Temu has now opened its marketplace for all US sellers to apply. For the past six months, Temu has been recruiting US sellers to join its site, but merchants could only join if they had a unique invite code. Now any seller can apply on their site, which takes about 10 minutes to complete.
A Temu spokesperson told Modern Retail in an e-mail statement, “Sellers can now ship directly from US warehouses, delivering products to customers faster than ever—sometimes in just one business day.”
Here are the steps to apply:
- Visit Temu's seller portal
- Create an account
- Enter your business info such as name, address, & EIN
- Enter your personal info such as your address, citizenship info, and drivers license or passport number
- Provide your store name and logo
- Provide proof of address like a utility bill
From there Temu will approve or reject your account in about one business day.
US merchants currently represent less than 1% of Temu's estimated 300,000 total sellers, according to Marketplace pulse, but I imagine that will change soon as merchants further seek to diversify their operations across additional marketplaces and sales channels.
Is Amazon worried?
Amazon announced last week that it doesn't intend to raise its merchant fulfillment and referral fees next year. The company said that despite inflation and greater investment in employee pay and benefits, it had managed to reduce costs through innovation, greater efficiency, and reducing defects, so therefore it will not raise fees or introduce new ones.
However you have to wonder if Amazon's announcement is related to Temu opening up its marketplace to US sellers. Suddenly Amazon, after years of squeezing its third-party sellers, has to deal with the fact that there's somewhere else big to go.