Consoomers / Consoomer Culture - Because if it has a recogniseable brand on it, I’d buy it!

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The Real Slim Shady said:
How does the loophole work?
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you mean the one where china's shipping costs get comped if they ship to the US or most European countries because it's considered a "developing" country for some dumb reason?

the law is meant to help people in actually underdeveloped countries ship mail overseas so that individuals can contact loved ones and small companies can do business with how difficult and expensive shipping would be from their tiny backwards country- the more developed country foots the bill
china is NOT a tiny underdeveloped country however, but somehow they tricked the UN into categorizing them as one
that's why some guy in fuck you mainland china can sell crap from his storage for like 20 cents a piece, he loses nothing on shipping and earns probably 19 cents more than the lousy plastic garbage cost to manufacture per item
 
The Real Slim Shady said:
How does the loophole work?
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Loophole perhaps isn't the exactly right word, but the de minimis rule means shipments worth under a certain dollar amount are allowed to be imported without customs duties or taxes, and with Shein, Temu, etc. sending parcels directly to customers they don't come anywhere near the threshold and so skate happily through not having to pay anything at the gate, so they don't have to charge that to customers either meaning they can keep prices barely above costs and often times below just to get you on the platform.
 
The Real Slim Shady said:
How does the loophole work?
Click to expand...
Cuntspiracy Man said:
you mean the one where china's shipping costs get comped if they ship to the US or most European countries because it's considered a "developing" country for some dumb reason?
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PandaChai said:
Loophole perhaps isn't the exactly right word, but the de minimis rule means shipments worth under a certain dollar amount are allowed to be imported without customs duties or taxes, and with Shein, Temu, etc. sending parcels directly to customers they don't come anywhere near the threshold and so skate happily through not having to pay anything at the gate, so they don't have to charge that to customers either meaning they can keep prices barely above costs and often times below just to get you on the platform.
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Cuntspiracy Man said:
with all due respect i don't trust this youtuber
he's just another shill trying to worm his adverts into the market of people who are typically against that sort of thing by pretending to side with them
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You don't have to trust him, I was more sharing it for the section about shipping since we're all talking about it.

Other youtubers have covered the same topic:

And articles:
 
bliblblblbbllb said:
Half of one page is the ingredients, a quarter of one page is the recipe, a quarter of a page is a picture of the ingredients posed next to a serving of the food.... And the entire page opposite is the author's meandering opinions on what is and isn't good in vegetarian chili- and it continues to the next page.
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I’ll always hold my tongue when criticizing the stories shared with recipes, because I consider them a part of the essential “why”: to why I should try this particular recipe, why it was seemingly important enough to write down, who it came from, etc.

I feel the same way about card games, where you can explain the rules, but it’s almost expected and I feel like there is a strong inclination to also explain why you like this game, and explain its significance to the person you’re introducing it to.
 
Kalsarikännit said:
I’ll always hold my tongue when criticizing the stories shared with recipes, because I consider them a part of the essential “why”: to why I should try this particular recipe, why it was seemingly important enough to write down, who it came from, etc.
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If you go direct to a famous chef’s website instead of hitting the first result on Google, you don’t tend to get the unnecessary SEO filler, but it’s annoying if there’s something specific you want to make. There are browser extensions and apps that strip out the filler, too.
 
NoReturn said:
You don't have to trust him, I was more sharing it for the section about shipping since we're all talking about it.

Other youtubers have covered the same topic:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=quGoGgbP-aE https://youtube.com/watch?v=xO9M74m7dhE
And articles:
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oh look, more things some of us knew are terrible finally being discovered by the common population way too late
it just won't stop happening
 
Doomscrolling was a somewhat vague litmus test of someone's worthwhileability as an adult human. Hearing them use Temu, in any capacity, is a completely binary flag. I can SORT OF understand getting xmas laces for your work shoes or a little card holder or something, but clothes? Let alone tools? Kitchen shit? Actual manbaby.
 
bliblblblbbllb said:
Half of one page is the ingredients, a quarter of one page is the recipe, a quarter of a page is a picture of the ingredients posed next to a serving of the food.... And the entire page opposite is the author's meandering opinions on what is and isn't good in vegetarian chili- and it continues to the next page.
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Trapper said:
If you go direct to a famous chef’s website instead of hitting the first result on Google, you don’t tend to get the unnecessary SEO filler, but it’s annoying if there’s something specific you want to make. There are browser extensions and apps that strip out the filler, too.
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It's not always obvious, but at least online you can usually find a "Jump to Recipe" button:
1736956930747.png 1736956971650.png
 
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Sarcastic sockpuppet said:
The secret for Temu's success seems to be that the app comes with free phone games where you can win gift cards. People open their phone without the intent to buy anything, just to play the game and maybe win something. The games recreates a mini-casino experience that fries their synapses and makes them addicted.
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The app is spyware. Delete it now if you have it
 
