Temu vs. Wish: Which Is the Better Ecommerce Marketplace?

In recent years, these two platforms have gained traction among consumers because of their low prices and wide selection of products.

In this article, I’ll explain everything you need to know about Temu vs. Wish, from customer support and shopping experience to shipping costs and product pricing.

To come up with the most unbiased review, I looked into these critical features:

• Website User Experience and Interface

• Search Function

• Product Variety

• Product Quality

• Pricing

• Sales, Discounts, and Promotions

• Shipping

• Return and Refund Policy 

• Customer Support

• Business Model

We’ll cover the most important deciding factors in-depth, but to before we go in-depth, here’s a quick snapshot of what we found:

Temu vs. Wish: Quick Comparison

Temu vs. Wish: The Verdict

Is Temu like Wish?

Yes, because they share many similarities, such as products at extremely low prices, frequent flash sales, and extensive product selection.

Temu and Wish are similar in terms of the product catalog. Both marketplace platforms offer electronics, apparel and fashion accessories, home and kitchen, garden, pet supplies, and more. 

As a whole, the difference between Temu and Wish is fairly negligible. However, each platform offers distinct features that can help you determine which one better suits your needs.

Before I share the unique features and benefits of each platform, I’ll explain how they do their business.

What Is Temu?

Temu is a marketplace similar to Wish, offering incredibly low-priced products. This reflects their famous tagline, “Shop like a billionaire without being one.”

Thanks to its significantly cheaper products, it’s currently the number one free shopping app, even beating out e-commerce giants Amazon and Walmart.

What Is Wish?

Just like Temu, Wish also offers a wide range of products at competitive prices and remarkable deals, including promotions, deep discounts, and bundle options.

While Temu and Wish’s vendors are mostly from China, the latter is an American company founded by former Google engineers.

One of the unique selling points of Wish is the personalized shopping experience, thanks to its use of algorithms that learn your preferences and online activities. As a result, it can give you a curated feed based on your taste.

Temu vs. Wish: A Feature-by-Feature Comparison

Although there are similarities between Temu and Wish — i.e., they are both marketplace platforms that allow Chinese sellers to offer their products to US consumers directly — they have notable differences in some critical features.

Website User Experience and Interface

Wish has a more minimalist design and a more straightforward interface compared to Temu. When the site first loads, it shows an array of discounted products with a white background.

By contrast, Temu’s look is a bit similar to a typical Chinese ecommerce platform like TaoBao.com. Right after logging in, you’ll see colorful deals, clearance sales, and time-sensitive offers.

Although both platforms have a user interface aiming to catch your attention, like huge discounts and flash products, Temu beats Wish in terms of navigation and user experience.

Temu’s interface makes it easy to navigate through different categories, while Wish only offers broad product categories without distinct subsections and headlines like Recently viewed and Trending.

Search Function

One of the biggest differences between the two platforms is the search option. Temu provides more tailored options during the search process. For instance, when searching for a t-shirt, the filter allows you to click on these options:

• Price range

• Star rating

• Color

• Size

By contrast, Wish’s filter only lets you select the price range and star rating, making it more time-consuming to zero in on a product that meets your preference.

Even when you add specifications (i.e., color, size, and materials) to the search bar, the results are still not accurate. For example, when I typed in blue t-shirt, the search results still showed other colors.

The convoluted search results extend to the pricing as well, as Wish’s default prices show the least expensive options. For this reason, the first thing you always see are the smallest sizes.

By contrast, Temu’s search options give you consistent pricing across different sizes, making it easier to find products you want to purchase.

By contrast, Wish falls short of giving accurate search results, making it more time-consuming to zero in on the products you want to purchase.

Product Variety

With thousands of active sellers and growing, both platforms offer various categories to meet the diversified needs of customers.

However, Wish’s product offerings lean more toward utilitarian items for everyday needs, whereas Temu offers a wider selection of trendy and quirky fashion items, thanks to its large network of small businesses and sellers.

To give you an idea of each platform’s product variety, I entered cat cone collar in the search box and compare their results.

Temu’s search results are not only extensive but also accurate.

Wish’s cat cone collar search results pale in comparison with Temu’s. Not only was the selection limited, many shown products were also irrelevant to the keywords.

Product Quality

The quality of products on Wish varies significantly despite claiming they have stringent requirements before a seller can enter their platforms.

You must review the product details, customer feedback, and store ratings before any purchase.

Also, be careful with counterfeit and knock-off products flooding many online shopping platforms, including Temu and Wish. Some of their sellers even copy product descriptions, photos, and keywords from the original Amazon listings.

