Amazon have apparently started to tell sellers that they can’t sell at a lower price on the Temu marketplace if they want to continue their trade on the Amazon marketplace. And this appears to have had the effect of Anker, famous for their power banks and chargers, no longer appearing for sale on the Temu app.
Amazon have always monitored competitor sites and wanted sellers to offer their most competitive price on Amazon. Now they’ve added the Temu marketplace to the list of sites that they monitor, having previously discounted it. This is big news as Temu’s market penetration has skyrocketed and it will impact even more sellers as they increase the number of direct sellers (Local Warehouse in Temu terms), shipping to domestic customers.
Of course, Amazon can’t price fix so if you do sell on the Temu marketplace and the price is lower there’s nothing they can do to stop you selling. But what they can do is remove you from the ‘Featured Offer’ meaning your offer will be hidden from sellers and your sales will plummet.
And it’s not like you set your own price on Temu – you set the supply price that you want to receive from Temu for a successful sale and Temu set the sell price, determining the profit the marketplace will make. And two different shoppers on Temu might see different prices depending on their likelihood of purchasing the product, if you’re new to Temu you might see a significantly lower price than a shopper that’s purchased the same items a couple of times previously. This all makes the price comparison particularly tricky.
Amazon appear to be getting ever more concerned about the impact of Temu, having launched their own low cost store app known as Haul in the US just before Christmas, billing it as ‘Crazy Low Prices’.
The problem Amazon have is that Haul is a competitor to Chinese sellers with slow shipping from the Far East which isn’t where Temu want to play in the long term. Temu are now moving rapidly to compete with the main Amazon marketplace with local sellers fulfilling domestic orders and that’s an even bigger threat to Amazon.
It appears that in 2025, sellers may have to choose between selling on Temu or selling on Amazon with product visibility. There will be some who choose to sell under different brand names on the two sites, or offer different products/different titles/different images in an attempt to cloak their activities.
The one lesson we can take away from this is that the Temu marketplace is growing rapidly and starting to have a real and lasting impact on the marketplace landscape in the western world. If Amazon are showing signs of concern, that indicates that it’s time to take a close look at Temu and consider the opportunities the marketplace has to boost your business in 2025 and beyond.
4 Responses
What is it that Amazon refer to people with bad intent.
Oh yes, bad actors.
I am sure they would never refer to themselves in such a way!
It is about time that the Competition and Marketing Authority put a stop to Amazon being able to set a competitive price based on another marketplace or website.
It is really a form of price fixing as we all know that without the featured offer you stand little chance of making significant number of sales.
The example here is done merely to reduce competition and should be illegal.
If amazon want us to offer the cheapest prices through the amazon platform, then they need to reduce seller fees.
Trump will be in office soon…