Why Temu is a NIGHTMARE

Timu was first introduced to the world through a series of advertisements during the Super Bowl, and since then has become a trend of its own online with influencers and YouTubers using the platform to buy and promote ridiculous products for ridiculous prices.

Timu首次通过一系列Super Bowl的广告向世界推出，从那时起，它已经成为线上的一种趋势，影响者和YouTuber利用该平台购买和推广荒谬的产品以荒谬的价格。

Timu is just the latest peak in our world of unbridled consumerism, but its meteoric rise has much bigger implications than just another cheap knockoff website. Timu, to summarize for those not fully in the loop here, is a discount online marketplace to sell stuff for hella cheap prices. This is the newest and craziest version of Alibaba, Wish.com, and stuff like that. It's basically the sketchy version of Amazon. And it makes me sad.

Timu只是我们这个放纵消费主义世界中最新的顶峰，但它的迅猛崛起比其他廉价仿冒网站更具深远的影响。简单来说，对于那些并不完全了解的人来说，Timu是一个以超低价格销售商品的打折在线市场。它是阿里巴巴、Wish.com等网站的最新、最疯狂的版本。实质上，它是亚马逊的不可靠版本。这让我感到悲伤。

Timu's slogan shopped like a billionaire is because you can find dupes of luxury products for just a couple of dollars. And it's not just clothing and stuff that you would get on Xian or something like that. Timu sells electronics, kids stuff, home goods, and a bunch of miscellaneous stuff that we had no idea even how to categorize because it's really just random shit. Were you looking for the perfect jumbo earbud for the big-eared people on your wish list? Because Timu's got you covered along with a whole bunch of weird gifts that nobody ever wanted.

Timu的口号是“像亿万富翁一样购物”，因为你可以用几美元找到奢侈品的仿制品。不仅仅是衣物和一些你在淘宝上能找到的东西。Timu销售电子产品、儿童用品、家居商品，还有一大堆我们甚至不知道如何分类的杂货，因为它真的只是一些随机的东西。你是在找大耳朵人的完美巨大耳机吗？因为Timu不仅能为你提供，还有一堆其他怪异的礼物，没有人会想要的。

Now before you go over there to Timu and buy 27 products for $35, please let us tell you why Timu is the literal worst and no one should ever shop there.

现在在你去Timu那边花35美元买27件产品之前，请允许我们告诉你为什么Timu是绝对最糟糕的，为何任何人都不应该购物在那里。

So Timu was launched in the US in 2022 by a company called PDD Holdings Inc which is a Chinese owned company headquartered in Shanghai. A couple of months later they launched in Canada and aired a fancy Super Bowl ad and then just two months after that they had launched in Australia, New Zealand, and all over Europe. So in literally just six months this company went from obscurity to a global phenomenon. By the end of 2022 the Timu app was the most downloaded free app in America.

Timu于2022年由一家名为PDD Holdings Inc的中国公司在美国推出，总部位于上海。几个月后，他们在加拿大推出了该应用，并在超级碗！上播放了一则精美的广告，然后仅仅两个月后，他们又在澳大利亚、新西兰和整个欧洲展开了推广。所以，仅仅在短短的六个月内，这家公司从默默无闻变成了一个全球现象。到2022年底，Timu应用成为美国下载量最多的免费应用。

One of the reasons why Timu skyrocketed in almost no time is because these PDD Holdings people knew what they were doing. They launched a similar platform in China called Pinduo Duo where this whole business model started from. This is kind of like when Mountain Dew released Mountain Dew Code Red. They knew that what they were making was a bad thing but they knew that if they made more of it people would buy it and in both cases they were right.

Timu在几乎没有时间内迅速崛起的原因之一是因为这些PDD Holdings的人知道他们在做什么。他们在中国推出了一个类似的平台叫做拼多多，整个商业模式都是从这里开始的。这有点像Mountain Dew发布Mountain Dew Code Red的情况。他们知道他们制造的东西是不好的，但他们也知道如果他们生产更多，人们会买它。在这两种情况下，他们都是正确的。

Timu prices put Amazon to shame and this is completely on purpose. In fact I wouldn't even say that these two companies are in the same category because shopping on Timu is crazy. I went onto the website for the first time when we were researching for this video and the landing page alone is unbelievable. Lightning deals ending today 90% off electronics and home sales down to 39 cents. This big bold high-pressure sort of sale tactics is what Timu is built on. Below every product there's a notification showing when somebody last bought them and this is the lowest price in 30 days or whatever like it's all designed to make you feel like you should buy it right now. The design of the website is to get you to buy something that you didn't need or don't need only because it's a great deal. They're working with a lot of classic gamification and that idea of treasure hunting that you feel when you get a discount on a product you know and that reward system in your brain makes you want to keep coming back because you feel a certain kind of excitement when you're able to get 77 items for $100. So of course people are going to come back for more and of course people are now addicted to shopping on Timu.

