Temu and Shein, the two biggest Chinese-owned ecommerce platforms that operate in the United States, have started raising prices and temporarily unlisting some products on their websites in response to new tariffs on Chinese imports announced by President Donald Trump, according to both shoppers and sellers who spoke to WIRED.
Shi, a Chinese seller of arts and crafts products on Temu who asked only to use his surname for privacy reasons, tells WIRED that the company raised prices on his goods by 50 percent this week, while the number of orders he received on Friday decreased by about 30 percent compared to normal. Temu also made some of his products temporarily unavailable on the platform, but he says that he expects them to come back later.
Unlike eBay and other ecommerce sites, Temu controls the prices consumers pay for products, rather than allow sellers to set them. Shi says that, at least for now, Temu is continuing to pay sellers the same wholesale prices for his goods as it usually does. Temu generally doesn’t notify him of price hikes, and in this case, he says it hasn’t communicated about what the platform is doing to combat the tariffs. He adds that shipping speeds have slowed down, too.
“The time it takes to clear the customs has increased, and it will take a few more days for customers to receive their orders. I can’t guarantee that they won’t leave a bad review or refund the order during that period of time,” Shi says.
Trump signed another executive order on Friday walking back a key part of the new tariffs, which went into effect on Tuesday. His original order eliminated a tax exemption for small packages valued under $800 that Shein, Temu, and other ecommerce platforms relied on to send goods to consumers in the US. Trump says now the exemption, known as de minimis, will stay in place until the US government figures out a way to process and collect tariffs on the millions of low-value packages that come into the US each day.
The abrupt reversal comes after a chaotic week for the ecommerce industry, which scrambled to respond to Trump’s decision to suddenly implement new tariffs on China. The situation may keep changing quickly: Trump’s Friday executive order says the de minimis exemption will go away again when “adequate systems are in place to fully and expediently process and collect tariff revenue applicable.” New guidance from US Customs and Border Protection sent out on Friday afternoon, meanwhile, says the agency’s automated system has already been “updated to process de minimis clearances for shipments containing products of China and Hong Kong.”
For the time being, manufacturers, sellers, and consumers have been left to cope with the whiplash. Over the past few days, Shi and other Chinese sellers like him have been posting their experiences on the Chinese social media app RedNote, complaining about receiving fewer customers orders and Temu taking down their products without notice. Meanwhile, on American social platforms like TikTok and Reddit, US shoppers are feeling similar impacts on the other side.
Lorianna Calhoun, a Shein shopper, tells WIRED that of the roughly 170 items that were once on her Shein wish list, 40 now appear to be unavailable. She noticed they disappeared on Thursday afternoon. It’s not clear how Shein and Temu may be selecting what items to remove, but Calhoun says that, at least in her case, the majority of the goods she observed go missing were eye lashes and hair products. “Usually, when things sell out, you can still click the item and see all the reviews and stuff,” she explains. “But for the lashes, it now says, ‘Sorry this item has been removed. This product does not exist.’”
A Reddit user, who asked to remain anonymous for privacy reasons, shared screenshots with WIRED that show half the products in their Shein shopping cart also became unavailable on Thursday, primarily items from Shein’s Sheglam cosmetics line. They say they are planning to wait it out and see if the products return to Shein’s website soon. “Shein and Temu will still get my business. If they up their prices, hopefully it will only be a bit,” the Reddit user says.
Temu and Shein did not respond to requests for comment from WIRED.
Got a Tip?
Do you work at Shein, Temu, or another ecommerce company and have insight into what’s going on? Or are you a customer who had a noteworthy experience? We’d like to hear from you. Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact the reporter via email at zeyi_yang@wired.com or on Signal at @zeyiyang.06.
In 2023, one-third of de minimis shipments that arrived in the US came from China, according to Chinese export and US import data. Many came via air cargo in as little as a few days, rather than via ocean freight, which can take weeks or even over a month.
“These companies have perfected this modern miracle, which is shipping from China to the US in a very consistent and reliable fashion,” says Juozas Kaziukėnas, founder of the ecommerce intelligence firm Marketplace Pulse. The tariffs Trump announced last week not only significantly raised costs for companies like Shein and Temu, but could also delay the shipping process as logistics companies and customs brokers adjust to government requirements.
But not all of Temu and Shein’s products and services are impacted, since both companies have begun increasingly storing goods in American warehouses over the past several years to get orders to customers even faster. The Biden administration also repeatedly signaled that it was interested in reforming the de minimis import duty exemption, motivating companies to reduce their reliance on it.
As of Friday, Temu’s US homepage was almost entirely filled with products the company specified were being shipped from local warehouses—meaning they have already cleared US customs and potentially crossed the border before the tariffs even went into effect.