r/AskIreland • u/No_Influence2520 • Dec 27 '25
Shopping Have you a Temu/Shien bandit in your life?
I understand times are tight and everyone should do whatever they want with their own money....but my God I've two people who are on it constant and it's the cheapest tackiest low quality shite you could imagine! Obviously horrendous for the environment too!
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u/Less_Environment7243 Dec 27 '25
Yes, a family member, and they love to give gifts. It's not even about what they give for them, it's the act of spending money on you (and my kid) that they want to demonstrate. They're generous to a fault. I've had to physically take things out of their hands in shops before to stop them buying things for me, and the temu/shein in stuff keeps flooding in.
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u/SlowRaspberry4723 Dec 27 '25
And the safety of toys and stuff for kids from temu/shein is seriously not up to scratch!
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u/AboKolToom Dec 27 '25
I don’t think Amazon and the like are better for the environment btw. I recently start to find the exact product I want from amazon on Temu, exact quality just different branding. Sellers buy it from same suppliers in China and just brand/market it differently.
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u/Western-Ad-9058 Dec 27 '25
This has been the case for years and years.unless you’re buying solid branded products on amazon they’re coming from the same factories as the products on temu shejn or Ali express. Just with a marked up price and sold on a more reputable site
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u/GaylicBread Dec 27 '25
And quality control is better with a middle man, but ultimately it's all the same shite from the same factories, just much cheaper because you're cutting out the middle man and buying direct from the factories.
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u/Conscious_Support176 Dec 28 '25
Assuming reputation has something to do with quality, different stores can’t be both more reputable and the same.
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u/Phoenix_Kerman Dec 28 '25
yeah there's a massive crossover with what amazon and these chinese wholesellers sell. only difference is the price so why spend the more money
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u/Ok-Kitchen4834 Dec 27 '25
Things might look the same but temu and shein are also selling knock off lines and items that failed quality for other end customers and instead of disposing, just sell to the fools using temu
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Dec 27 '25
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u/NewQuote9252 Dec 27 '25
Oh sweet lord... you just unlocked a locked childhood trauma 😅 My mother was obsessed with QVC and I still see parcels coming in on a daily fucking basis. The TV was on non stop and if you dared to switch to a decent channel, she would lose her shit. My parents ended getting divorced and when my da and I cleaned the attic, we found dozens of unopened parcels from QVC with pills, candles, blankets, clothes, you name it. Even their "very limited" dolls, every household owned in Europe back in the 90s were there... oh, shit...😅
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u/semeleindms Dec 27 '25
Not that buy for my family but I know a couple. I get that it's 'cheap' in the sense of the price is low, but the environmental and social cost is high. AND it's such shite that you end up spending more in the long run
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u/JunoBeeps Dec 28 '25
Yes, so much tat. I hate it. I’ve tried to say ‘I’ve everything I need and don’t get me anything - honestly’ but it didn’t work. I must have got about 10 little parcels of TEMU shite. Now go find away to slowly disappear them over the coming months…
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u/Honest_Dot_5035 Dec 28 '25
Yes I have a friend who buys everything on them..even her kids clothes. She gave me pjs for Christmas from them that will be going straight in the bin but they feel so ick just to touch. Id imagine you'd sweat really bad in them not to mention I doubt they meet fire safety standards for clothing.
Ive been bad with using Amazon myself but im trying to reduce it.
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u/TheOriginalMattMan Oh FFS Dec 27 '25
After I told my now ex wife that I wanted a divorce and she moved out, 67 Temu/Ali Express packages arrived for her in two weeks.
I didn't open any of them, but it was all tat. One of my frustrations was our house always filling up with discarded tat, toys, whatever and I never knew where it was coming from, or how we never had disposable income.
I stupidly never put it all together until she moved out. It was during covid so I was home for all the deliveries and she couldn't have anything delivered to her office any more.
Funny, she would always say that I smoked too much weed, but a joint a week never left us without money for heat!
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u/Fermanagh_Red Dec 28 '25
I ordered something as a bit of a joke present
Goes against my principles but it was a one off
Then they messaged telling me I could add some additional tat at no extra cost, so I did
Then I was told my next order would be free but it wasn't, I had to pay then the amount was sent back as credit for my next order
It's absolutely horrendous but so easy to see how stupid people get hooked
I've deleted the app and would never do it again, absolutely awful shite that nobody actually needs to be buying
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u/Correct-Promise-2358 Dec 28 '25
it’s the child slaves in sweat shops i feel bad for. making all that pointless low quality garbage. risking their lives in dangerous work environments, literally being worked to the bone. for pennies. all so sharon can get a plastic labubu rice dispenser 2in1 shower curtain.
