I went to get a few things from Temu on Saturday 23rd March and when I attempted to go the checkout, I discovered they have TRIPLED the minimum spend requirement for FREE postage.
It is now AU$45 minimum spend to get Free postage.
This was expected to occur by many here, but this big increase in the minimum spend for Free postage will not be at all popular.
I believe this reduce their sales, many people will cancel their purchase and walk away from Temu at the last minute as I did.
May I ask you to explain further? I’m a regular Temu customer and have only ever seen the $15 minimum requirement.
As I previously mentioned this only happened on Saturday 23rd March 2024. You will be notified of this if you attempt to go to the checkout with less than the AU$45 minimum spend.
I checked again a few hours ago and they are still demanding the AU$45 minimum spend before you can proceed thorough the checkout process and complete your purchase.
Previously it has always been the AU$15 minimum spend to get the FREE shipping.
This will not be a popular move with Temu customers as a TRIPLING of the minimum spend for FREE shipping is a very big increase, but it is not an entirely unexpected move by Temu.
Yes, i found it had increased the limit to $35 for free shipping, or even to let you purchase. Haven’t checked recently to see if increased again. Am at the point of not using them again because of this increasing limit.
Hello jputting. Thank you for your answer.
I just visited the Temu website to finalize an order (before reading your last msg) and, lo & behold, the minimum spend for free delivery is now $35.
How interesting is that? Different limits on different days? Or is it based on spending frequency or perhaps postcodes (lol)?
I’m one of those annoying people that needs to know all, so I shall ask them🙋♀️
I’ll let you know …
It is likely it is based on the user. Temu is spending a lot of money acquiring its customers. It will be relying on loyalty to start paying back (recoup) costs of acquiring a customer. This will come as higher long term costs where customers may start to feel like they have billionaire budgets to start ‘shopping like a billionaire’.
Well, I’m bound to agree with you.
They certainly have my loyalty, for mainly selfish reasons. As long as one carefully checks the description of items; particularly dimensions rather than images, one can’t beat their pricing. Packaging is strangely frugal, even though somehow it seems to (mostly) work.
However, it’s their “no shipping/postage charge” under a certain limit (now $35 or $45) and their after sales service that I find most impressive.
I have never managed to buy anything from Amazon under $59 without a shipping/postage charge. If it arrives damaged, the rigmarole to return it and get a refund is time consuming and, in my opinion, quite ridiculous. Whilst Temu accept returns, even for ‘change of mind’ or ‘mistake orders’. This I know, I’m ashamed to admit, from recent experience! The refund, if requested as a credit, is instant. If requested as a deposit to one’s account, does take 5 days!
Returning an item is extremely simple … take the item in its original packaging,(seemingly only if it was boxed) take to a post office along with Temu’s emailed document on your phone and … that’s it.
More often than not, Temu refunds you & asks you to keep the item as well, to my local Goodwill store’s delight.
That’s enough of my pro-Temu rant.
Thanks. I’d love to know how they choose…
Understand. We all have different criteria for what we do and why. I agree with a lot of what you said. I guess that is what draws people to use them in the beginning. Is just a matter of where your cut-off limit is. No?
I buy my compression socks on Temu, at the price I pay it’s a few pair each time as it is so cheap. Postage even if I have to pay is still a huge saving on buying one pair of socks here in a store. One pair of 20 - 30 mm Hg compression socks here costs me at least $120, each pair on Temu are around $8. If it was just the normal 15 - 20 mm Hg travel compression socks to buy here they are cheap enough, still a saving on Temu but postage added if not enough spent to get free postage, might not be a great saving in the end.
Not having to pay for shipping is good but yeah, i see what everyone means… minimum $45 spend to get it. So what I do is wait til I have a bunch of stuff I need in my cart and then check out. If it doesnt make it to the min spend, I just wait til theres something else I need. I ignore all entreaties to buy now because there is only one left… there will be more.