Timu的价格让亚马逊都黯然失色，而这完全是有意为之。实际上，我甚至不认为这两家公司属于同一类别，因为在Timu上购物太疯狂了。当我们为这个视频进行研究时，我第一次进入了这个网站，单单首个页面就令人难以置信。闪电促销，电子产品打折90%，家居产品低至39美分。这种大胆高压的促销手法是Timu的核心。在每个产品下方都有一个通知，显示有人上一次购买的时间，以及过去30天内的最低价格，或类似的信息，都是为了让你觉得现在就应该购买它。网站设计的目的是让你购买你不需要或不必要的东西，只因为它是个好的交易。他们使用了很多经典的游戏化设计，让你有一种寻宝的感觉，当你以优惠价格购买到产品时，你的大脑会有一种奖励感，这让你想继续回来，因为当你花100美元购买到77件物品时，你会感到某种兴奋。所以，当然会有人回头再买，当然会有人对在Timu上购物上瘾。

Another reason why Timu is everywhere is because they are hardcore with their ads and sponsorships like these guys do not hold back. Futureproof. This channel gets a ton of sponsorship requests from Timu which is ironic to say the least because I don't know if they've seen a single video that we've made but like it's not really the place where we're going to be promoting $5 smartwatches. And of course we are not the only YouTubers who are getting these kinds of emails. They are known to harass YouTubers and creators with emails even finding new email address to spam them when they've been blocked out of the first one but a ton of influencers don't seem to mind this because they partner with them anyway which is why you can't be on the internet for more than a few minutes before running across a Timu ad or sponsored content but we'll get into that later in the video.

Timu之所以无处不在，是因为他们在广告和赞助方面非常强硬，绝不吝啬。为未来做准备。这个频道收到了很多来自Timu的赞助请求，这是非常讽刺的，因为我不知道他们是否看过我们的任何一个视频，但我们不太可能在这个地方推广5美元的智能手表。当然，我们不是唯一一个收到这种邮件的YouTuber。他们被称为骚扰YouTuber和创作者的公司，甚至在被屏蔽之后，他们还会找到新的邮件地址来垃圾邮件他们，但很多知名影响者似乎并不介意，因为他们还是会与他们合作，这就是为什么你在上网不到几分钟就能看到Timu的广告或赞助内容，但我们将在视频中详细介绍。

First what I want to talk about is the prices because that's kind of what this whole thing is built on right. Any business whose sole mission is to be the cheapest supplier of a particular good should be treated with a certain level of scrutiny right off the bat. If you're getting a great deal like a great deal chances are there is someone along that product's life course that isn't getting a great deal.

首先，我想讨论的是价格，因为这是整个事情建立在其上的核心。任何一个以成为某种商品最便宜供应商为使命的企业，应该从一开始就受到一定程度的审视。如果你得到了一个很好的交易，很可能在该产品的生命周期中有人并没有得到一个很好的交易。

Now listen here if you're future proof we we do our best to look at all sides you know of course we're still biased we're just people here writing scripts and making videos but sadly there is not a lot of nuance with this one because Timu is a nightmare for everyone involved. Timu works similar to how Amazon does in the sense that manufacturers put their products on Timu and sell their stuff directly to the consumer which is supposedly how they are able to keep their prices solo because they eliminate the middleman or whatever but that is just complete bullshit. Consumers are getting bad products vendors are being exploited manufacturers are being inhumanely treated and don't forget that all of this shit is coming at the expense of the planet that we live on as well.

