With 4.76 million monthly visits, Temu has won its first battle in this blue ocean market

At the end of August last year, two days after the opening of sites in the Philippines and Chile, Temu officially launched its Israeli site, firing the first shot in entering the Middle East market.

According to foreign media reports, after Temu went online in Israel, it was very popular among local consumers, and the monthly visits to the website increased frequently. According to data provided by SimilarWe, in September 2023, the visits to the Temu website reached 275,000. By October, this number nearly doubled to 510,000. However, due to the escalation of the Gaza War, it dropped to 420,000 in November.

Surprisingly, by December, Temu's website visits soared to 3.47 million. This upward trend continued this year, and last month, its website visits soared 37% to 4.76 million. SimilarWeb data also shows that from July 2023 to January 2024, Temu's average monthly visits in Israel were 1.22 million.

Industry analysts believe that the sharp increase in Israeli visits to Temu's website is mainly due to Google searches and paid promotions on the platform. It is reported that in December, the hot search terms for Israeli users visiting Temu on Google were related to winter products such as electric blankets and scarves.

It is worth mentioning that there was news that TikTok Shop also plans to enter the Israeli market this year; Shopify also announced last month that it has reached a cooperation with local Israeli companies; Amazon and other e-commerce platforms are also actively deploying here. Israel, as a blue ocean market, is increasingly attracting attention from all parties.

Data shows that Israel is located in the Levant region of Western Asia, on the southeast coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and is a relatively developed capitalist country. According to a report released by ecommercedb, the revenue of Israel's e-commerce market has reached US$15.873 billion in 2023, and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 6.1% from 2023 to 2027, and is expected to exceed US$20 billion by 2027.

Thanks to the strong local Internet strength and mobile phone penetration rate, e-commerce can develop smoothly here. In addition, the proportion of the population with higher education in Israel reaches 46%, which makes the local people have a very high acceptance of e-commerce shopping, laying a good foundation for the development of e-commerce.

The survey also showed that Israelis love online shopping, with nearly half of them buying more than three items a month. PayPal data showed that 75% of Israeli consumers preferred Chinese products when shopping online, followed by the United States, the United Kingdom and Brazil.

China is also an important trading partner of Israel, and the main products exported to the country include electronic products, clothing, toys and home appliances. In terms of product categories popular with Israeli consumers, clothing, shoes and electronic products are also among the top.

Although it is a blue ocean market, there are also various challenges here. For example, the local e-commerce platform Azrieli announced its official closure last month; Shufersal, which had only been operating locally for a year, also announced its departure.

In addition, AliExpress, Amazon, SHEIN and other platforms that have already established themselves are also opponents that Temu cannot underestimate.

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