Is Temu Actually Stealing Amazon’s Traffic? And Are Temu Sellers Even Making Money?

I’ve been selling on Temu for a year. The first few months when they were recruiting for the semi-managed model had some profit. After that, rules kept piling up.
Here’s what you’re up against if you’re considering it:

1. Category manager access is a black hole.** You have no direct support. Your only contact is a category manager, and they’re often unresponsive. Meanwhile, buyers get full customer service.
2. Price negotiation is unpredictable.** Temu compares your product to Alibaba and other cross-border sites — they expect you to beat those prices. Unless you’re a factory, it’s hard to maintain margin. There’s no real “operations” skill involved.
3. Shipping restrictions.** The semi-managed model requires platform shipping labels. Those labels can cost 5% more than your own negotiated rates. On top of that, buyers can block certain carriers (like FedEx), so if your warehouse can’t switch carriers easily, you’re stuck.
4. Late delivery fines — $5 per order.** No exceptions. Even if the delay is caused by the carrier, you eat the fine.
5. Fake shipment fines.** If a package gets lost in transit and tracking stops updating for weeks, Temu flags it as “fake shipment.” You lose the product, and you pay a fine. Customer agrees to a replacement? Doesn’t matter. Tracking didn’t update = fine.
6. Random certification requirements.** Products that never needed certifications suddenly get flagged. No cert = listing removed.
7. Price traps.** If a product isn’t selling, you’re forced to lower the price. You do, it starts moving, then you try to raise it back — you need category manager approval, which you probably won’t get. Then you get a message saying your price is too high compared to competitors. Refuse to lower it a few times, and your traffic disappears.
8. Inconsistent financial data.** Sometimes the refund/return data in your backend doesn’t match the settlement data. You’ll see charges appear with no explanation — just a line item saying “refund issued to customer.” No ticket, no notification.
9. Massive “refund only” abuse.** Customer support often approves refunds without asking the seller. No photo evidence, no investigation. Just a customer saying “I don’t want it” or “quality issue” — instant refund, deducted from your account. You get no right to dispute.
10. Conflicting orders.** I’ve had cases where a customer requested a replacement part, I shipped it, and then the same customer filed a refund claim with Temu. Temu issued the refund, and my replacement order still shipped. No way to cancel or recover.

On Amazon, you have control — ads, coupons, promotions. On Temu, you’re much more passive. You don’t really “operate” the store. Your product either works on its own or it doesn’t. There’s very little you can do to influence it.

Temu is growing fast, and the traffic is real. But whether it’s actually hurting Amazon? Probably not. The two platforms serve different customer needs. Amazon is where people go when they know what they want; Temu is discovery-driven.