What is Temu and is it safe to buy from?
Hannah is an investigative journalist covering retail issues from fake reviews and unsafe products to supermarket pricing practices. She's been at Which? for 12 years.
Temu is now a go-to marketplace for many shoppers, but is it worth using?
Word of mouth is everything for this cut-price online marketplace; you may well have heard from a friend who's bought a water bottle for £2 or a pair of trainers for £6.
But are its low prices reflective of items' quality? And if something goes wrong, will you get your money back? Here, Which? dives into Temu and explores its murkier side, including unsafe product concerns.
Find out how to shop safely online and avoid dangerous products with our essential guide.
What is Temu?
Founded in 2022, Temu (pronounced teh-moo) is an e-commerce website and app that stocks just about any product you can imagine at rock-bottom prices, and claims that it can help you 'shop like a billionaire'.
In the UK, its app has around 13 million monthly users, making it the second most popular shopping app (after Amazon) according to analyst SimilarWeb.
Temu sells a vast range of goods, including clothes, technology, homeware, cosmetics and toys. Expect to find everything from the commonplace to the downright bizarre - including a gold and diamanté-encrusted baby dummy and rechargeable chin-toning 'instrument'.
It's an online marketplace: it connects shoppers with third-party sellers rather than offering its own products.
While Temu's sellers are largely based in China and many items are shipped directly from its warehouses, it launched a local seller program in 2024 to let UK-based sellers sign up without registration fees and reach Temu customers. Sellers that have joined include a collectible model car business in Cornwall, a Yorkshire mattress manufacturer and a Nottingham sweet shop.
Temu is headquartered in Boston and owned by Chinese e-commerce giant PDD Holdings.
- Find out more: everything you need to know about online marketplaces
The Temu buzz
Temu exploded in popularity thanks to its prices but also its marketing strategy, which focuses on encouraging users to promote the app and its products. It initially created a huge buzz by combining referrals, social media and a gamified way of shopping. The buzz has died down slightly now, and Temu has become more of a household name.
Temu has a referral system where users can earn credits or gifts by sharing content and discounts with family or friends. Users can also share their referral links or codes on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
Elsewhere on social media, Temu partners with influencers with large followings. They can also offer referral codes, discount codes or free prizes, and are essentially being paid to promote the app.
Users can also earn credits by logging into the app every day, and taking part in competitions or games (which can also be shared with friends).
- Find out more: what is TikTok Shop and is it safe to buy from?
How does Temu keep prices so low and are its discounts genuine?
Temu's headline-grabbing prices are certainly tempting, but how does it keep them so cheap?
It says it’s due to its direct-to-consumer business model that ‘eliminates middlemen’. Most of its sellers are Chinese manufacturers and suppliers while Temu handles the shipping, allowing it to streamline logistics and costs.
Another advantage Temu has is that, as an ecommerce firm delivering to the West, it's exempt from export duties in China. What's more it also – thanks to its rock-bottom prices – nearly always escapes UK import duty, which only applies to orders worth £135 or more (although this will end in October 2028).
A lot of the products on Temu have a discount applied, but it's unclear how long the product has been at that price of when it was last at the 'was' price.
When we investigated the prices on online marketplaces, including Temu, we found potentially dodgy pricing tactics that may be breaking the law. For 15 out of 20 products we looked at we found no other retailer online selling them at or above the RRP used by the traders on Temu – leading us to question whether those RRPs were genuine. Temu told us that RRPs are set by the manufacturer, and are required to comply with applicable laws and regulations.
Find out more: how to get the best price when shopping online
What is Temu’s returns policy?
When you buy from a third-party on an online marketplace, your contract is with the seller rather than the site. However, Temu still handles customer service and has a built-in returns policy: most items are eligible for a refund within 90 days of the date of purchase, which exceeds your consumer rights.
Once you notify Temu of your intent to return, you have a further 14 days to send back the package.
The process for returning an item is done through your account on the app or website. You select a reason for the return and what refund method you would like to use – Temu credits or a refund via your original payment method.
The first return of every order is free. There's a shipping fee of £2.50 for subsequent items, which is deducted from your refund. Anecdotally, we’ve heard that Temu rarely asks for products to actually be returned. Product prices are so low that the cost of processing returned items simply isn’t worth it.
Temu states that customers should allow 5-14 business days (up to 30 days) for the refund to reflect in your original payment method. This is not in line with the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, which state that refunds should be with a customer within 14 days.
Are products on Temu fake or dangerous?
