Shopping app Temu suspended in Vietnam: state media

Shopping app Temu has been forced to suspend its services in Vietnam after it failed to register with authorities, state media said on Thursday.

Goods ordered on Temu were no longer being cleared through customs in Vietnam, state media reported, after the company missed an end-of-November deadline to register with the ministry of industry and trade.

It was not clear when or if Temu, which is owned by Chinese e-commerce giant PDD Holdings, would be able to resume business.

Separately, online fashion retailer Shein said that the Vietnamese version of its website was “temporarily unavailable”, adding that it was working with the ministry of industry and trade “to register our e-commerce services”.

Shein, which was founded in China but is now headquartered in Singapore, had faced the same deadline as Temu to register, but there was no reference to the company in state media Thursday.

Neither Shein nor Vietnamese authorities immediately responded to a request for comment from AFP.

On Temu’s app, Vietnamese has been removed as an interface language. Users now have the option to select from English, Chinese and French.

The announcement comes after the ministry raised concerns in October over the stunningly low prices on the online marketplace and their impact on Vietnamese producers.

A spokesperson for Temu told AFP that they were working with Vietnamese authorities to register their business.

“We have submitted all required documents for the registration,” the spokesperson said.

Temu has sucked in consumers across the world with its low prices and all-powerful algorithms.

Since it began operations in Vietnam in October, it has caught the eye of Vietnamese consumers with discounts of up to 90 percent and free shipping, according to state media.

But the month of its launch, the ministry raised concerns about the “unusually low prices of its goods, which may impact domestically produced products”, according to the official Vietnam News Agency.

“It is unclear whether they (the goods) are authentic,” VNA cited the ministry as saying.

After launching in 2022, online shopping app Temu surged to become one of the most popular online shopping sites in the United States.

It is also one of the fastest-growing apps in Europe, but the EU has hit the shopping platform with a probe over concerns the site is doing too little to stop the sale of illegal products.

In April, regulators in South Korea opened an investigation into Temu on suspicion of unfair practices including false advertising and poor product quality.