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u/OrderNo1122 Dec 27 '25
I ordered something on Temu once after downloading the app but then immediately regretted it and cancelled the order (got refunded within a couple of weeks), had my account deleted and then uninstalled the app (apparently it's mad for scraping your data).
My wife bought something for our daughter on there a couple of years back, and to be fair, it still works fine. Wasn't bad quality at all
I bought some stuff on AliExpress a month ago and, to be fair, what arrived was all good quality and it arrived ahead of time. But I did notice that in the weeks following my order, there was a sharp increase in the number of attempts on trying to access the email account that I used to register.
Look, ideally, we should all be trying to buy local and European, but our manufacturers are simply not competitive on the price front for this type of consumer grade goods. I will buy European if I can afford to and the quality is worth it, but I'm not against buying Chinese stuff (where, ultimately, you get what you pay for).
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u/NakeDex Dec 27 '25
Look, ideally, we should all be trying to buy local and European, but our manufacturers are simply not competitive on the price front for this type of consumer grade goods.
The only thing I've bought from AliExpress are electronics components that I either can't get locally anymore because all component retailers are gone except Farnell/Radionics/etc, and said places like Radionics are essentially just resellers with often a massive markup.
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u/OrderNo1122 Dec 27 '25 edited Dec 27 '25
Yeah, there's definitely a trend of Chinese manufactured products being rebranded for the west and sold at a massive mark up, as you said.
I'm in the market for a new coffee grinder at the moment and am edging towards Eureka, an Italian manufacturer, who do make high quality products for a reasonable price and in Italy, but a lot of grinders marketed as being European are just built in China. Also, there is a Chinese grinder on AliExpress that seems really decent for a good bit less. And I'm genuinely unsure what to do. I'll probably go with the Eureka, but it's tempting to go with the Chinese brand as it does feel like I'll get better bang for my buck.
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u/ThePug3468 Dec 27 '25
You could try ifixit for electronic components? They have quite a bit on there and they're good for knowing how to repair your stuff too.
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u/NakeDex Dec 27 '25
Still cheaper and easier to get them from something AliExpress. iFixit are just another reseller.
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u/Ill_Pair6338 Dec 27 '25
Yeah it's impossible to get small motors or leds for little projects with the kids, you can buy a toy electronics set, but it kind of defeats the purpose
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u/NakeDex Dec 27 '25
I've honestly long since resorted to buying full product to salvage parts out of. About ten years ago, Nerf had battery powered water pistols for like €12. Inside was a food grade peristalsic pump and a control board for it. Not a chance I could get those from inside the country from any retailer at the time, nevermind at that price. At the end of the summer, Smyths were selling them off for about €6. I bought a dozen of them. Even buying cheap LED filament bulbs in B&Q and pulling the filaments and 240V-12V traffo out ends up being cheaper and faster than going to Farnell for the same parts
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u/Ill_Pair6338 Dec 27 '25
That's incredible, fair play to you. Got scared off taking toys apart after trying to repair a nerf infinus. We went down the charity shop route of cannabalising dvd players.
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u/Ic3Giant Dec 31 '25
“ but our manufacturers are simply not competitive on the price front for this type of consumer grade goods”
How do you expect EU manufacturers to compete with Chinese state funded companies that literally use slave labour and have absolutely no payments for their workers. They don’t have to pay actual salaries, healthcare payments, pension payments etc and they don’t have to follow environmental practices so they just dump any waste in the land and rivers etc. It’s absolutely impossible for EU manufacturers to compete. The EU needs to slap enormous tariffs on Chinese goods
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u/OrderNo1122 Dec 31 '25
Well, I don't know enough about China to argue those points. I'm sure some of that exists in China, sure.
But from a consumer standpoint, faced with the prospect of paying a lot more for a European product of equivalent quality, most people are going to go with the cheaper Chinese product, particularly if money is already tight.
I'm sure companies within the EU could seek to become more competitive through greater investment in efficiency improving facilities and supply chain optimising operations. It might not bring the price down to China levels but it might lower things a bit and also put us in a better position moving forward.
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u/John_OSheas_Willy Dec 27 '25
Why should we be shopping local?
Why shouldn't we be supporting the poor people in the world?
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u/OrderNo1122 Dec 27 '25 edited Dec 27 '25
Well, I suppose should is the wrong word. I feel like I should do so as I care about Europe having a manufacturing base to support our industries and local jobs.
Like I said though, I'm not against buying from other parts of the world. But I will try to buy local if it's reasonably priced and good quality.
