Dropshipping can be a low-cost way to start selling online as you don’t have to worry about holding physical inventory. A third-party manufacturer or wholesaler handles product development and order fulfillment.
With the availability of several suppliers and tools, Temu is one platform that is piquing dropshippers’ interest. Temu is appealing and highly popular because it offers a seemingly endless variety of products at very low prices.
However, Temu doesn’t support dropshipping, so while the margins are there, the logistics aren’t ideal. Let’s take a closer look to determine if Temu is a good fit for you to make money online.
What Is Temu?
Temu is a China-based online marketplace that sells products directly from manufacturers. It functions similarly to Amazon, but Temu sellers are typically also the suppliers themselves. Temu, in particular, is known for its variety of products and competitive pricing. Plus, it puts you in direct contact with manufacturers.
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Why Use Temu for Dropshipping
Temu is appealing for entrepreneurs who want to start dropshipping, mainly because it’s affordable, has a huge variety, and allows you to have direct contact with suppliers and manufacturers.
However, Temu doesn’t actually support dropshipping. So, it requires workarounds. And if it catches on to your strategy, it can disable your account without warning.
If you want cheap products and are willing to jump through hoops, Temu dropshipping can be an option for you.
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Challenges of Dropshipping With Temu
To start, Temu doesn’t actually allow dropshipping. It says so in its help center:
Because Temu isn’t an actual dropshipper and doesn’t actively promote dropshipping, it fulfills your dropshipping orders the same as it fulfills all its other orders. This often includes its bright orange product packaging, which is likely not on-brand for your business.
Shipping can also take up to two weeks. Some orders arrive in separate packages, and some packages contain multiple orders, so it requires some extra picking, packing, and sorting as well.
Plus, if you start ordering a bunch of items and sending them to different addresses, Temu may flag or shut down your account.
Other challenges include dodgy product quality and communication challenges due to language, time differences, and cultural barriers.
How to Start Dropshipping on Temu
If you want to dropship on Temu, you’ll need to come up with some workarounds—and it may not technically be dropshipping, per se. But the idea is similar: You build the brand, drive the sales, and communicate with customers, while you rely on Temu to supply the actual products.
How you get those products to customers depends on how you want to do it.
One option is to use a third-party platform as a liaison between your store and Temu. Essentially, you would port over Temu product information to your website and make the sale, then the third-party platform would send the order to Temu for fulfillment.
An example of this would be the Cartifind Shopify App. You can find products from Temu, AliExpress, Amazon, 1688, and Shein, and the app will work with a fulfillment partner on your behalf.
The Zopi Shopify App functions similarly. It can connect your store to Temu along with AliExpress and then syncs with CJDropshipping to handle the fulfillment logistics.
There are other Shopify apps that function similarly to Cartifind and Zopi as well.
Another tool to consider is Commercium by ConstaCloud. This platform integrates Temu with your Shopify Plus website. Again, it’s not exactly dropshipping because you still have to manage logistics (or find another party to do that for you), but it’s an option.
Because Temu explicitly prohibits dropshipping, it can ban your account if it notices lots of orders from the same account going to different addresses. That’s where these third-party platforms come into play because they essentially create a fulfillment center for you—so everything ships from Temu to a single destination, which then distributes the packages to their final destinations.
Alternatives to Dropshipping With Temu
If Temu dropshipping isn’t the right route for you, you can check out the following:
AliExpress & Alibaba
Unlike Temu, the AliExpress and Alibaba marketplaces allow dropshipping. Also based in China, these platforms have rivaling product collections and pricing to Temu.
Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)
Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) allows sellers to store their products in Amazon’s fulfillment centers, where Amazon handles storage, packaging, and shipping, as well as customer service and returns.
Wholesale Purchasing & Reselling
Temu has a wide range of low-cost products that can potentially be resold for a profit. This is allowed by its terms of service. You can also negotiate with vendors on Temu to get the best prices. On the other hand, it requires you to hold and handle the inventory yourself.
Affiliate Marketing
If you love using Temu, you can encourage others to join as well—and get rewarded for it. You can earn commissions from the Temu Affiliate & Influencer Program each time someone signs up and makes a purchase using your affiliate link. It offers 5% to 20% in commissions.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
These are some questions we often encounter about Temu dropshipping.
Can you dropship from Temu?
Technically, no you can’t dropship from Temu. You can, however, enlist third-party platforms to model the dropshipping workflow for purchases from Temu.
How did Temu become such a big company?
Temu became such a big company because it has tons of products available at cheap prices. It was also easy for Temu to piggyback off the success of Alibaba and AliExpress.
Where does Temu ship from?
Temu ships from China.
Is dropshipping on Temu reliable?
No, dropshipping on Temu isn’t reliable. It’s technically prohibited, so it’s not set up for smooth dropshipping workflows and operations. Dropshipping with Temu typically requires some sort of third-party involvement.
Is Temu a dropshipping wholesaler?
No, Temu is not a dropshipping wholesaler. It offers a place for manufacturers and suppliers to list products for sale on its marketplace website.
Bottom Line
While dropshipping on Temu may not be the best way to use the marketplace to source products, it can still be a great resource. Dropshipping is a great online business idea—it’s simply a matter of finding the best platform(s) to do it with.
