Talk:Temu

Undisclosed paid tag

It certainly would appear that it is the case the article was created by an employee or a media company as the user that created it was perma blocked for doing just that. I have removed a WP:PUFFERY sentence and its reference as the news article it was linking appeared to be a fake site. The "news" site was full of typos, invalid formatting, had no "about us" info that I could find, and the domain was registered by google domains (which in its own right isnt that bad), and they have a free "lets encrypt" SSL cert. The source also doesn't meet the requirements of WP: Source and if you read the linked source, its obliviously an ad, which further backs up the Undisclosed paid tag. The article appears to be neutral now, and the linked sources seem to be reliable Dillard421♂♂ ^{(talk to me)} 17:06, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Dillard, if "The article appears to be neutral now, and the linked sources seem to be reliable" was true in late December '22, is it also true now? If it is true now, why the need for the article to announce that an earlier version was the product of undeclared paid editing? -- Hoary (talk) 06:40, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Request for more clean up and removing flag

Hi, regarding the homepage flag, while the page has recently been cut down to such an extent that there’s very little cleanup required, I did spot a couple of minor things that could also be fixed and should resolve all outstanding issues mentioned in the flag.

There are still two bad sources (Source #1 and Source #5) based on the rules in WP:PRIMARY because they both cite the Temu Contact Us page for information about the company being headquartered in Boston. I’ve found a news piece in the Jerusalem Post that has the same information and can replace the Contact Us page.

I am new to Wikipedia and was not involved in any previous edits on this page and do not know the identity of these editors. But I do work for Temu and I promise to follow all conflict of interest rules. With my public declaration of a conflict here and at the top of the page, and the corrected source, there’s no longer any need for the flag.

Here are the changes I suggest:

1. The first place with that bad source is in the Infobox, so here’s what the updated Location line in the Infobox would look like with the new source to replace it. (There’s no reason for the company’s exact street address to be listed in this article, so the street address should also be removed from the Infobox, as below):

| hq_location_country = Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.

2. The second place with that bad source is the first sentence in the History and business model section. Here’s what that sentence would look like with the new source:

Although owned by Pinduoduo Inc, Temu is operated in the United States by US-based WhaleCo Inc. Temu is headquartered in Boston.

3. According to the WP:TC, labels are meant to “are meant to be temporary notices that lead to an effort to fix the problem, not a permanent badge of shame.” According to the section above from December 24, 2022, “The article appears to be neutral now, and the linked sources seem to be reliable”.

As the sources will be even better with the Contact Us page replaced with a secondary source, there’s no need for the flag anymore.

4. In addition, the flag reference to “notability” does not account for sources not in the article and/or recently removed by other editors. In addition to the existing sources from CNBC and the Wall Street Journal which are already in the article, there are many feature stories about the app that can be used, including stories about Temu in [1](Wired), [2] (Entrepreneur Magazine), [3] (Business Insider), the [4] (MIT Technology Review), and the [5] (San Francisco Examiner). Citations should not have to be in the article to establish notability.

Thanks for your time. Snowy2000 (talk) 02:45, 7 February 2023 (UTC) Snowy2000 (talk) 02:45, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

References

Sources to show Notability

I saw that a Notability flag has been added to the top of this article. In addition to the existing sources from CNBC and the Wall Street Journal which are already in the article, there are also several additional sources that should be integrated into the article which should establish the Notability of the subject, including stories about Temu in [6](Wired), [7] (Entrepeneur Magazine), [8] (Business Insider), the [9] (MIT Technology Review), and the [10] (San Francisco Examiner). Since as I mentioned above I have a COI as a Temu employee, I will not directly edit this article myself without permission. But I do plan to propose request edits for new content to be added to this article based on these sources and others. Snowy2000 (talk) 17:27, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

It was Innisfree987 who applied the "notability" template; let's see what Innisfree987 says. -- Hoary (talk) 06:41, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Hoary, thanks for giving me a chance to weigh in but this paid editor already pinged me (and dozens of other volunteers) soliciting work for their company; I had a brief look and the coverage seemed insufficiently sustained, hence the tag, but as I said to them on my talk page, that’s all the bandwidth I can offer for now. Appropriate neutral parties should feel free to make whatever changes they see fit without pinging me. Happy editing, Innisfree987 (talk) 08:06, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Copy edit

I did a couple of passes and removed the ce needed banner as no longer true. I did remove the address from the info box, which I find a reasonable edit request. My interest is extremely limited and I am not going to get into the sourcing part of the request, which I leave to others. I have little knowledge of notability requirements for corporations anyway. No need to ping me about this article in future. Elinruby (talk) 01:10, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Proposal for Temu Article Updates, February 2023

Hi,

I have a few updates to propose for this article to improve it. As I mentioned above I have a conflict of interest as a Temu employee, which is why I’m posting these suggestions here for an independent editor to review. Thanks for your interest and your assistance with this request.

1. The second sentence in the “History and business model” section (“labeled as headquartered”) is grammatically incorrect and missing a reliable source. Here’s a suggested replacement:

Temu is headquartered in Boston, and owned by U.S. based WhaleCo Inc., a subsidiary of PDD Holdings.