听我说，如果你注重未来的话，我们会尽力全方位地考虑，当然我们仍然有偏见，我们只是在这里写剧本和制作视频的普通人。但不幸的是，对于提姆这件事，很少有微妙的态度，因为提姆让每个参与其中的人都感到困扰。提姆的运作方式与亚马逊类似，制造商将他们的产品放在提姆上，直接向消费者销售自己的产品，这据说是他们能够维持低价的原因，因为他们消除了中间商等等，但这完全是胡扯。消费者得到劣质产品，卖家被剥削，制造商受到不人道的对待，更不要忘记这一切都是以我们生活在的地球为代价的。

How can I say this with any kind of confidence well all you need to do is look at the prices as the OG Hank Green pointed out there is simply no way an e-commerce site can price products that low without doing something shady so how do they get those prices so cheap in the first place well as we said when influencers are promoting Timu explaining away the price is just being the warehouse price without the upcharges of regular stores etc etc that is not true Timu is purposefully losing money on their orders in order to become the go-to marketplace for cheap garbage it's similar to what Amazon did when they lost money selling cheap books to undercut the rest of the book market to become the top bookseller in the world yeah that happened too bookstores are great and we shouldn't buy books on Amazon because Amazon's the worst do we have to make a video about Amazon I feel like everybody knows all the terrible things that Amazon does right we don't have to make that video like this video if we don't have to make that video because I don't want to get mad again.

我怎样才能有自信地说这句话呢，只需要看价格就可以了。正如OG Hank Green指出的那样，没有什么电子商务网站可以以如此低廉的价格销售产品而不做一些不正当的事情。那么，他们是如何做到如此低廉的价格的呢？就像我们所说的，当推广者推广Timu时，解释价格只是仓库价格，没有普通商店的额外费用，等等，这是不正确的。Timu故意在订单中亏本，以成为廉价垃圾的首选市场。这与亚马逊销售廉价图书亏本打击其他图书市场以成为全球最大图书零售商的做法类似，是的，这也发生了。书店很棒，我们不应该在亚马逊上购买书籍，因为亚马逊是最糟糕的，我们需要制作一个关于亚马逊的视频吗？我觉得每个人都知道亚马逊做了多少可怕的事情，对吗？如果我们不需要制作那个视频，请点赞这个视频，因为我不想再生气了。

Timu is losing an average of 30 dollars for each order because the products are marked down so low which means that somewhere along the line people are not getting compensated for their labor and what would you look at that we're right it turns out that Timu essentially pressures their manufacturers to sell their products at extremely low prices that Timu sets for them some sellers have anonymously reported that they make no money selling their stuff on Timu just in order to break into the US market again we have seen this business model of selling stuff at a loss it's not uncommon when a business is first starting out but we rarely see it done to this extreme probably the most frustrating part about this whole site and the popularity of it is just how purposeless and poorly made these products really are like I want to believe that people would be able to recognize that you do in fact get what you pay for and basically anything on this site is going to be in your garbage can in a week after you buy it but sadly that is not the case.

Timu每一笔订单的平均亏损为30美元，因为产品的售价被降得太低。这意味着在某个环节，人们没有得到劳动的合理报酬。这证明了我们的观点：Timu实际上迫使制造商以非常低的价格销售他们的产品。一些卖家匿名报告说，他们在Timu上销售商品根本没有赚钱，只是为了进入美国市场。我们常见到企业刚起步时以亏本销售商品的商业模式，但很少见到像这样极端的情况。这整个网站及其受欢迎的程度最令人沮丧的一点是，这些产品不仅没有意义，而且质量很差。我希望人们能认识到你所付出的代价决定了你所得到的东西，这个网站上的几乎任何东西购买一周后都将成为垃圾。但可悲的是，情况并非如此。

A recent wired article described how Timu steals the exact photos product descriptions and even test certifications from Amazon sellers and list them as their own on Timu the test certifications even have the seller's business address on them so Timu is doing nothing to cover its tracks they know that it would take a lot of time money and energy for a small seller to go after a giant corporation like Timu which is how they can rip off their entire Amazon storefront and get away with it they also get away with it because of this new dupe trend that has emerged we made a whole video about dupes if you want to watch that it's pretty interesting and this video is a perfect follow up to that one if I can say that there's anything perfect about Timu to summarize that one a little bit people would almost rather be seen wearing knock off Gucci than they would wearing the actual thing now just to be clear backing up a little bit we understand that buying low priced items is a necessity for some people we're not here to shame that but the vast majority of the consumers who are shopping on Timu are not buying low cost necessities they're buying low quality shit that they don't even need just because it feels good.

