Aliexpress my impression is you can get "useful" stuff that are odd but usable. But I've had the impression that temu and shein was all "direct to garbage" devices, was this not the case?
They sell the same stuff in my experience. I would describe Temu as selling the top 10% of AliExpress that's the most popular, with faster and more reliable shipping since they use huge centralized fulfillment warehouses, similar to Amazon warehouses.
Aliexpress also changed a lot there. I'm not sure if it goes for all vendors, but my last purchases have been very fast. Some even shipped from Europe, but even if from China the wait time of several weeks did not happen anymore.
I assume they made a similar change.
I've only used Temu a few times, but in my limited experience it is just Aliexpress but with a slick gamified interface on top. Alibaba sellers supplies the same stuff to Aliexpress, Temu, a ton of the Instagram ads and even a lot of the cheap Amazon stuff.
They are all different frontends for the same backend - amazon is also a frontend to the same thing but with prices 2-3x'd.
You can't lump shein and temu in the same bucket. My wife is an avid shein user and from what I can tell the quality so far is really good for what you pay.
Shein is in reality just an aliexpress/baba wrapper, but they put huge amounts of effort into accurate sizing charts for their clothing, and their customer reviews system actively incentivises buyers to upload pictures of themselves wearing the purchased clothing. So as a potential buyer you can actually see the piece of clothing being worn by someone with a similar body shape than your own.
My impression of temu is they are trying to be as misleading as possible with their listings, and the value for money is absolutely terrible because of that: you think you are getting a 6' xmas tree for $20, but when it arrives it's 6".
Shein biggest thing is actually AI/ML. As far I remember, what they really invested is on the service per see. Shein gather data from consumers on internet, on what's the latest trends/art, and just create clothes. And they do this like, always.
There's no "Summer" or "Winter" season clothes. They just update them continually.
> Shein biggest thing is actually AI/ML. As far I remember, what they really invested is on the service per see. Shein gather data from consumers on internet, on what's the latest trends/art, and just create clothes.
Few years ago there was a trend in online ads showing t-shirts and hoodies with "realistic" print ons of animals, optical illusions, mazes, etc. Realistic only on photos or rather renderings. Felt like some form of brainrot. It was all Chinese clone shops or outright scams. Luckily the trend is dead now.
So, the same as Temu.
Temu "produces" their own clothes, etc? I was under the impression that it was just a marketplace.
They all are. That doesn't mean they don't tell their vendors what to produce at what price. That's the business model of Chinese fast fashion after all.