We know that Temu’s parent company has now become the fastest-growing and most valuable e-commerce firm in China overtaking the giants such as Alibaba and others but it is a fact that they are fighting in the US over another competitor brand which is Shein and going on to claim that Shein is using “mafia-style” intimidation tactics on its merchants and have filed a lawsuit. Shein has been accused a lot regarding poor working conditions as the company recently said “it would spend $15 million improving standards at factories after a report found that workers were subject to illegally long hours and withheld wages”.
The Verge reports Temu’s accusation in the lawsuit that “Shein has deployed increasingly aggressive strategies to “illegally interfere with Temu’s business,” including intimidating merchants who list their products on both platforms and issuing tens of thousands of illegitimate copyright takedowns. “Shein recently has gone so far as to falsely imprison merchants doing business with Temu, including detaining merchant representatives in Shein’s offices for many hours while Shein confiscates the merchants’ electronic devices, obtains access to proprietary Temu information through the merchants’ seller accounts, and threatens the merchants with penalties for doing business with Temu,” the suit claims. Temu also mentioned that Shein “is using “Mafia-style” intimidation tactics on merchants”.
The report goes on to mention that these “two companies have previously brought suits against one another including an earlier case this year in which Temu accused Shein of bullying manufacturers to try to stop them from working with the marketplace. In another case, Shein accused Temu of instructing influencers to make “false and deceptive statements” against Shein while promoting Temu. Both suits were dropped in October”. Once again, these two are in the court fighting each other and it is worth noting that both are Chinese companies and into fast fashion as well. Also, it is worthwhile looking at the lawsuit to understand the daily business of Shein. For example, “the suit says that more than 100,000 images are uploaded to Temu.com each day and that it receives, on average, 170 copyright takedown requests daily — 63 percent coming from Shein”.
