I won one of their spin the wheel things and got 3 items of my choosing for $0.01 a piece. The list of items to choose from includes like, $100+ LiFePO batteries, inverters, shit like that, all for $0.01.

I know that it’s a myth that Chinese products are shit quality: $0.03 (plus shipping I’m assuming) for potentially a couple hundred dollars’ worth of stuff just isn’t believable to me.

  • rando895@lemmygrad.ml
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    3 hours ago

    If you read the terms and conditions, there is no “winning” those discounts. Everyone gets them as long as they hit the button and meet the criteria. They state explicitly that the rolls/spins/etc are for illustrative purposes only.

  • marx_mentat [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    4 hours ago

    I think the myth is that China isn’t capable of producing high quality stuff. We mostly see low quality stuff because a lot of people in the West place orders for those things from China to stock their shelves, but it’s just a fraction of what China produces. Western retailers are really the ones who are being cheap by not placing orders for higher quality goods. That’s how I have synthesized the information I’ve seen about the topic.

  • Vampire [any]@hexbear.net
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    5 hours ago

    I know that it’s a myth that Chinese products are shit quality

    There’s lots of shit-quality Chinese products mate

  • hellinkilla [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    4 hours ago

    there was an interesting thread here in the past couple months about the gambling aspect of temu et al. I can’t find the link. IIRC the OP was about baby boomer parents being extremely susceptible to scams and tricks the apps play. But then people were talking about how they had gotten sucked in. Maybe someone else can dig up the link.

    Obviously if something is price at 0.01% of expected, the difference cannot be account for by poor quality. Assuming it’s not somehow a trick to get you to spend more money in another way immediately, it’s a loss leader because they think in the long run they’ll get you.

    I can’t tell you the details, but I can tell you one way or another it’s a trick.

  • Kultronx@lemmygrad.ml
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    4 hours ago

    I’ve gotten a few hundred dollars worth of stuff from Temu without issue, no worse than any western stuff.

  • TraschcanOfIdeology [they/them, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    7 hours ago

    It’s not that Chinese products are shit quality across the board, but with temu you get what you pay for. I’ve had items come already broken or break shortly after the first use. I wouldn’t use it for stuff that’s critical or that can damage something else if it doesn’t work properly (like electrical stuff).

    And since they’re cheaply made, they’re not easy to repair, either. So you’re burdened with a broken thing you either have to throw away or work really hard to make work again.

      • TraschcanOfIdeology [they/them, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        7 hours ago

        Aliexpress is a marginally better storefront where you’ll find good deals (not 3 cents for 300 dollars’ worth kind of deals, but still). You just have to surf through a lot of bad postings from sellers with no reputation.

        Just watch out, sometimes you’ll just get the same thing that’s on temu, just more expensive.

  • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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    5 hours ago

    As much as other similar platforms, though i can’t say for the 100$ things for 0,01$. I had some 10$ things for 0,01$ though and what i recieved were real things as described.