Shien has filed a copyright lawsuit against Temu claiming the online retailer is built on “counterfeiting, theft of trade secrets, infringement of intellectual property rights and fraud”.
The interesting part of this lawsuit is that Temu has also filed the same copyright complaint against Shien. In fact, the two platforms have been throwing Mafia-style intimidation tactics at one another for quite a while now. So if you have ever said “Temu is just a reskinned Shien”, that isn’t entirely correct.
Shien has quite a lot of beef with Temu. So much so that the firm has accused Temu of controlling “every aspect of its seller’s activity”. Shien says Temu “directs what products they can list and the prices for which they can sell; encourages them to infringe the intellectual property rights of others; and even prevents them from removing their products from Temu’s website after they have admitted to infringement.”
Temu, on the other hand, says Shien browbeats manufacturers to cut the platform off and prevent them from selling on the platform. Temu also says Shien has paid influencers to spread false and deceptive information about the store in paid advertising. All these allegations were back in 2023 and were dropped before they reached any sort of legal proceeding.
Temu, however, didn’t back down. The platform again sued Shien in 2023 for apparently “falsely imprisoning merchants for doing business with Temu”. Yeah, you can’t make this stuff up.
In the lawsuit, Temu said, “Shein recently has gone so far as to falsely imprison merchants doing business with Temu, including detaining merchant representatives in Shein’s offices for many hours while Shein confiscates the merchants’ electronic devices, obtains access to proprietary Temu information through the merchants’ seller accounts, and threatens the merchants with penalties for doing business with Temu”.
But that is all in the past and believe it or not, have been dropped already. The new lawsuits, on the other hand, are as fiery as ever. On one hand, Shien is going after Temu over various claims that the platform is stealing from it, copying its work and infringing on its intellectual property.
Shien says Temu has “pretended to be Shien on social media to misdirect customers, used Shien’s trademark in Google ads for Temu, stole trade secrets including internal pricing information and Temu loses an average of $30 on every order placed in order to secure the market”.
We’re now just waiting for Temu to countersue with its own list of allegations. Given the past history between the two companies, this will likely happen soon and probably include some ludicrous statements.
The beef between the two companies all stems from Temu’s launch in 2022. Shien owned the market in 2017 when the company launched in the US. However, Temu’s rollout in 2022 saw Shien’s market value drop by $30 billion. Temu has since grown in popularity and now sells three times as much as Shien.
Shien isn’t out of the woods, however. The company is facing its own class-action lawsuit related to industrial-scale copyright infringement of the work of small designers and artists. The lawsuit claims Shien steals designs from artists across the world and replicates them without any royalties. Etsy, for example, has been in the spotlight claiming that Shien browses the website and steals designer ideas and artwork.
Other large clothing labels have also filed lawsuits against Shien. Levi Strauss, H&M, For Love and Lemons, Uniqlo and other brands all claim Shien steals designs.
The company has also come under fire for bad working conditions and a questionable supply chain which relies on cheap Chinese labour. Temu has been accused of the same thing.
A Temu spokesperson reached out to comment on the matter. They said: “The audacity is unbelievable. SHEIN, buried under its own mountain of IP lawsuits, has the nerve to fabricate accusations against others for the very misconduct they’re repeatedly sued for.”
Update – 11:05 – Added comment from Temu spokesperson.