Current spend is $47 something for CPAP filters, a new hose, some magnifying glasses for reading, and an insulin pen bag with cooler inserts. I needed all of these.
I have used Paypal for years, recently have had a problem with a Company I have used for 25yrs. for a not expensive Dress that I cannot wear as it is wrongly sized, have paid two lots of postage to them, now still have a dress that is too big, and has a fault on the front, because I do not know how to send a picture of the fault to the Company, they have just wiped me. So I contacted Paypal, they have not only not answered my submissions, its baffling to me. Perhaps because its not a Designer dress, however I feel ripped off by both parties now, with a dress I cannot use. Paypal has plummeted in my mind.
Binned. They were completely useless.
How long has it been since you contacted PayPal?,
Sometimes it is difficult for them to get a purchaser to respond to mediation attempts.
Reapply to PayPal if the normal waiting period for a response has elapsed or asked to have this matter raised by somebody with more senior status.
Do not give up, be persistent and demand answers.
Simply take a few pictures of the dress with your mobile phone, then compose an email on your phone and attach the images to the email and send to both the company and PayPal with full details of your complaint and what would be a satisfactory resolution for you.
How on earth can you state that
“however I feel ripped off by both parties now, with a dress I cannot use.”
You have only lost money to the merchant, NOT PayPal.
PayPal is a free service and they can provide free returns on most goods purchased.
I understand your bitterness with PayPal and your opinion of them has clearly plummeted in your mind, you are owed an appropriate response from them.
PayPal may not always achieve a satisfactory outcome in disputes like this, but your chances of getting a good dispute resolution are far better when you have PayPal in your corner fighting on your behalf for your consumer rights.
That is better than trying to deal with intractable merchants without any back up or support.
In my personal experience, PayPal has only failed to get a satisfactory resolution to a complaint on one single occasion.
That was a deeply dismaying situation, but I will never throw out the baby with the bath water.
I know for a fact that PayPal has served me quite well on the vast majority of merchant issues.
Remember PayPal doesn’t cost you a penny, yet they are on your side fighting for you.
It is much better to have PayPal on your side fighting for you than to have no back up at all.
Sometimes we find ourselves in a no win situation, as consumers it is best to try and learn from our life experience and errors to avoid repeating them.
Arkansas Attorney General in USA has decided to sue Temu over what they claim is that the Temu App is malware. Temu have denied the claim, I guess it will play out in the Courts there.
Some of the suggestions from Cyber.gov.au to protect ourselves when buying online include :
sticking to well known trusted businesses,
avoiding online stores that are very new,
the seller might be based overseas,
the prices are extremely low,
too good to be true offers.
More about the allegations against Temu
From JD Supra:
“Arkansas brought the action pursuant to the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (ADTPA), which prohibits deceptive and unconscionable business practices, and the Arkansas Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), which requires businesses protect data concerning Arkansas residents with reasonable security practices. Numerous allegations by the state against Temu regarding app user personal information include that it is:
The state cites reports and third-party research throughout its complaint to support its claims against Temu.
Temu, in response, said the company was “surprised and disappointed” by General Griffin filing the lawsuit without what the company called “any independent fact finding.”
Sounds a lot like Google doesn’t it? Or Facebook? The unabated collection of consumers data by any business that can do it seems to be a theme these days. It is a serious matter regardless of who does it, a lot of it seems done surreptitiously by big business, wherever they are located. It requires a lot of work by consumers to gain any little bit of control they can manage, over their own data.
If the facts are proven, then a warning for some of how easily they can lose control of what they think is their privacy.
Yes, surfing the net has lost some of its shine for me after learning of all the pitfalls of harvesting my private details and even of malware being installed.
I’m aware that nothing is for free in life and have resisted loyalty cards and such, understanding that it means giving up a lot of my details in exchange for a few cents of savings.
But, I’m increasingly concerned about the way my privacy is being invaded in ever new and creative and hard to pick-up ways.