Sarcastic sockpuppet said:
The secret for Temu's success seems to be that the app comes with free phone games where you can win gift cards. People open their phone without the intent to buy anything, just to play the game and maybe win something. The games recreates a mini-casino experience that fries their synapses and makes them addicted.
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I've used Temu off and on to buy cheap stickers in bulk, the "game" isn't even that. You open the app and it immediately opens with a spinning wheel that gives you like a $200 credit and tiny text that says "wheel is for illustrative purposes only, all customers receive best result." Then you claim the $200 credit...and it takes you to a special deals "for you" page that's based on things you've seen/bought and it asks you to pick 4 items and you'll get 3 free PLUS the 200 dollar credit. Then it has a 10 minute timer and you have to pick items in 10 minutes or you get NONE OF ANYTHING BLAAAAAGGHH!!! Except the timer resets if you let it run out, it just phrases it like "hurry, 10 bonus minutes before you lose all your deals!!" So you click shit you wouldn't mind getting for free and then it's like "if you get $40 worth of items in your cart you'll also get $40 credit to use on anything!" So you have to add MOOOOREEEEE to your cart.
Then when this loop finally ends you've got like $50 of crap you didn't even want in your cart BUT ACTUALLY it's all worth $700 and was all on sale and totally not actually listed for 29 cents apiece all the time anyway, so it's an insane bargain! AND you qualify for free shipping!!! So then you place that order and it finally lets you out onto the home screen that it should've just opened to in the first place.
And I have to mention that you can't select the same item twice, so if you want 2 of something during this event you have to hope there's an identical listing, which there almost always is, but it's just different enough that it's probably not right. Oh, and everything shows up whenever the fuck and some things never show up at all, so at least it was all like a dollar per item anyway.
It's literally such a struggle to open Temu and go straight to the home page and only buy the thing you want. Even if you manage to avoid all that, it tries to get you to add more to your cart for deals and recommends products that are on sale and limited supply and already in carts!

Wish was better because you could trust you'd get your product 98% of the time, it wasn't so overwhelming, didn't push on your FOMO, and didn't constantly send you emails. Temu is worse in every conceivable way, it has to be some kind of psychological warfare.
 
Chromeo said:
X
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Well why the fuck are you using it then?

Temu is dogshit in every conceivable way even just in the way it functions, and that's not even touching on it being a Chinese spyware app that is selling your banking information, and it's depressing watching people get sucked into it
Every bastard wants to say "nooo I'm different, I don't get addicted I just buy stuff I need" but, aside from the fact that the very act of using the app at all is a terrible idea, you find that it's not true

Think to an era of your life before Temu- genuinely, how often did you buy little items and trinkets? It wasn't once a day, was it? It wasn't once a week, it was likely barely once a month. How often did you buy little gadgets and cutesy decor and little crap devices? If it wasn't at your fingertips telling you that you want it, you'd never think "boy I sure could use this hyperspecific crap"
 
Cuntspiracy Man said:
Well why the fuck are you using it then?
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I said "used" in the past tense, asshole. I was buying bulk amounts of cheap-ass rolls of stickers for work. It was dirt cheap crap, which is what I was looking for. Maybe my tone didn't come across right, but I wasn't actively spending 50 dollars every time I opened the fucking app, it just pushes you to like someone's life depends on it.
Cuntspiracy Man said:
Every bastard wants to say "nooo I'm different, I don't get addicted I just buy stuff I need" but, aside from the fact that the very act of using the app at all is a terrible idea, you find that it's not true

Think to an era of your life before Temu- genuinely, how often did you buy little items and trinkets? It wasn't once a day, was it? It wasn't once a week, it was likely barely once a month. How often did you buy little gadgets and cutesy decor and little crap devices? If it wasn't at your fingertips telling you that you want it, you'd never think "boy I sure could use this hyperspecific crap"
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You're making up this whole fucking story about me based on the worst consoomer shit you've seen in this thread, all because I've used Temu in the past tense and attested to what the experience is like. Take a fucking chill pill.
 
Temu is a consumer hellhole turned to the max but some people in this thread keep forgetting that before chinese apps, before Alibaba and Aliexpress, and even before Amazon there were (and still are) "Everything for $1" stores. And they were full of little useful and useless trinkets, shit quality items which broke after a short time. These stores where you could buy the cheapest shit like kitchen sponges, tiny cups, impractical strainers, polyester tea towels, tiny soaps, candles, and so on.

In Europe there are Flying Tiger stores, which are the same idea but with a premium brand attached. They are full of overpriced novelty items, toys, syntetic sweets and some DIY and art supplies (though a proper art supply store has higher quality items and materials for less). They are designed around impulse purchases and I know people who go there every two weeks or so, for whatever reason. The store is organized as long, single alley, so you always have to walk through the entirety of it (how is this fire code compliant, I don't know).

1737044041052.png 1737044486044.png

I was there a few times and I could never find anything worth buying, even if something was functionally and quality okay, it was either 5x overpriced or looked like shit.

All the things that came after were the same idea, just refined and turbocharged with technology of the day.
 
Its very frustrating to see something on etsy being sold for 18 dollars, then look it up and find it on temu for whatever stupid cheap less than a dollar price, but I don't want to sign up for temu and give china my entire identity. If buying anything new its a good idea to make sure its not from temu. Unfortunately it almost always is, and I still don't have the item I was originally looking for after months of wanting. Fuck temu.
 
Brenda Holiday said:
Its very frustrating to see something on etsy being sold for 18 dollars, then look it up and find it on temu for whatever stupid cheap less than a dollar price, but I don't want to sign up for temu and give china my entire identity. If buying anything new its a good idea to make sure its not from temu. Unfortunately it almost always is, and I still don't have the item I was originally looking for after months of wanting. Fuck temu.
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Yeah. There are a bunch of articles about Amazon wanting to compete with Temu, but you can go between Amazon and Temu and see the same products in the same places.
 
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