Pricing

Temu and Wish both offer more affordable prices than Amazon, Walmart, and other popular online marketplaces. However, Temu takes the lead in affordability, thanks to its use of technology and business model to optimize the supply chain.

With a highly optimized supply chain and direct consumer-manufacturer model, Temu offers more affordable prices than Wish and other competitors, especially for bulk orders.

Additionally, Temu offers Buy Now Pay Later service, which adds flexibility to your online shopping experience.

Wish previously offered pay later payment option, but later removed it to streamline their business.

Sales, Discounts, and Promotions

In addition to lower prices, the two platforms also entice shoppers with time-limited offers, flash sales, and special discounts every few months, especially during the holidays or special events (e.g., the Fourth of July, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, etc.)

To enjoy rock-bottom prices on Wish and Temu, time your shopping during the flash sales when products cost 15% to 80% less than their original price. The event lasts just a few hours.

Temu’s excellent search function makes it easy to find heavily discounted items and flash sales products. Simply type in keywords such as flash sales and super discount and you’ll see recommendations.

Here, I entered flash deals for women in the search box and came up with these recommendations:

Using the same key phrase flash deals for women, Wish gave me a list of irrelevant search results.

However, Temu’s layout and search function make it easy to take advantage of its regular flash sales and heavily discounted products.

Shipping

Temu includes free shipping on almost all orders (especially domestic orders) as part of their strategy to entice customers. For orders above $129, express shipping is eligible for free delivery.

For Temu domestic orders, they typically arrive within five to eight days, whereas international deliveries often take seven to 30 days, depending on the destination.

One good thing is if they arrive late, you’ll receive a $5 credit (standard shipping) or a $13 credit (express shipping).

On the other hand, Wish does not offer free shipping. Each vendor implements their own shipping cost, which depend on their location and delivery destination.

However, the marketplace at least offers a money-back buyer guarantee on orders that don’t arrive within the Refund Eligible Date.

Wish orders are typically processed and shipped within a few weeks, around 15 to 30 days.

Return and Refund Policies 

Temu’s refund policy allows returns and refunds within 90 days from the order delivery date, while Wish only offers 30 days.

Temu also offers free return shipping and faster refunds, which typically take five to 14 days. To get your refunds, you can choose Temu credits or ask the platform to return them via the original payment method.

On the other hand, Wish states that customers may be responsible for the return shipping fees, depending on the items.

For refunds, it takes up to ten business days for Wish to process them and send them to your original form of payment.

Wish has a money-back guarantee policy applies to all deliveries. So if your package does not arrive by the Refund Eligible Date mentioned in your order history, you can request for a refund within 30 days.

Customer Support

Temu offers phone and email support and allows shoppers to talk to sellers directly, whereas Wish only has email support to resolve any concerns.

Although Temu offers more flexible customer support, many customers have complained about its not-so-responsive customer service team.

Wish’s customer service support also received some negative reviews online.

Business Model

Temu and Wish have the same business model, i.e., an e-commerce platform where Chinese suppliers offer their low-cost products to US consumers directly.

Also, they are both an online marketplace, meaning they don’t sell their own goods.

To entice new customers, both e-commerce platforms offer generous discounts regularly. For instance, Wish rewards a 15% discount on your first order and up to 50% off coupon when you download its app.

However, Temu is a bit more generous with its welcome sign-up bonus worth $20 and a special discount for Campus Ambassadors and Influencers.

If you invite friends and share the Temu app on your social media, the marketplace also gives you unlimited commission and exclusive deals.

Temu vs. Wish: Which One Should You Use?

In terms of discounted prices and overall online shopping experience, Temu is clearly the winner. These are the other reasons why the marketplace is often a better choice than Wish.

• Wider production selection

• Better customer support

• No shipping fees on eligible orders

• Better navigation, search function, and layout

The Pros and Cons of Using Temu and Wish

The Pros of Temu

• Temu offers a wide range of goods, especially electronics and tech accessories.

• You can enjoy more savings thanks to free shipping on eligible orders.

• It offers a more generous return policy.

• It has an easy-to-use search function and a pleasant layout, making it a breeze to do your online shopping.

• Temu’s fast shipping allows you to receive domestic orders within a week.

• The Buy Now Pay Later service allows you to buy items on credit without a credit card.

The Cons of Temu

• Potential scams and shoddy sellers are still an issue.

• The risk of buying knock-offs and counterfeit goods is high, despite efforts to eliminate or penalize shoddy sellers.