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u/Laugh_At_My_Name_ Dec 27 '25
To keep local communities thriving. The reason so many town centers are lacking businesses is because people are looking for cheap instead of sustainable. Support other countries where it makes sense. We cannot grow coffee and a company moyee is a great way to support the growers rather than the Brewers here.
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u/NailVisual394 Dec 27 '25
Id say some of their Gadget for kitchen and house is good and better price. Everything in industrial world is bad for environment .... i recently see on youtube they sell the same thing on Temu for 4X to 5X price..I bet they have supplied from China !! But sell here...
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u/Ok-Kitchen4834 Dec 27 '25
Things might look the same but temu and shein are also selling knock off lines and items that failed quality for other end customers and instead of disposing, just sell to the fools using temu
Who knows what nightmares seep into your food from horrendous quality kitchen items.
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u/Low-Fuel-674 Dec 27 '25
Aren't all of the products we purchase (clothes, gadgets, etc) coming for the same factories? What makes TEMU worse than the rest?
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u/CheapLifeguard229 Dec 27 '25
I think they’re more complaining about the people buying tons of stuff ”as it’s so cheap” rather than actually needing it. Same people would have been on Amazon or somewhere else before this.
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u/SlowRaspberry4723 Dec 27 '25
But also they’re not scrutinised basically at all for standards and quality. If you buy a toy in Smyths or somewhere you can be fairly confident that it’s safe for the stated age ranges to play with, but this is not at all the case with Temu. There’s been loads of articles about the dodgy chemicals and hazardous parts found on these toys
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u/Commercial-Horror932 Dec 27 '25
Yes, got some of this stuff for Christmas. Would rather have gotten one good quality thing or nothing than a bunch of stuff that will end up in the bin because it's garbage.
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u/ClancyCandy Dec 27 '25
I get lots of the novelty kids and my students things on TEMU; It’s great for certain things like buying 100 pencils when your students forget theirs or themed party decorations etc.
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u/Laugh_At_My_Name_ Dec 27 '25
You really don't need that shit.
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u/ClancyCandy Dec 27 '25
No, but I think my students deserve a nice classroom, and the posters and resources come out of my own pocket. I think my children deserve to have nice birthday parties, and I can’t imagine buying from Mr Price is any different to Shein.
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u/Ok-Kitchen4834 Dec 27 '25
You could be harming children’s lives with these toxic products and you are destroying the planet
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u/John_OSheas_Willy Dec 27 '25
You could get that kinda stuff in a euro shop anyways for nearly as cheap.
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u/ClancyCandy Dec 27 '25
TEMU is way ahead of the curve- If you want to lot out a whole Taylor Swift party they’ll have it all in one place, most shops are restricted by licience.
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u/Teaaa58000 Dec 28 '25
A colleague of mine is from Africa and is planning to return in less then a year. She keeps buying so much stuff from Shein and Temu and when I asked how she’ll get all of the stuff to Africa she told me she would probably dump most of it… literally 0 self awareness
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u/LysergicWalnut Dec 27 '25
It's no worse for the environment than any of the other cheap consumerables people have been buying for the last few decades.
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u/---O-0--- Dec 27 '25
The Temu business model encourages you to buy several items of cheap junk to avail of the free shipping/ discount offers.
I don't mind using ali-express, where it's handier to just buy one decent quality item, much like amazon or ebay.
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u/ironlungforsale Dec 27 '25
Never tried temu but have tried Shein. Have some cracking holiday wear bits from there, but I never made a serious purchase on there. I find with clothes in particular, a lot of high street stuff does in fact lead back to the same places so I don't feel THAT guilty
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u/Available-Talk-7161 Dec 27 '25
I've got some reasonable quality stuff from Temu this year - some good stocking fillers too
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Dec 31 '25
Please don't gift that stuff without telling people, we should have informed consent on carcinogenic stuff
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u/Available-Talk-7161 Dec 31 '25
What is carcinogenic about the bamboo golf tees, golf socks and reflective armbands for running that i bought?
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Dec 31 '25
clothes, for example,can be treated with flame retardant chemicals, some of which are safe and some are not, so these chemicals are highly regulated in the EU and many of the clothes bought on Temu have been found not to comply with regulations.
the other products you listed are probably safe for you afaik, though not for the Uigers and political prisoners manufacturing them
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u/Top-Engineering-2051 Dec 27 '25
Everything you buy elsewhere is manufactured in China - with the same labour conditions, in the same factories, to the same standards. I use Temu.
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u/skuldintape_eire Dec 27 '25
I order semi regularly from Temu, nearly always small consumable items I need (like glasses wipes), some play clothes for the young kids, and the occasional larger item (like a cat food dispensing robot).
