Temu Discussion

[PaulMarcel]

I hate the concept of Temu and the ripping off or blatant copying of intellectual and design property belonging to others.  Of course others will have different opinions.  I watch a lot of Youtube videos but now have started to boycott those who are constantly doing the Temu unboxing crud.  Ironically so many of those have an entire showroom of Woodpecker products on their walls and then they are praising the imitators.

This would bug me, too. There is likely an affiliate link associated with them, though, so the praise is to induce revenue share. I'd also venture to say that any tool review with Temu in the name gets a lot of hits so they are playing that angle.

The thing with cheap Chinese tools I don't mind is that someone starting out may not have the money for "buy once, cry for a while but you'll get over it" tool purchases. I'd rather see them buy what they can afford to try out the hobby knowing the tools are going to have limitations and need more jigs to make up for the lack of tracks, edge guides, etc. Plus they are immeasurably useful for a job that will likely trash any tool you use.

But those Chinese tools are different from blatant IP-stealing reproductions.

In a bit of irony, I recently reported some ads I got in Instagram for a reproduction of a Bridge City MT-1 and MT-2 to Bridge City. Now days, that was reporting a Chinese knock-off to a Chinese builder. (The Chinese BCTW stuff, though, is top quality)

 

[squall_line]

In a bit of irony, I recently reported some ads I got in Instagram for a reproduction of a Bridge City MT-1 and MT-2 to Bridge City. Now days, that was reporting a Chinese knock-off to a Chinese builder. (The Chinese BCTW stuff, though, is top quality)

I'm a fan of late 1990s and early 2000s theatre equipment, especially that from Miller & Kreisel.  One of the things that plagued M&K towards the end of their run in the late 00s was product finding its way out the back door Johnny Cash style (for the whippersnappers or those on the other side of the pond, look up Johnny Cash 'One Piece at a Time') and saturating the market with cheap knock-offs built out of QA-rejected parts.  So unfortunately it can even happen in the good ol' US-of-A.

 

[Cheese]

Edit = the world is now DOMINATED by Japanese bikes. A few $$$$$million in fines by an over-zealous, right-on Government desparate for the next set of election votes? Money well spent IMO.

That was exactly my sentiment...a few Million $$$ spent in fines can yield colossal results years later. Like any cancer, you need to excise the disease early in order to eliminate it, and few Americans are willing to go to that length unfortunately.

Didn't I already say...you reap what you sow?

 

[ChuckM]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/shein-temu-ecommerce-retailers-air-cargo-1.7121085

The numbers are mind-blogging:

"Shein and Temu together send almost 600,000 packages to the United States every day...." (Question: How much daily sales is lost for the local merchants in the US?)

"According to data aggregated by Cargo Facts Consulting, Temu ships around 4,000 tonnes a day, Shein 5,000 tonnes, Alibaba.com 1,000 tonnes and TikTok 800 tonnes. That equates to around 108 Boeing 777 freighters a day, the consultancy said."

If they put warehouses in North America and Europe, Amazon, which sells a lot of consumer goods probably made in the same factories in China, would feel the heat more intensively as it loses the logistic advantage.

 

[rvieceli]

[member=57948]ChuckS[/member] the reasoning behind all this daily shipping to the USA is an old US regulation that exempts from tariffs direct Chinese shipments under $800 that are addressed to individuals.

Ron

 

[ChuckM]

What is needed to update that regulation? Or, a more suitable question is why is there a lack of action, to the detriment of local manufacturers, merchants and workers???

 

[six-point socket II]

For Germany that combined number is approx. 400.000 parcels/day.

The good news is, this is getting "international" attention now.

Kind regards,
Oliver

 

[ChuckM]

snip.

All that said, Sunday was the first time I learned that it's pronounced "teh-mu" and not "tee-mu", so I suppose the ad was worth something.

My neighbor insists "tee-mu" is also the official pronunciation (and it's the one he goes by), and he sent me this in which almost all official ads (except the first one or two) pronounce it as "tee-mu":


I'm now confused. [tongue]

 

[smorgasbord]

Ironically so many of those have an entire showroom of Woodpecker products on their walls and then they are praising the imitators.