Temu is awash with products by 'unknown' brands – either completely unbranded or made by manufacturers we've never heard of, and which don't appear to exist outside the online marketplace – much like competitors such as Amazon and Wish.
Temu requires sellers to agree to product safety and compliance requirements, and for certain categories (such as toys and electronics) sellers may also need to provide additional compliance documentation. It has also introduced physical product inspections and mystery shopping programmes, designed to identify where products may not match their online descriptions or safety requirements.
Temu appears to act decisively to remove specific products or product categories that have been subject to safety alerts or recalls by official bodies such as the OPSS, even when the notice flags a different retailer or marketplace. In a recent investigation we found dangerous baby care products that had been subject to safety notices on eight marketplaces, but not on Temu.
However it doesn't mean that the platform is exempt from safety concerns. When we tested chargers bought from online marketplaces, chargers bought from sellers on Temu passed our electrical safety test but were missing the required safety markings so weren't legal to sell in the UK.
When European consumer organisations tested 108 USB chargers and baby toys from Shein and Temu in 2025, 96.3% didn’t meet EU safety standards. The findings included a teething glove from Temu that’s designed to be put in a baby’s mouth and contained five times the legal limit of formaldehyde and four times the amount of nonylphenol ethoxylate (an endocrine-disrupting substance).
We also found vitamin supplements for sale on the platform that included dosages exceeding the daily safe upper limits, including a Vitamin B6 supplement with a dose of 100mg. It's recommended to consumer no more than 10mg per day.
Temu appears to be doing a good job of taking down products or categories once it's aware of issues, but we'd still recommend caution when shopping. Don't buy unbranded or unknown-brand baby products, electricals, cosmetics, or products that will be used in situations where safety is paramount (such as ladders) from online marketplaces.
EU fines Temu over illegal products
In May 2026 the European Union imposed a €200 million fine on Temu for having illegal products such as dangerous baby toys and faulty chargers on the platform.
As well as paying the fine, Temu has to present an action plan to address the failures found by the investigation by August this year. The European Commission then has two months to decide whether the company has done enough to comply with its obligations as a Very Large Online Platform under EU law.
Temu disagreed with the European Commission's decision, and considered the fine to be disproportionate. It said that the ruling relates to a risk assessment in 2024, and doesn't reflect how the platform operates today.
Sue Davies, Which? Head of Consumer Protection Policy, said:
'The EU’s decision to fine Temu to the tune of €200 million is a strong example of the tough action needed to hold online marketplaces to account for dangerous products on their platforms.
'Countless Which? investigations have exposed how Temu and other platforms seem unwilling to exercise sufficient due diligence to protect their users from unsafe products.
'The UK government should follow the EU’s example and make use of its new powers under the Product Regulation and Metrology Act to make online marketplaces legally responsible for dangerous products.
Warning about Temu forced labour goods
US lawmakers warned that 'there is an extremely high risk that Temu’s supply chains are contaminated with forced labor' in a Congressional report published in June 2023.
The report said Temu admitted it ‘does not expressly prohibit’ the sale of goods from China's Xinjiang region. Since 2017, Chinese authorities in Xinjiang have detained an estimated one million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in ‘re-education camps’, and it’s believed that hundreds of thousands of ex-detainees are living in forced labour camps.
Temu told the US Congress that it 'conducts no audits and reports no compliance system to affirmatively examine' whether its suppliers are observing US forced labour law - which blocks imports from Xinjiang.
It says it has a zero-tolerance policy for the use of forced, indentured or penal labor, and that contractors, merchants, suppliers, and other third parties and their suppliers must not use forced labour, child labour or other unlawful or unethical practices. It's unclear how or whether Temu ensures suppliers adhere to this policy, though. You can read the Temu modern slavery statement here.
- Find out more: which brands are best for sustainable clothing?
Should I shop with Temu?
We browsed review sites to see what users are saying about Temu.
On Trustpilot, user reviews are polarised. Of the nearly 54,000 reviews, 57% are one star while 25% are five stars. Complaints range from customer service and delivery times, to products not matching descriptions or being of poor quality. Some users found the promotions confusing.
If you prioritise price over anything else, then Temu has a wide range of low-cost purchases. Just don't shop there based on over-enthusiastic reviews or social media influencers – they are earning money to send you to the app.
Plus based on our research on Temu and similar online marketplaces, we'd recommend being wary of products where safety is a consideration – car seats, toys and electrical items, for example. Watch out for cut-price products pretending to be genuine, too - the price is a sure giveaway that they aren't.
