Temu continued to suffer double-digit sales drop in the US as the online marketplace cut spending on advertising, adding to a slump caused by tariff-induced hike in product prices since April.

The discount shopping app owned by PDD Holdings Inc. first saw a drop in sales after it added import duties to goods shipped directly from China in late April, according to Bloomberg Second Measure, which analyzes credit and debit card data. Import duty on shipments from China rose to 54% in early April and subsequently surged to as much as 145%.

Although the US and China agreed to a 90-day tariff reprieve in May and and Temu has been promoting products already stored in US warehouses, the sales decline continued to worsen since the middle of that month. Compared to a year ago, Temu’s weekly sales dropped more than 25% in the period from May 11 through June 8, according to the latest available data.

That came as the e-commerce giant, which last year spent big on Super Bowl night, abruptly slashed its ad spend in the US market after the tariff fallout. From creating thousands to tens of thousands of new advertisements daily before April 10, the numbers are now drastically down to dozens or even single digits, with some days in June seeing no new commercials, according to analytics company AppGrowing Global.

While declining to specifically comment on sales and ad numbers, a spokesperson for Temu said the company has been working with local merchants across regions to deliver stable pricing to consumers.

“Temu’s sales growth has always been glued to their aggressive advertisements,” said Wu Yanwei, chief content director of AppGrowing’s parent YouCloud. “The abrupt slowdown in advertisement spending is likely turning its growth engines off” in the US, Wu said, noting that Temu was channeling ad spending toward other markets including Europe.

Temu and Chinese e—commerce shopping platforms such as Shein had for years relied on a tariff exemption on small parcels to ship cheap clothing and household goods to American consumers duty-free. After President Donald Trump plugged that loophole this year, they largely lost the discount-appeal that drew US shoppers in droves.

Still, Shein’s US sales have fared relatively better in recent months. It has managed to reverse a drop in sales to return to growth from June 1, Bloomberg Second Measure data showed. Shein’s single-digit growth since then is similar to levels posted by Walmart Inc.

Shein’s advertising in the US has remained more stable than Temu, with the number of new commercials most days this year being anywhere between dozens to a few hundreds, according to AppGrowing Global.

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Published on June 20, 2025