• Temu relies heavily on shipping, which is a major cause of air pollution.

The Pros of Wish

• It has a user rewards system that gives points (convertible into discounts) when you complete various activities within the app.

• It has a large selection of products to meet your everyday needs.

The Cons of Wish

• It takes slightly longer to receive your Wish orders.

• There are no free shipping options because each seller sets up their own shipping rates.

• It has a not-so-organized website layout that makes it tricky to find products you’re looking for.

What Are Some Alternatives to Temu and Wish?

If product quality is more important to you than snatching items with incredibly low prices, these are some alternatives to Temu and Wish you want to consider.

Temu vs. Wish vs. Amazon

Temu and Wish are purely marketplaces, meaning they don’t sell any listed products.

By contrast, Amazon is both a marketplace and retailer, allowing them to resell goods and carry their own private label brands.

As a purely marketplace platform, Temu and Wish usually don’t carry popular brands like Nike or Apple, which you can easily find on Amazon.

Amazon also sells a vast selection of high-quality products, although you’ll also find items with meager prices here, as well.

If you find popular fashion and electronic brands on Wish or Temu, they’re likely knock-offs and counterfeit products.

These are the other key differences between these popular ecommerce platforms:

• Amazon has a larger selection of products than Temu and Wish, although Temu has a wider assortment of tech accessories.

• Amazon has consistent and good quality products in general.

• Amazon offers more features and services, including Prime Shipping.

• Amazon offers better customer service than Temu or Wish.

• Temu is a Chinese company with a US-based office, while Amazon and Wish are bona fide US companies.

• Amazon offers a superior online shopping experience with its customer service and fewer potential shipping carrier delays.

Temu vs. Wish vs. AliExpress

Unlike Temu, which only caters to end-consumers, AliExpress is a business-to-business and business-to-consumer platform, making it ideal if you’re an online store owner who needs bulk purchases at reasonable prices.

AliExpress is a sister company of the multinational commerce group Alibaba, which focuses more on wholesale transactions.

However, AliExpress also deals with B2B dealings, as it’s also popular among resellers and dropshippers. Unlike Alibaba, it doesn’t impose a minimum order quantity.

Meanwhile, Wish also has a B2B version called Wish Wholesale. It has gained popularity for resellers and dropshippers, as well.

Here, you can find various suppliers, manufacturers, and wholesalers offering heavily discounted prices.

Wish vs. Temu vs. Walmart

Temu has managed to undercut the prices of major US retailers, including Walmart. Nevertheless, Walmart’s website and store have their own merits, such as free returns within 90 days and expedited shipping for eligible orders.

If you’re a frequent Walmart shopper, consider signing up for its paid subscription service that offers these benefits:

• Same-day delivery on eligible orders

• Early access to Black Friday-style events

• Free returns from home

• Subscription to Paramount Plus and Pluto TV

• Gas discount at around 14,000 locations

• Monetary rewards for shopping

Walmart also offers price matching, frequent promotions, and significant discounts.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Is Temu the New Wish?

No. They are two different companies that share a similar business model and goal: to offer end-consumers products at absurdly low prices.

Is Wish Now Temu?

No, these two platforms are different marketplaces, although they have a lot of similarities. For one, they both offer low-cost products mainly sourced from China.

However, Temu is gaining popularity for quirky fashion items while Wish has fashion accessories, home decor, beauty products, and more.

Is Temu Better Than Wish?

Yes. Temu is better than Wish in terms of current market prices and search functions.

Why Is Temu Popular?

Temu’s main appeal is the cheap prices and frequent promotions and discounts that appeal to budget-conscious shoppers. Its popularity also stems from its user-friendly navigation and extensive product selection.

Where Is Temu Located?

Although Shanghai-based PDD Holdings owns Temu, the fast fashion shopping app has a headquarters in Boston. Around 95% of its products are from Chinese vendors.

Is Temu Safer Than Wish?

In terms of safety and reliability, both platforms take customer concerns seriously. Despite their attempts to give you an excellent shopping experience, you may still find counterfeit goods and shoddy suppliers.

So, always review the seller’s ratings and customer feedback to avoid scams and knock-offs. Also, make sure you understand the terms and conditions on each site.

Is Temu a Chinese Company? 

In essence, yes. China-based company PDD Holdings owns Temu.

The Bottom Line

In general, Temu offers lower prices, a better shopping app and site navigation, and faster shipping than Wish.

However, the differences in other aspects like product quality and overall shopping experience are fairly negligible.