With 2 million monthly users, SHEIN and Temu are taking off in this country

According to data released last week, Australia's consumer price index (CPI) rose 3.4% year-on-year in January, the same as in December last year, but lower than market expectations of 3.6%.

The RBA has raised interest rates by 425 basis points to a 12-year high of 4.35% since May 2022, and has not ruled out another rate hike if necessary to get inflation back into the bank's 2-3% target range .

Against this backdrop, the cost of living in Australia has been rising steadily, while online shopping has become increasingly normalized. A number of e-commerce platforms with "low prices" as their selling point have taken advantage of the situation and have emerged, occupying a huge market share in Australia's retail industry.

Among them are Chinese cross-border e-commerce platforms SHEIN and Temu. Australian media said that the sudden rise of these two ultra-low-price e-commerce platforms has surprised more people. They also believe that these two platforms have brought increasing pressure to local Australian brands.

According to Roy Morgan's survey results, the combined number of users of the two platforms currently exceeds 2 million. Among them, SHEIN has nearly 800,000 people shopping for clothing and accessories in Australia each month, and its annual sales are expected to reach 1 billion Australian dollars.

Temu , thanks to its super prices, free delivery and aggressive marketing and media investment, has established a huge user base here in just one year, with 1.26 million shoppers per month and annual sales expected to reach 1.3 billion Australian dollars.

In terms of user groups, "young parents" and "large families with more members" are more inclined to choose SHEIN and Temu. Super prices and convenience are the reasons for the platform's success.

Interestingly, retired Australians also have a high percentage of shopping on Temu, especially during COVID, where they have increased their usage of the app, again citing the platform’s ultra-low prices, which helped them buy more for the same price.

In terms of gender, three out of every 10 Temu users are male, while 80% of SHEIN shoppers are female.

The competition from these platforms is not just for discount stores in Australia, but also for local department stores. In order to reduce the pressure of life in the inflationary environment, the main target audience of department stores has turned their shopping channels to SHEIN and Temu, which are more cost-effective.

Take David Jones, for example. Its audience is twice as likely to shop at Temu and three times as likely to shop at SHEIN than the average Australian.

Myer ’s audience is 67% more likely to shop at Temu than the average Australian and twice as likely to shop at Shein.

Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine also said that the performance of SHEIN and Temu surprised everyone and no one could have expected such platforms to exist in the Australian market; the pressure of living costs has contributed to the amazing rise of SHEIN and Temu as Australians want to buy more things with more money.

SHIEN

Temu

Australia