Original title: Exposure Cut in Half! Temu Sellers Say It's Hard to Do Business

Author: Shuangmu @ AMZ123

Source: AMZ123 Cross-border E-commerce

Cover image source | pexels

In 2026, as tax reform and regulatory policies keep tightening, the growth curve of Chinese cross-border e-commerce platforms continues to face pressure.

Under these circumstances, a series of abnormal signals have been released intensively, further transmitting to cross-border sellers' orders.

Multiple Temu sellers report exposure cut in half

According to our understanding, since mid-to-late October, many Temu sellers have been reporting on social platforms that store traffic and sales are generally sluggish. On October 24, several sellers even said their store exposure directly dropped by half.

"I used to have tens of thousands of exposures every day, but today there are only a little over a thousand. So bizarre."

"In the EU zone it seems the system crashed; exposure is terrifyingly low, and conversion is very low too."

"Same in the US zone, directly no traffic, and order volume hasn't risen either."

One Temu Europe site seller revealed that his store's traffic dropped by over 30% on October 24, with conversion rate and order volume also declining; another US site seller similarly said backend data started dropping from 8 a.m. that day and had almost completely gone to zero by around 10 a.m.

Some sellers believe this may be caused by a platform system failure, a short-term technical fluctuation, and that traffic will recover once the platform fixes it. But some sellers also point out that the Europe site has had relatively poor traffic performance recently, and the sudden drop this time may be related to the upcoming customs handling fee.

It is understood that the latest reform of the Union Customs Code will take effect on November 1. The plan stipulates that for e-commerce parcels under 150 euros sent by non-EU sellers to EU consumers, the EU will levy a 2-euro handling fee per item, equivalent to a "second tax increase"—stacked on top of the 3-euro temporary customs duty that took effect in July, making the single-item combined additional cost for cross-border direct-mail small parcels reach 5 euros.

For some low-priced goods, the already thin profit may even turn into a loss after stacking this additional cost. Take a T-shirt priced at 10 euros as an example: if the unit cost is 3.5 euros, import VAT 1.5 euros, first-leg air freight 2 euros, last-mile delivery 2.5 euros, and platform commission 1 euro, the original profit margin is only 0.5 euros. After adding the 5 euros in duties, without raising prices it almost becomes "subsidizing at a loss."

Therefore, some industry insiders also analyze that Temu may be making front-end adjustments before the new rules take effect: on one hand, compressing advertising budgets and reducing exposure for low-priced direct-ship products; on the other hand, passing the added costs to the consumer side—that is, raising front-end prices.

Recently, several Europe site sellers have observed that Temu's front-end prices have risen again, with increases of two to five times, and this has to some extent affected many sellers' product sales.

As of press time, Temu has not issued a statement about this significant decline in exposure. The two possibilities above may both exist, but compared with the helpless system failure, more sellers are concerned about policy variables.

And from market data, it seems not only sellers are feeling the chill recently.

Temu's growth slows in multiple European countries

Multiple data sources show that after entering Q3 2026, Temu's growth in several European markets has slowed.

Data.ai's published charts show that in September 2026, Temu's download ranking fell out of the top tier in Spain's shopping app chart, ranking 8th; meanwhile, according to agency data, its visits in France in July fell 36.4% year over year, a decline of over 30%.

In the German market, Temu saw its market share decline. According to data from German e-commerce association BEVH, from July to September 2026, sales at the three platforms Temu, AliExpress, and Shein fell 35.5% year over year, with market share dropping from 5.3% to 3.1%.

In terms of timing, it is not hard to identify the trigger for Temu's slowing growth in multiple European countries—the disappearance of cross-border duty-free benefits.

Previously, Temu's rapid expansion in Europe was largely built on the EU's duty-free small parcels under 150 euros combined with China's extreme supply chain, with hidden tax costs usually borne by the platform and sellers or waived by rules. After July 1, the EU officially canceled the small-parcel duty-free policy, raising the cost of direct-mail goods and greatly diminishing price appeal for consumers.

Recently, multiple European consumers with IP addresses in Spain and Poland have posted on social platforms complaining about Temu's product prices. For example, a product originally priced at 20 euros became 40 euros after tax at checkout—doubling entirely.

Under these circumstances, the platform is also adjusting its advertising strategy in parallel.

European e-commerce marketing research firm SMEC, citing Google Shopping data, noted that as of July 2026, Temu's advertising exposure had dropped by about half; another agency's data also shows that in September 2026, Temu had 7,659 active ads in the Meta ecosystem, down 5% from August. Although it is still maintaining high exposure, the pace of advertising expansion has slowed.

According to industry sources, Temu's focus in Europe is currently shifting toward overseas warehouses and localized operations. Public information shows that Temu has already established more than ten self-operated overseas warehouses in countries such as Germany and Poland, and is increasing support for sellers with local inventory and local fulfillment. From this perspective, the platform's strategy seems to have shifted from the original scale-chasing to the current adapting to compliance policies and optimizing profit models.

From the seller's perspective, it is hard to determine for now whether the sales decline is caused by policy adjustments, but there is no doubt that with the new EU rules taking effect, rising costs and higher compliance thresholds are already confirmed facts.

Here is a suggestion for sellers operating in the European market: if you plan to continue doing direct-ship light small items, you need to include the 3-euro duty and 2-euro handling fee in your cost calculations and assess whether the supply still has profit margin; if you have the capability to set up overseas warehouses, you can focus on polishing mid-to-high-price, stable-quality products to match the platform's resource allocation direction, trying to avoid the involution track.