Yeah, but when I saw what Woodpecker's did with Carmonius' Domino Table I lost a bit of respect for Woodpecker's IP.

 

[Sparktrician]

Well, you reap what you sow...TikTok today, Temu tomorrow. I'd personally rather spend my hard earned $$ elsewhere such as Woodpeckers, Starrett, Festool, Wera...anywhere else where it's not going to undermine the global economy.

I concur with the Cheesy One^^^.  I'd MUCH rather spend my money on 1) US- or 2) European-made tools over anything made in China. 

 

[smorgasbord]

I concur with the Cheesy One^^^.  I'd MUCH rather spend my money on 1) US- or 2) European-made tools over anything made in China.

What about from companies like Bridge City Tool Works or Harvey, etc.? For BCTW, the design is done in the US, but manufacturing happens in China. And, of course, the big gorilla in that - Apple Computer.

And then that pushes us to companies like Hongdui. Jonathan Katz-Moses designed a hand router plane that Hongdui builds in China. Hongdui has a large T-ruler that was designed/built in conjunction with a Canadian company.

Is a Toyota designed in Japan and built in Kentucky better/worse than a Ford designed in the US and built in Mexico?

I feel in today's world decisions aren't easy. One can pay companies like Woodpeckers to have design and manufacturing in the US, but I personally don't like what they did with the Domino table design. Lee Valley did a version that does pay royalties to Carmonius, for instance.

 

[ChuckM]

Sourcing something based on where it is made is increasingly a risky business because sometimes if you exclude certain origin, you may be excluding the product itself. For example, it can be extremely difficult, if not impossible at all, in the city where I live to find a big TV that's not imported.

This may be relevant if anyone of you wants to know who actually owns certain brand:
https://www.protoolreviews.com/power-tool-manufacturers-who-owns-them/

 

[rmwarren]

I've been immersing myself in geopolitics and demography lately, there's a lot to unpack in this area. For instance China is no longer the low cost labor source it was when globalization began, Mexico is now cheaper. Likewise, going fully Made in America for everything we consume is not possible; first the component supply chain does not exist and second we simply don't have the people available to produce everything. Also, consider that we do not have the production capacity to refine many raw materials any longer.

What China did in the 70's - 90's was create the infrastructure to refine raw materials, produce intermediate components, and assemble them into final products, all at scale. A lot of finished goods being imported from Mexico now still rely on components produced in Asia.  With declining global comsumption happening the door has closed to being able to replicate this again, if the reason to do so is solely cost. There are other reasons, geopolitical in nature, for the US to control production, but cost isn't one of them. The challenges currently are capital and labor, we don't have the money available to build the productive plant nor the people with the right skills to operate it.

Regarding innovation and IP, there are several US manufacturers of Festool accessories who have taken the original designs of other non-US companies and iterated on them to make major improvements. Nothing inherently wrong with this provided the agreed upon rules are followed.

Temu is part of a race to the bottom because there is too much available productive capacity in China and demand is cooling. A lot of smaller producers are faced with their only differentiator being price. I suspect this will correct itself over time as marginal producers get weeded out. Temu itself is racing to achieve scale as a marketplace, by taking advantage of the availability of desperate producers, but they will eventually pivot to making a profit. It's just a moment in time.

I'm not staking out a firm position or looking for the high ground, just try to fully understand the reality of the situation.

RMW

 

[Cheese]

I've been immersing myself in geopolitics and demography lately, there's a lot to unpack in this area. For instance China is no longer the low cost labor source it was when globalization began, Mexico is now cheaper. Likewise, going fully Made in America for everything we consume is not possible; first the component supply chain does not exist and second we simply don't have the people available to produce everything. Also, consider that we do not have the production capacity to refine many raw materials any longer.

