Recently, Pinduoduo's cross-border e-commerce Temu launched a new agreement to the seller - "Customer service outsourcing Service Agreement", of which the service rate of 5% was interpreted by the outside world as a signal that the platform began to charge commission.

According to the new agreement, Party A (Temu) has the right to pay the actual amount excluding tax (including credit) × 5& permil; The standard service charge. If the order is refunded, no additional service fee will be charged at the time of refund, but the service fee already charged will not be refunded. At the same time, Party B hereby unconditionally and irrevocably agrees and authorizes the Platform to deduct the corresponding service fee directly from the sales price on behalf of the recipient.
For this clause, as long as the seller who opens a shop on Temu, it must be signed in time, only "read and agree to accept" a confirmation option, otherwise it can not ensure the service quality of the store, that is, it can not continue to operate the store.
From the perspective of the platform, Temu's front desk is expanding rapidly in various countries and regions, and the overloaded workload is based on the customer service outsourcing policy, which is a normal business behavior. permil; Fees also fall under the category of third-party service fees; However, from the seller's point of view, as long as the costs generated by operating on the platform are easily regarded as the beginning of the commission signal.
In fact, the rate of 5 per thousand, compared with the commission rate of other mainstream cross-border platforms, is still at a low level, but Temu platform is known for the label of "low price volume", when the profit margin is further compressed, sellers have to face more brutal competition "fight", which may be the main reason for their dissatisfaction.
According to interface news, other platforms, such as AliExpress, charge different commission fees according to different categories, some categories are 5% of the total transaction amount, and some commission ratios are 8%. The commission rate on Shopee's platform is also between 1% and 5%, depending on the level and category of seller. This is significantly higher than Temu's current service charge of 5 per thousand.
However, a Temu platform seller told the interface news that the new service fee has a greater impact on products with low gross profit margins, especially individual sellers. As the platform adopts the bidding mode at present, the price is transparent and the profit level is low. For example, the profit margin of each order of some commodities she is selling is only one or two yuan, which will be difficult to maintain and the gross profit margin will be further compressed.
The full custody model adopted by Pinduoduo is precisely the focus of China's manufacturing system, with a large group of small and medium-sized micro businesses, they will only produce, lack of capital and operational experience, full custody can help them solve these problems. On the other hand, this model also deeply binds the platform to the supply chain, and eventually those who have a price advantage will stand out, while most intermediate trade sellers and individual sellers are easy to die out in the competition.
When Temu was launched in September last year, it attracted a large number of merchants to enter the platform by relying on low cost and zero commission, high investment and large traffic, and jointly opened the overseas rush with Temu platform. In this process, the platform claimed that sellers only needed to bear a small part of the cost.
Now, with the deepening of the overseas expansion of the platform, some new costs are gradually returning to the seller, such as the EPR environmental protection fees generated by some local laws.
In May this year, due to the emergence of the "warehousing service bill" function in the background of Temu merchants, which also attracted the attention of sellers, the platform junior second repeatedly emphasized that this function is to properly solve the "logistics fee payment", and is not a signal that the platform wants to collect storage fees. It can be seen that every move of the platform on the cost affects the nerves of the sellers.
With the rapid expansion of Temu overseas, cost is also a problem that Pinduoduo has to consider, and charging service fees appropriately is also a way of cost control. According to the latest financial report of Pinjoduo, the sales cost of Pinjoduo in the second quarter of 2023 was 18.9 billion yuan, an increase of 137.3%, of which Temu's front-end extension city and back-end performance have put pressure on costs.
However, the external response of Liu Jun, deputy director of finance of Pinduoduo, was that Temu was currently in the learning stage, and the platform would not focus on monetization and other financial indicators. "As we continue to understand and explore consumer needs in different markets, we will carefully evaluate the ROI of each investment opportunity and make responsible capital allocation decisions."
Another interesting signal is that in the latest financial report, commission fees are indeed becoming the main force of Pinduomany's revenue growth, the second quarter of its trading services (commission) revenue of 14.35 billion yuan, an increase of 131%, is the largest growth of all its business revenue.
At this stage and in the future, Temu's attitude toward commission is unknown, but the current service fee of 5 percent will usher in a new round of reshuffle for Temu's business community.