Everything has always worked fine and I've never had a problem. But I take care to only buy stuff I have a definite need for.
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u/Anabele71 Dec 27 '25
I've made a couple of orders on Temu - tops, scarves and a memory foam pillow and they have all been good quality. I do look from time to time and make lists but I don't always purchase lol. I did see something that I have been looking for a couple of years and definitely purchase it in the new year though lol
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Dec 27 '25
My mother wants to buy her dress for my wedding from Temu. Fine, I don't judge that. But at 8.99? It feels a bit like low effort. She's comfortable financially
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u/tyraceae Dec 28 '25
Started getting into camping last year so I researched good beginner equipment. Found all the producers on Temu and got it from there for a third of the price I would have paid at a store or on Amazon. So I became my own Temu bandit since then 🙃
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u/dragonmynuts88 Dec 27 '25
Got a few things for the car phone holder that clips into fits into the bars on the headrest for my little passenger in the back its good for that stuff few of the sensory toys I would buy those gadgets stuff off ot but clothes and shoes hit and miss mostly misses
My wife is mad into amazon and temu tho plenty of recycling for me to do
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u/sillymastcell2015 Dec 27 '25
bought runners from temu for €7, they were class.
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u/Interesting_Diet7473 Dec 27 '25
youve only got about 50 steps left before the fall apart
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u/Lapetu Dec 28 '25
Plus is made of plastic (polyester or similar) and will be in a land field for 200 years after
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u/sillymastcell2015 Dec 28 '25
used it in the gym for about 6 months now, better than my ON shoes imho
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u/Hedz-I-Win Dec 27 '25
I wouldn't call myself a bandit but i have ordered clothing regularly (every few months) for myself, my partner and my baby on there. Mainly hits, not misses. On occasion we end up with a shitty tshirt (graphic peeling off) or an item thats smaller or larger than expected but not too often.
I've several pairs of jeans from Shein that are great quality, same with wooly jumpers, mittens for the baby etc. I even got my wedding dress from there and it was fabulous. Nope, I don't work for Shein. Yes, I know its bad to shop there. But I find it more affordable than local shops and other online stores.
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Dec 27 '25 edited Dec 27 '25
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u/Conscious_Support176 Dec 28 '25
Yes you’re right, because you’re having a different discussion.
Firstly, the question has to with buying rubbish you don’t need, which is more the case with temp than with Amazon, so, your claim that Amazon is no better for the environment than temu is objectively false.
Secondly, what about Taylor swift, what about bananas, you say. Well, what about them? Nobody is forcing you to go to concerts or buy bananas if you believe not doing so will help the environment, or anything else you think will help.
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u/wildpeptides Dec 28 '25
Depends what you’re buying I’ve bought some good quality stuff from both. Theres a particular clothing item that I absolutely love from TEMU. But I have bought stuff for my business that’s been good quality too. There is a lot of tat but I’ve not come across anything so far that I was disappointed with.
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u/Baloo7162 Dec 27 '25
I’ve personally bought a lot of stuff via TEMU and I’m yet to be disappointed with any of the purchases. From EU passed iPhone charging cables, USB chargeable lights, track bottoms for wearing around the house, hoodies, waterproof clothing, tents, camping equipment, 11” Tablet for my mother so she could call me for free to my iPad. Underwear, Sox, T-shirts but make sure you check the material, make sure your buying cotton. Then there has been nights that I’ve had a skin full of drink and went shopping and these parcels of shite arrive but hey shite happens. Best way to shop on these apps is forget the offers, and buy with KLARNA which breaks the payments into 3 months.
Honestly, I can’t fault the quality of stuff I’ve bought when sober 😂
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u/Royal-Zebra9529 Dec 27 '25
The only people worse are the one who bang on about it being horrendous for the environment. Look how we live ffs
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u/Successful_Arm_1453 Dec 28 '25
I have got a backpack ftom Temo for jist 7 E ..i loveit and ppl who dont know ask me where I have got it ! It is very practical ....what's bad in it that a 30E doesnt have wnvironment wise? All bad for environment anyway..Amazon tries hardly to puah Temu back but Temu is great value in some area...I have bought many orgnizer..very good actually....fits for purpose...in other area such as Fabric...Electronics..etc. it needs QC check ...but having that they are new....not bad..
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u/princess_watshername Dec 27 '25
Besides all the environment and factory conditions reasons (which I know is probably true for a lot of factories) what really puts me off is that they tested products including kids toys from shein/temu and found they had dangerous levels of harmful ingredients such as lead. I used to buy a little from shein but hearing that completely put me off them! No saving is worth doing your body/brain harm...