Temu (et al) rain on our countries is a fire hazard. It shouldn't be controversial that goods that don't meet EU standards be barred. When sales are direct B2C, the EU can't retroactively (or prospectively) stop them, nor recall sent units, not in the way they can when a container rocks up with tens of thousands of units that turn out to be dodgy. I don't know what the answer is. Making Temu (et al) liable for goods' compliance —in the way importers are— seems like a sensible start.

shivasaxena 1y ago
Fine, but I also gave the example of 12 EUR for a wine opener that I can get for 2 EUR on temu. Lots of people in this thread pointed out how Temu doesn't pay VAT and/or other taxes etc which were plain trumpian style misinformation. In my mind this 10 eur markup on this simple cheap good is directly related to lack of competition in retail in europe. > I don't know what the answer is. Making Temu (et al) liable for goods' compliance —in the way importers are— seems like a sensible start. Sure! However the way things are moving, it'll end with Temu/Shein being banned in europe in a few months.
- oliwarner 1y ago
  Retail has obvious expenses. The trade-off is instant purchase and customer service. And yes, another layer of profit extraction. > Temu doesn't pay VAT and/or other taxes etc Many of their orders are below the threshold for import duties. Some come with "gift" declarations which shift the VAT and duty thresholds. Direct sales skirt the tax laws. Again, I'd be shocked if all the tax they collect was declared and paid. The EU would have no way to verify.

hulitu 1y ago

> These actions by EU commision are vehemently anti-consumer and anti-business under the transparent guise of being pro-consumer and pro-business. Yes, and they are sponsored^Wlobbied by Amazon because it eats Amazon's core business.