Dive Brief:
- American e-commerce consumers trust Amazon more than Temu, but spending patterns don’t match these results, according to a new survey from Omnisend, a marketing software company.
- The survey found that 86% of U.S. consumers trust Amazon, while 6% said they trust Temu. Despite this reported lack of trust, 68% of U.S.-based respondents shop on Temu. Globally, 6.4% of respondents said they trust Temu over Amazon, but 48% have shopped on Temu at least once over the past year.
- Despite this lack of trust, Omnisend found that people shop on Temu for the prices (53%), ease of use (31%) and for deals and discounts (29%).
Dive Insight:
Temu has surged in popularity since it launched in the U.S. in 2022. But this success hasn’t been without controversy. The fast fashion platform is facing two separate class action lawsuits that accuse it of loading dangerous malware and spyware onto users’ devices, collecting data beyond what is necessary and failing to secure customers’ personal and financial data, among other claims. A Temu spokesperson previously said the company opposes these claims.
Omnisend said the recent survey results show that “while trust is crucial, value can be a powerful draw.”
“Surprisingly, even with trust issues, shoppers are still flocking to these platforms,” Omnisend said. “Why? Because great prices speak louder than anything else, even when brand loyalty is weak.”
The results were from Omnisend’s survey of 4,000 consumers in the U.S., U.K., Australia and Canada in April about how they shop online.
Some 17.5% of global respondents said they believe Temu could overtake Amazon as the leading e-commerce platform.
Beyond Temu and Amazon, the survey also included data on consumers’ preferences regarding Shein, AliExpress and TikTok Shop, which it categorized as Chinese marketplaces. Some 63% of respondents shopped on one of these platforms once a year, while 13% said they shopped on these platforms at least once a week. Nearly half of respondents shop on more than one of these platforms.
U.S.-based respondents are more open to these platforms than some of the other respondents, with 20% of U.S. consumers saying they shopped on one at least once a week.
Throughout the research, Omnisend said it found that Shein and Temu aren’t a passing fad but a mainstay for online shoppers.
A report on consumer e-commerce spending earlier this year showed that Temu customers have a high retention rate, about 28%. However, Temu’s retention rate was about half of Amazon’s, according to the report from Earnest Analytics. That report said that while 18% of U.S. households have shopped on Temu, it hasn’t made inroads against larger e-commerce competitors.