What China did in the 70's - 90's was create the infrastructure to refine raw materials, produce intermediate components, and assemble them into final products, all at scale. A lot of finished goods being imported from Mexico now still rely on components produced in Asia.  With declining global comsumption happening the door has closed to being able to replicate this again, if the reason to do so is solely cost. There are other reasons, geopolitical in nature, for the US to control production, but cost isn't one of them. The challenges currently are capital and labor, we don't have the money available to build the productive plant nor the people with the right skills to operate it.

Regarding innovation and IP, there are several US manufacturers of Festool accessories who have taken the original designs of other non-US companies and iterated on them to make major improvements. Nothing inherently wrong with this provided the agreed upon rules are followed.

Temu is part of a race to the bottom because there is too much available productive capacity in China and demand is cooling. A lot of smaller producers are faced with their only differentiator being price. I suspect this will correct itself over time as marginal producers get weeded out. Temu itself is racing to achieve scale as a marketplace, by taking advantage of the availability of desperate producers, but they will eventually pivot to making a profit. It's just a moment in time.

I'm not staking out a firm position or looking for the high ground, just try to fully understand the reality of the situation.

RMW

The declining global consumption and demand surprises me unless you're referring to a decline in Chinese product demand only, then that makes sense.

 

[rmwarren]

[member=44099]Cheese[/member] take a look at population pyramids.

[attachimg=1]

China's case is extreme, tied into industrialization as well as the 1 child policy, but it is in no way unique to them. Boiled down, when a country industrializes the population shifts from rural/lots of kids to urban/few kids. Fast forward 2 generations and the fewer kids have fewer kids; the slide can be irreversible. China's current birth rate is reported to be

 

[ChuckM]

Exactly why Canada is welcoming 300,000 immigrants and more a year (500,000 for 2025) (our population is only 38.25 mn; by area, we're the second largest country in the world).

Yes, immigration comes with other problems (shortage of housing being one), but aging population and low birth rates give us no other viable options, unless the government increases taxes (even more!), cuts seniors' benefits, ditches its medical care responsibility, shuts down many of its social service programs, etc.

Japan, which has one of the world's most restrictive immigration policies, will be among the first country in the globe to go bust economically if it stays its course forever. There's no way they can sustain their social services over time when their citizens have an average lifespan close to 85 and the number of senior citizens starts to become too big. Almost 1/3 of its population is now 65 and above (Canada, about 1/5).

 

[rmwarren]

[member=57948]ChuckS[/member] I've read that Canada is doing pretty well from an immigration standpoint, they key is attracting young people with the right skills. Japan is the poster child for demographic timebombs, and as you noted historically has been closed to immigration.

[attachimg=1]

Current projections are for the global population to increase by ~2B this century.

[attachimg=2]

2.5B are projected to be in Africa. This means the rest of the planet's population is expected to shrink by ~.5B.

[attachimg=3]

The forecasts are pretty stark. Being on the downslope of my personal glidepath, I'm trying to figure out who is going to be around to spoon the mush into me in the golden years...

So anyway, back to Temu. I think it's a sign of the need to push excess production out no matter what, profit be darned.

RMW

 

[ChuckM]

[attachimg=1]

Many of the applicants under the Economic class are expected to include the international university students already in Canada as they graduate in the coming years. Canada has over 800,000 international students (in all grades, including post-doc), and a brain gain is always better than a brain drain.

 

[Cheese]

This is the part that jumped out at me.

“[Temu] gains access to ‘literally everything on your phone,’” the complaint said, quoting industry and new reports cited in the court filing. “This is particularly concerning, given that biometric information such as facial characteristics, voiceprints, and fingerprints are immutable characteristics that can be misused by unscrupulous actors.”
https://www.boston25news.com/news/l...-private-messages/N7242XSV4ZCVPKG2IIRMCS3PI4/

 

[ChuckM]

[thumbs up]

I've quickly passed your article link to my neighbor, who as I noted before, is a big fan of Temu, as a precaution. The court will eventually educate us how invasive the Temu app really is -- unless some kind of out-of-court settlement is reached between the two parties.