最近的一篇《有线》文章描述了Timu是如何从亚马逊卖家那里偷取准确的产品照片、产品描述甚至测试认证，并将它们作为自己的发布在Timu上。甚至测试认证上甚至有卖家的商业地址，所以Timu对此毫无掩饰。他们知道小卖家要去追究像Timu这样的巨头公司，需要花费大量时间、金钱和精力，这就是他们如何能够轻松抄袭整个亚马逊店面并逃脱惩罚的原因。此外，由于出现了这种新的抄袭风潮，他们也能够逍遥法外。我们还制作了一段关于抄袭产品的视频，如果你有兴趣可以观看一下，非常有意思。这段视频是对那个视频完美的延续，如果我可以说有关Timu的任何完美的事情，那就是人们似乎宁愿戴着仿冒的Gucci也不愿戴真品。现在，让我们回顾一下，我们了解到购买低价商品对一些人来说是必要的，我们不是在为此感到羞耻。但是，在Timu上购物的绝大多数消费者并不是购买低价必需品，他们只是因为感觉好，而购买一些低质量的垃圾，甚至是他们根本不需要的东西。

Now the list of sketchy shit that this company gets up to is too long to include into a reasonably linked video if linked is even a word so let's just summarize a few of them.

现在这家公司涉及的可疑行为的清单太长了，如果"linked"是一个词，也无法在一个合理的视频中进行详细介绍，所以让我们简要概括其中的几点。

Timu is not accredited with the better business bureau orders often end up late or don't show up at all Timu is definitely selling your data on the black market these claims have been verified but it is also worth knowing that Timu sister app Pin duo duo has been pulled from the google play store for data risks and Timu itself was temporarily suspended from the apple store for violating privacy rules just for a fun fact they found loopholes to avoid tariffs on imported products which means that these products also hurt local businesses within north america who can't compete on this level they have also been linked to the oppression of the weaker people in china who are currently under attack by the chinese government in ways that vaguely meet the definition of a genocide so if you can imagine a scammy shady business practice that would fit into some kind of blade runner 1984 dystopia then this company is the Tyrell corp of the real world that we're living in right now.

Timu没有得到商业信誉局的认可，该公司的订单经常延误或者根本没有送到。据证实，Timu肯定在黑市上出售你的数据。值得一提的是，Timu的姐妹应用拼多多因数据风险被从谷歌应用商店下架，而Timu本身也因违反隐私规则而暂时被苹果应用商店暂停。更有趣的是，他们找到了漏洞来避免被征收进口产品的关税，这也意味着这些产品损害了无法在这个水平上竞争的本地北美企业。他们还与中国弱势群体的压迫相关联，这些人目前正遭受中国政府以模糊符合种族灭绝定义的方式进行的打压。因此，如果你能想象一种类似于《银翼杀手》和《1984》的黑暗商业行为，那么这家公司就是我们目前生活在的现实世界中的泰雷尔公司。