2. There is not much discussion about what the app actually does, despite many available sources. To rectify this, I propose adding two new sentences to the end of the first paragraph in the “History and business model” section (right after the sentence with the quotation from Wired):

The platform offers a wide variety of products including clothing, electronics, and home goods. Temu also offers discounts and gifts for playing games on the app.

3. There have been several articles written about Temu that describe what is new or innovative about it - helping to explain why it has been the most popular app in the U.S. for several months. I suggest adding a new paragraph to the end of the History and business model section that reports what reputable sources say.

Shira Ovide of the Washington Post said that the app is designed to make the experience of online shopping more fun by providing users with “whimsy”. Rob Walker of Fast Company described Temu’s app as a kind of “shopatainment”, where users are presented with a scroll of products and offers, similar to how TikTok presents videos.

4. There has also been some critical press about Temu, especially from Time Magazine. I propose to include it at the end of the History and business model section:

Time magazine reported in December 2022 that as a result of a program offering free goods for customer referrals, invitations to join the app had spread quickly on Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. Time also said in December 2022 that in the first few months of operation, there were 31 complaints to the Better Business Bureau about items arriving late or not at all; the company responded to every complaint, although not all had been resolved by the time the article appeared.

5. Temu expanded into Canada and the Canadian expansion was covered in multiple press outlets. I propose adding this sentence to the end of the second paragraph in the History and business model section:

In February 2023, Temu launched its app in Canada.

6. Temu’s received substantial press coverage about running multiple ads during the 2023 Super Bowl ads, including in the Washington Post, CNBC, Forbes, and Fortune. I propose the following sentence be added to the end of the second paragraph in the History and business model section (just after the new one proposed above):

An advertisement for Temu ran twice during Super Bowl LVII on February 12, 2023.In the week following the Super Bowl the rate of US downloads for the Temu app outpaced those of other apps from major US retailers like Target, Walmart and Amazon. There were about 24 million downloads of the app as of February 21, 2023.

Thank you for considering these additional proposals to improve this article. Snowy2000 (talk) 08:50, 24 February 2023 (UTC) Snowy2000 (talk) 08:50, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

I am revising Item 4 to reflect a recent update to the page. Please find the last sentence of the third paragraph in the History section, which reads:

Online reviews however indicated significant customer dissatisfaction,  including "fake/scammy listings, damaged and delayed deliveries, fake ads, incorrect orders and a lack of customer service".

First, the quote is incorrect – the word “fake” is never used in it. The statement is anecdotal, sensationalistic and from a blog source that’s not terribly reliable. WP: TechCrunch. More focused criticism (and support) from a much better source (Time magazine) is available. The quote is also framed on Wikipedia as “evergreen” language - as though such severe criticism will continue to be valid forever. That isn’t the intended meaning of the blogger. Criticism of Temu is appropriate under Wikipedia policy but should be neutral and as specific as possible. In addition, the press has offered lots of other anecdotal accounts of people who are very pleased with Temu. WP:Due suggests balancing of consumer reaction is in order. Therefore, I propose replacing that sentence with the following:

Time magazine reported in December 2022 that as a result of a program offering free goods for customer referrals, invitations to join the app had spread quickly on Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. Time also said in December 2022 that in the first few months of operation, there were 31 complaints to the Better Business Bureau about items arriving late or not at all; the company responded to every complaint, although not all had been resolved by the time the article appeared. Time also reported on several consumers who said they were satisfied with the products and service they had received from Temu In January 2023, a TechCrunch blogger reported that some online reviewers had also complained of goods arriving late or damaged and problems with customer service.

This version is better than the existing sentence about criticism in that it accurately describes the complaints and the company’s responses to them with specifics rather than vague allusions. It also provides context about how frequent these complaints were and when they were made, thus eliminating the “evergreen” character of the existing sentence. Snowy2000 (talk) 09:23, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Review comments

I cannot review this subject, as I know nothing about the subject (I use a Nokia 2760). However, the proposed edits look neutral and can well improve the stub page. Some times COI rules are overly restrictive, and I'd encourage @Snowy2000: to commit the changes if he cannot find an acknowledgeable reviewer. ale (talk) 11:22, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

I am going to agree with ale. The citations are all correct. The suggested edits seem fine. If you don't get an official go ahead from someone knowledgeable, go ahead and make the changes. Prairie Astronomer ^{Contributions} 16:36, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

@PrairieAstronomer: Hi again, it’s been over a week and no one else has commented on this proposal. Do I have your explicit permission to implement changes now? I want to be very careful not to violate any COI policies.

Also, I would like to note that I’ve revised Item #4 in the proposal above because the page has since been updated This involves not only adding content but removing content too. Would you be willing to have look at the revision at the bottom of the proposal? Thanks! Snowy2000 (talk) 09:25, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Merchandise

I made a order back in December price was for $47 some odd cents I have not yet received my merchandise.my email is kathyjomorris61@gmIl.com Address : 3 Brownrown rd Avella Pa 15312. If you need the day email me 108.32.25.59 (talk) 12:51, 28 February 2023 (UTC)