The Future Of Online Shopping

by

Part 1: The Rise of Temu

  • The “Super Bowl” Moment: Temu, a shopping app owned by PDD Holdings (Pinduoduo), launched a massive aggressive marketing campaign, including multiple Super Bowl ads, promising consumers they could “shop like a billionaire” with rock-bottom prices .

  • Business Model: Unlike traditional retailers, Temu connects consumers directly to manufacturers in China, cutting out middlemen. It uses a “gamified” experience with spinning wheels and countdown clocks to addict users .

  • The “De Minimis” Loophole: The video explains how Temu exploits the “de minimis” shipping rule, which allows packages under $800 to enter the U.S. duty-free and with less scrutiny. This allows them to undercut American competitors who pay import tariffs .

  • Controversies:

    • Forced Labor: There are serious concerns and congressional reports linking goods on Temu to forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region, in violation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act .

    • Data Security: The parent company, Pinduoduo, was previously pulled from the Google Play Store due to malware that could exploit user phones, raising fears about what Temu does with user data .

Part 2: Walmart vs. Amazon

  • Catching Up to Amazon: Walmart is aggressively restructuring to compete with Amazon’s dominance. While Walmart rules grocery (18% market share vs Amazon’s <1.5%), it lags significantly in general e-commerce .

  • Stores as Fulfillment Centers: Walmart is using its 4,700 U.S. stores as localized fulfillment hubs. This allows them to deliver goods faster than Amazon in some areas because 90% of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart .

  • Third-Party Marketplace: Walmart is actively courting third-party sellers to increase its product assortment, pitching itself as a less competitive and more profitable alternative to Amazon’s saturated marketplace .

  • New Delivery Tech:

    • Drone Delivery: Walmart is expanding drone delivery to millions of households, offering 30-minute delivery for small packages .

    • InHome Delivery: A service where employees wear body cams and enter a customer’s home to put groceries directly into their refrigerator .

Part 3: The Boom of Live Stream Shopping

  • “QVC for Gen Z”: Live shopping combines entertainment with instant purchasing, similar to the Home Shopping Network but hosted by influencers on social media .

  • The China Model: The trend is already massive in China (valued at hundreds of billions), where influencers can sell billions of dollars in goods in a single session. The U.S. is still “lagging way behind” but trying to replicate this success .

  • Amazon Live: Amazon is paying influencers to host live streams on their platform. Unlike social media (TikTok/Instagram) where shopping causes friction (leaving the app), Amazon Live keeps the user in a “buying mindset” within the ecosystem .

  • Social Platforms: TikTok Shop and YouTube are integrating “click-to-buy” features to prevent users from having to leave the video to make a purchase, hoping to capture the impulse buy market

The point isn’t even temu selling crap. It’s the fact people choose to buy that crap. What kind of quality do you expect when you pay so little. The consumer is cheap, so the product reflects what you are willing to pay. If you can get a decent knock off smart watch for $10. Is it implying China makes crappy products, or that Apple is ripping people off considering they also manufacture in China. People need to open their eyes and learn bad actors aren’t just people in other countries.

As an Australian i can tell you Amazon here in Australia is cheaper then our supermarkets but its their postage that makes people buy from them 1 to 2 day delivery is crazy where i live as most of the online stores here in Australia takes over a week and a half to get to you even 2 weeks some times and yet stuff coming overseas takes quicker. So while walmart may be trying to take on Amazon it still don’t deliver world wide hence amazon is bigger and better for us outside of the USA.

I personally think that Amazon and other large retailers need to be broken up into smaller companies. I stopped buying from Amazon last year because the quality of things I bought online from them had gotten so bad. I now order things for pickup from local stores. It is probably initially costing me more, but I am able to check the quality quickly and return or exchange things immediately. I also know that the money I am spending at least partially is helping people locally.

Walmart playing catch-up with Amazon: any brick and mortar will have a tough value proposition if they do not deliver. I have shopped Walmart online before only to find there are many more restrictions on what they will ship vs pickup at the store. Walmart isn’t a very nice place to visit. I’d rather get things delivered to my house. Same with target and home Depot, if I can find a product elsewhere for the same price, delivered to my doorstep, more than likely I will choose that option over going to a big box store. The only thing brick and mortar can offer over online is some kind of in store experience, but if you’re just there to get some toothpaste, online is the way to go, unless you can hook it onto a weekly grocery trip.

I found Temu on my own and not by advertising. For the prices they offer their items you get more than you bargain for in quality. I have ordered household items, clothing, jewelry, electronics, shoes & hardware. Was I 100% satisfied with every item, no I wasn’t. However, I was happy about 95%. Yes, they maybe using lower quality electronics parts but they work well and prove to me that name brand companies are way overpriced. Especially when the pandemic happened and they arbitrarily raised prices for no other reason than they felt they could try hiding it behind pandemic. Instead of helping by either maintaining their current prices or by even lowering their prices and choosing to forego those large bonuses. Temu is probably as “safe” as the companies in our own country with data.

In the segment, where the Walmart employees were pulling merchandise, off the shelves to ship to customers elsewhere. Years ago, I had grasped that concept and thought out, the ideal, whereas, I walked through it and foresaw how cost saving, it would be. There, pleanty of merchandise left on the shelves, that no one buys. It, just sits there. What’s, wrong with pulling it off the shelves and sending? Warehouse, are cool however, too cold in the winter and way, too much dust.

The stores, are more inviting and all you do is, crate a workspace and pull the item and ship, it from that location. Curie HS – Chicago Business Law classes, were so long ago, however its modified and Robert Morris University /SNHU has a more intense and indepth run down…

Walmart can continue to build out their Sellers and selection, but unless they work on their search algorithms it won’t matter! Their is no comparison when you compare the search results in Amazon vs Walmart. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve abandoned my search review in Walmart because of the results. Receiving unrelated products and items priced at 10X expected pricing!

Amazon screwed themselves up with grocery delivery. At one time, they had a $35 minimum for delivery the same that Walmart has today. But then they got greedy and highly raised the minimum order needed to avoid a service charge. When I started losing a lot of money they adjusted it, but now they want you to pay $10 per month extra on top of your prime membership pin order to have that $35 minimum again. Walmart still is just $35, so that’s who a lot of people have stayed with.

Props to Walmart because they actually have been getting things cheaper and even faster to me than Prime in the recent years. Prime still holds ultimate advantage for things that aren’t so local but for most grocery related items, Walmart somehow making it to my door in under 2 days, standard for Prime, is pretty cool. Prime does do 1 day delivery but most grocery related items on prime are either expensive for no reason or takes so long to get here for no reason.

As an Australian i can tell you Amazon here in Australia is cheaper then our supermarkets but it’s their postage that makes people buy from them 1 to 2 day delivery is crazy where i live as most of the online stores here in Australia takes over a week and a half to get to you even 2 weeks some times and yet stuff coming overseas takes quicker. So while walmart may be trying to take on Amazon it still don’t deliver world wide hence amazon is bigger and better for us outside of the USA.