do you feel sad then like this video and make sure you subscribe for more because that's what we do apparently uh all right so let's try and shake off some of those gloomy glooms all right let's let's let's bring it to the finish line here because i think that what you need and what i need is something to go off of and that is more depressing shit so what does this mean for the future i can imagine a lot of you are thinking hey low prices aren't the end of the world if team who wants to lose money to gain market share and that's their choice fine make hay while the sun is shining right but here's the thing those artificially low prices create a expectation for people that has a big ripple across the entire industry if somebody can buy five pairs of smiley face slippers for ten dollars then they are slowly becoming conditioned to that kind of standard now the forced labor the exploited retailers the emissions in the environment and the trash in the landfill they become expected what team who's success says about us as a society is that we've entered an almost dystopian like culture of consumerism where we expect to get whatever we want whenever we want it and for the best deal possible and we're willing to overlook pretty much any logical thinking in order to get it and with companies like team who getting the best deal means spending even less than what the products are worth to make which is just not how anything works in the race to make it to the top of the 1% these corporations are stuck in a race to the bottom they have to promise more and more to consumers just to stay competitive with absolutely zero consideration for the consequences so now we've been trained to expect this from everything adding on to this whole rip off dupe culture that team who operates their entire business model on and we're destroying the opportunities for makers and small businesses to succeed because not only can they not compete with prices on team who but their stuff is getting straight up ripped off now look I know the buying shit is hard that's why this whole channel is successful because we try to explain the products and the companies that are making the stuff that we have to buy in order to live our lives right these days just buying a tomato at a grocery store means that you are unwittingly supporting toxic pesticides exploiting labor contributing to global warming humans think that they're making one choice but they're actually making dozens of choices they don't even know they're making but when we see sites like team who pop up and we see their popularity we have to consider more than just the good deal what does this website mean for society if we want a future that's thriving instead of drowning in cheap garbage we need to think about what we're buying and where our money goes and what purchases we make actually mean for the world around us now I know we're just a few weeks shy of the most consumeristic time of the year and we can only imagine that team who sales are going to skyrocket out of control as people buy stuff that they think they're supposed to buy for the people that they love we are going to be making some more content about Christmas heading into this wonderful holiday season which hopefully you're excited about but please if we can give you one little bit of unsolicited advice it's to not shop for things on T.M.U. this year because you're just wasting your money and probably making somebody's life worse in the meantime god that was a grim ending is that really where we're gonna cap this video we should have said something like you know buy local and like support small businesses and you know maybe buy experiences instead but no we're gonna end on whatever the hell that was see you in the next one everybody

你是否感到悲伤呢？如果是的话，请点赞这个视频并确保订阅，因为这是我们目前所做的事情。嗯，好吧，让我们试着摆脱一些那些阴郁的情绪。好了，我们将把它带到终点，因为我认为你和我都需要一些可以依靠的东西，那就是更多令人沮丧的事情。那么对未来意味着什么呢？我可以想象有很多人会认为，嘿，低价格并不是世界的末日，如果某个团队想要为了扩大市场份额而亏本，这是他们的选择，可以，趁着太阳还没落下时赶快行动对吧。但是问题在于，这些人工低价会给人们创造一种期望，而这种期望会对整个行业产生重大的影响。如果有人可以用十美元买到五双笑脸拖鞋，那么他们就慢慢地逐渐习惯了这种标准。现在，强迫劳动、被剥削的零售商、环境排放和垃圾填埋都成为了人们的期望。团队创建的成功在我们作为一个社会方面所说明的是，我们已经进入了近乎反乌托邦的消费主义文化，我们期望可以在任何时候得到我们想要的任何东西，而且还要以最优惠的价格得到，为了得到它，我们愿意放弃几乎任何理性思考。而像团队这样的公司为了赶超1%的顶层竞争，不得不向消费者承诺越来越多，但完全不考虑后果。现在，我们被训练来对一切都有这种期望，这加剧了团队整个商业模式建立在欺骗和剽窃文化之上的情况，我们正在摧毁制造商和小企业成功的机会，因为他们不仅不能与团队的价格竞争，而且他们的东西还被直接盗版。看吧，我知道购物很难。这就是为什么我们的频道很受欢迎，因为我们试着解释我们必须购买才能过上生活的产品和公司。这些天，仅仅在杂货店买个番茄都意味着你无意中支持有毒农药、剥削劳工、导致全球变暖。人们以为他们在做出一种选择，但实际上他们做出了数十种他们自己都不知道的选择。但是当我们看到像团队这样的网站出现，看到它们的受欢迎程度，我们必须考虑的不只是那么好的交易意味着什么。如果我们希望有一个繁荣而不是淹没在廉价垃圾中的未来，我们需要考虑我们购买的东西以及我们的钱去了哪里以及我们的购买行为对我们周围世界意味着什么。现在我知道离一年中最浓重的消费季节只有几周的时间了，我们可以想象人们会疯狂购买他们认为应该买给所爱之人的东西，而像团队这样的销售额将失控地飙升。我们将会制作更多关于圣诞节的内容，迎接这个美好的节日季节，希望你会感到兴奋。但是请，如果我们可以给你一个不请自来的建议，那就是今年不要在T.M.U.购物，因为你只是在浪费钱，而且可能会让别人的生活变得更糟。哦天啊，这个结局真是让人沮丧，我们应该说些像是去本地购物、支持小企业、购买经验之类的话，可是我们偏偏以那些什么玩意作为结束。大家会在下一个视频中相见。