Temu’s sales decline in the US is deepening as the online marketplace drastically cuts spending on advertising targeting American consumers, signalling a shift in focus after President Donald Trump’s tariff barrage.
Compared to a year ago, Temu’s weekly sales dropped more than 25 percent in the period from May 11 through June 8, according to Bloomberg Second Measure, which analyses credit and debit card data. That’s in contrast to other e-commerce platforms run by Shein, Walmart Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., where weekly sales have all returned to year-on-year growth since Trump’s trade truce with China in mid-May.
The deepening sales decline comes alongside Temu’s cut in advertising spending, an abrupt turnaround in strategy after it spent big last year to attract the attention of US shoppers, including running commercials on Super Bowl night.
From creating thousands to tens of thousands of new advertisements daily before April 10, the numbers are now down to dozens or even single digits, with some days in June seeing no new commercials, according to analytics company AppGrowing Global.
“Temu’s sales growth has always been glued to their aggressive advertisements,” said Wu Yanwei, chief content director of AppGrowing’s parent YouCloud. “The abrupt slowdown in advertisement spending is likely turning its growth engines off” in the US, Wu said, noting that Temu was channeling ad spending toward other markets including Europe.
While declining to specifically comment on sales and ad numbers, a spokesperson for Temu said the company has been working with local merchants across regions to deliver stable pricing to consumers.
Temu and Chinese e—commerce shopping platforms such as Shein had for years relied on a tariff exemption on small parcels to ship cheap clothing and household goods to American consumers duty-free. After President Donald Trump plugged that loophole this year, they largely lost the discount-appeal that drew US shoppers in droves.
Still, Shein’s US sales have fared relatively better in recent months. It has managed to reverse a drop in sales to return to growth from June 1, Bloomberg Second Measure data showed. Shein’s single-digit growth since then is similar to levels posted by Walmart’s e-commerce platform.
Shein’s advertising in the US has remained more stable than Temu, with the number of new commercials most days this year being anywhere between dozens to a few hundreds, according to AppGrowing Global.
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