Recently, Pinduoduo can be described as "in the limelight", after handing over an extremely bright quarterly financial report, its market value in the US stock market has often surpassed Alibaba, and it has taken a big step towards the throne of "No. 1 in the e-commerce industry". At the same time as the competition in domestic e-commerce rivers and lakes is becoming increasingly fierce, Temu, a subsidiary of Pinduoduo, has made waves with its competitors.
A few days ago, it was reported that Temu, a cross-border e-commerce platform under Pinduoduo, and Shein, a cross-border e-commerce platform that also originated in China, had a dispute again, and the former has recently submitted litigation documents to the District Court for the District of Columbia, accusing the latter of illegally interfering with its business antitrust behavior "intensifying".
In this 100-page document, Temu not only accused SHEIN of using "party-style intimidation" to force **merchants to sign "exclusive" agreements, but even locked **merchants in the office and demanded that they hand over information such as merchant accounts on the platform. In addition, it is accused of making false statements to copyright registries, initiating tens of thousands of false and malicious complaints in the United States that are not supported by real copyrights, and poaching its main main marketing and advertising personnel.
In the words of a person related to Temu, SHEIN's series of actions are "so exaggerated that we have no choice but to sue them." And SHEIN retorted that Temu was "reversing black and white, and thieves shouting to catch thieves". In this regard, SHEIN pointed out that TEMU has not only been plagiarizing its own brand products on a large scale, continuing to engage in unfair competition, but also trying to retaliate and smear with malicious lawsuits, and the company will never compromise on this "despicable" behavior and will actively respond to the lawsuit.
Although the two sides are currently at loggerheads and the truth is not clear, the competitive landscape is very clear.
Needless to say, SHEIN, which has been working hard for 10 years, has been considered the most successful enterprise in the field of cross-border e-commerce for a long time with its original small single quick return flexible chain system, and its service scope has already covered more than 150 countries and regions around the world. Moreover, since the beginning of this year, SHEIN has also begun to promote platformization and move towards a comprehensive cross-border e-commerce platform, and launched the "buy, buy, buy" model to support its online platform strategy, and even continue to increase offline scenarios.
As an emerging platform, Temu, which was positioned as a comprehensive e-commerce platform as soon as it debuted, has grown at an unprecedented rate. According to relevant reports, as early as May this year, Temu's GMV in the U.S. market, where it was first launched, was 20% higher than SHEIN. And with the support of Pinduoduo, Temu is rapidly replicating the North American market around the world.
It is understood that in just one year, Temu has landed in more than 40 countries and regions, and often dominates the list of shopping apps in many places. Not long ago, it was revealed that Temu's GMV for the whole year may reach $14 billion, and it may have set a full-year GMV target of $30 billion for 2024. For comparison, SHEIN, which has been online for more than 10 years, had a GMV of $29 billion last year. A Google source said, "Temu's aggressive investment and rapid growth are unprecedented not only among Chinese overseas companies, but also in the world." ”
Although temu and shein have differences in their operating models, the former focuses on the full custody model, that is, the merchant only needs to be responsible for supply, while shein provides three module options: self-operated, fully managed, and pop, but when the same is a bowl of rice for cross-border e-commerce, the rapid rise of temu has undoubtedly given shein more pressure to be "taken away", after all, market resources such as traffic and users are always limited.
What's more, whether it is Temu that comes out of Pinduoduo with low-price genes or touching Shein to cross the river, in any case, for SHEIN, Temu's low-price strategy has been slashed at itself. According to the relevant research report released by Zheshang**, Temu can achieve 53%-80% of SHEIN in some categories. And it has also been revealed by sources before that it is precisely as Temu continues to snatch users' low-price minds, which makes the competition increasingly fierce, and SHEIN's platform process has been accelerated.
In addition, Temu's low-price competition strategy may also somewhat disrupt SHEIN's original plan. It is reported that in order to improve profitability, Shein, which has been taking the cost-effective route, has considered whether to attract high-consumer groups through products with higher unit prices, and has put it into action last year. And relevant data also shows that from 2019 to the first half of 2022, SHEIN's customer unit value has been steadily increasing. But with the break-in of Temu, SHEIN obviously can't continue to "raise prices".
Returning to the court between the two sides, the reason why it is said that the dispute has recurred is because the entanglement between Temu and Shein has been going on for a long time. Previously, in December 2022, three months after Temu was launched in the North American market, SHEIN filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, alleging that Temu instructed influencers to slander SHEIN and mislead consumers into using fake social **accounts**Temu app.
Subsequently, in March this year, SHEIN amended the complaint again and submitted it to the court, which mentioned the counterfeiting and infringement of Temu's trademark, and believed that Temu had plagiarized its own products and **, sold products with SHEIN brand logo, and even counterfeit products with SHEIN brand.
In response, in July this year, TEMU filed a new lawsuit in federal court in Boston, accusing SHEIN of violating antitrust laws. It is reported that Temu wrote in the indictment that SHEIN "used market power to force apparel manufacturers to sign exclusive agreements with them to prevent them from cooperating with Temu." Temu said that SHEIN's actions have led to a decrease in consumer choice and "also hindered the expansion of the U.S. fast fashion market."
Subsequently, in October, it was reported that Shein and Temu submitted a joint statement to the Chicago and Boston courts, demanding that the two cases against each other be dismissed "without prejudice" and that a temporary "truce" should be suspended. But now, it seems that the "reconciliation" of that time did not really calm the contradictions.
In fact, it is not difficult to find from the fact that SHEIN and TEMU have gone to court several times on issues such as business monopoly and intellectual property rights, and with the development of the cross-border e-commerce industry, resources such as ** chain are becoming more and more scarce, especially since both parties are still relying on this to create a more cost-effective shopping experience.
And for this day, it seems that Temu has been prepared for a long time. It is understood that Temu has set up its headquarters in Panyu, Guangzhou, where SHEIN's Guangzhou headquarters is located, and even the two companies are less than 800 meters away. In addition to facilitating "poaching", Temu's move is obviously also to get closer to mature businessmen.
According to data, there are more than 30,000 clothing companies in Panyu, Guangzhou, and it was with the perfect industrial ecological chain here that SHEIN was able to create a unique flexible chain system, so that more than 5,000 new clothes were launched every day.
Of course, the battle for the first chain is only the tip of the iceberg of the fierce market competition between the two sides, and how to build more differentiated competitiveness is also something that both SHEIN and TEMU are thinking about. In the indictment filed a few days ago, Temu also confirmed that it will run ads again in the 2024 Super Bowl. It is enough to see that for this second growth curve, Pinduoduo is bound to continue to invest vigorously.
Shein, on the other hand, has been secretly applied for listing in the United States many times, and may launch an initial public offering in 2024. Faced with the pressure of going public, SHEIN may compete for market share with stronger motivation and strength to meet the challenges of Temu.
Further, after the dividends in the domestic market have faded and it has become a red ocean, it has become the general trend for domestic e-commerce platforms to go overseas for development. In addition to Temu and Shein, there are also heavyweight players such as Alibaba AliExpress and TikTok Shop, a subsidiary of ByteDance, in the cross-border e-commerce track. All in all, this competition in the cross-border e-commerce track may have just begun.
This article is from the Internet